Place: Golden, CO
Weather: Windy
Music: Gabe Dixon Band
Mood: Content
Hey Everyone! Just a quick update tonight. Jamie and I went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science this past Monday and saw Body Worlds. It was my first time going, Jamie’s second, and it was pretty amazing… and weird. I don’t think that is what I want for my body after I die, but it was pretty impressive and eye-opening to see some of that stuff. The dissections were extremely well done and, besides participating in a cadaver lab, there aren’t many better ways to get a close-up look of the internal human anatomy. We’ll be going back there to see some Imax shows, I’m sure!
Work has been going well… lots of ups and downs. I’m definitely having good days and bad days, which is certainly to be expected. On the bad days, I’ve been overwhelmed with sick patients and stretching my current knowledge and time-management capabilities. I’ve made mistakes and kicked myself because I knew better, and I’ve made mistakes because I’m just plain new at a lot of this. No harm done to patients though, thank God. On the good days, I feel in control and I stay on top of everything. I feel fairly efficient and able to handle most patients that come through. It is when the patients start heading south that I am still scrambling and not sure exactly what to do. As an EMT, you had your one patient and, even if they were critical, you focused completely on that patient. Now as a nurse, I have 3-5 patients and if one or more of them are critical, the other ones tend to get shoved to the backburner for a while. The 12-hour shifts are long, but I’m thankful for the 11a-11p shifts that I’m doing now… they match my schedule much better than a 7a-7p or, of course, night shift.
This weekend was pretty fun! Spring has arrived here, but it hasn’t been quite as warm as in the Midwest! Lots of wind here recently, like, shake-the-house-and-keep-you-up-at-night-wind. Things are greening up a little though and we should have our first thunderstorm next week! On Saturday Jamie and I went on a short hike with some friends of ours, Sonja and Mike. They just got married a couple weeks ago so, after the hike, we celebrated with them by taking them out to the restaurant where they met in Boulder. After some food, drink, and merriment, we went back to Jamie’s aunt and uncle’s to play some Settlers of Catan (can’t wait to play with all of the island folks again!). We tried our hand at Thai food tonight and it turned out pretty good… Coconut Chicken soup (Tom Kha Gai) and Thai Chicken Pasta. Hope everyone had a good Easter!
-Reed
