Everything I know I should've learned in Kindergarten....

Remember those posters about Everything you should already know?

Yeah well everything I learned in nursing school and in my few short months as a Registered Nurse, I should've already known. These are some examples:

1. Don't drive drunk. Duh. This should be a given, yet people keep doing it and the consequences can be tragic.

2. Wear a helmet. If you're going to ride a bike, scooter, or motorcyle wear the helmet. Believe me saving your life and not having a bolt drilled in your head so they can measure the pressure in your head either before/after they choose to do surgery is worth it. Lucky you. I have personal experience with this. Just wear the dorky helmet.

3. In scooter versus car/ truck/ SUV the scooter (or rather the rider) never wins. The end.

4. Don't ask your physician for antibiotics when you don't need them. If you do not have a bacterial infection you do NOT need antiobiotics. This is the reason that MRSA, VRE, and C-Diff (YUCK) are becoming such a problem. If you have a cold or the flu get some rest, drink fluids, and take some tylenol.

5. Wash your hands. This is a classic Kindergarten lesson, now it just applies more. Hand washing is the number one prevention of infection.

6. If you think "I probably shouldn't be doing this" or "this is probably going to hurt" before you do something, save yourself and the hospital a lot of trouble and money and just don't do it. (I dedicate this to all Terrell boys. Don't tell them I said that, haha).

7. Along with #6 a lot of people suffer from a disease called NCM (No Common Sense). If you have common sense, use it. If you don't have common sense find a way to learn it or have someone teach it to you.

8. Guns and knives are NOT toys. Don't get me wrong, I love guns, but there are rules for using them. If you don't know how to use them and don't respect them, stay the hell away from them.

9. Don't smoke. You'd think this would be self explanatory by now, but since people are still doing it, it's obviously not. Yes, I realize it's addictive, but guess what, heart attacks, COPD, and cancer hurt (and are expensive).

10. Wild animals are NOT pets. (Case in example)

11. Don't play with fire. It burns. Duh.

12. Look both ways before crossing the street. Thank you Moms of the world.

13. Don't talk to strangers. Still applies, adults.

#14 removed because of recent nursing experiences

15. SMART cars are NOT so smart. The amount you will save in insurance and gas money will not make up for the emotional, physical, and psychological pain you will go through when you crash this so called "smart" car. They show videos of SMART cars coming out of crashes faring pretty well, unfortunately, the person inside that car does not usually fare so well. Sure you may live through it, but you will probably wish you hadn't. But hey, if you want to have broken legs, ribs, etc. and have a drill stuck in your head so they can take pressure off of your brain because you have a serious head injury be my guest, buy the stupid car, idiot. (Not so smart, or cute anymore)

16. Honesty is always the best policy. The end. (How about you just follow the 10 Commandments, they're there for a reason).

17. Get out and move. Exercise. Your body will thank you later.

18. Every person on this earth, no matter what they've done and who they are, are worth something and should be treated as such.

19. Balance and moderation are oh so important. While I am not one to banish my patients from eating salt and sweets (as a cardiac nurse), it's all about moderation. Moderation. Moderation.

20. To end on a positive note: Love, laughter, and faith heal.

So there you go, that's just some of what I've learned (or already knew). That was an awfully expensive education to "learn" those. Lame.

Bad traffic? I'll take it.

Last week was my spring break from school, so naturally I wanted to fly somewhere. Bad idea. Apparently, I am not meant to fly anymore. If you don't recall my last experience flying, then read this blog from January. Well, needless to say they lost my luggage AGAIN. That's 3 times in a row. What are the chances?! I was so frustrated I was nearly in tears. The Boy, who was with me, was really good to me though. I learned the valuable lesson to never leave anything in your luggage that you can't part with. Seriously.

Anyways, I just had the weirdest dream. I was in this room of luggage and clothes were strewn everywhere (including my underwear, niiiiccceee). There were people all over the place, my family was all there, and the Boy too. I had my suitcase and then someone moved it and I couldn't find it. I was searching everywhere for it, under all of the clothes, all of the other suitcases, between all of the people (while grabbing my underwear)....yeah, I woke up before I could find it in an utter panic. Stress. Ugh. What a nightmare.

Oh, and on the flight back I was once again sick, like Christmas, our plane was delayed, like Christmas, and something happened to ATC (Air Traffic Control) like someone cut a cable or took out a pole or something weird like that and no flights were going out so we sat on the tarmac for an hour and 45 minutes before we took off, like Christmas. I was having flashbacks. You have no idea. At least this time I had someone with me. It made it bearable and we made our connection fine. I told myself if I didn't get my bags for the 4th time, I wasn't flying again. Luckily they arrived when I did. I'm just not sure I'm meant to fly. Seriously. I'm having nightmares about losing luggage now. I'm stressed about situations that aren't even real. I like cars. Cars are good. I'm going to stick to cars for a while.

Too bad I'm from Colorado.

My Superwoman Complex

On my first day of Kindergarten (age 5) I walked in and met the two girls that would become my best friends for the next six years of elementary school. We'll call them Superwoman and Reen. (Superwoman, another best friend, me, another best friend, and Reen- age 8...complete with whipped cream) Superwoman (actually we still call each other this on occasion) and I stayed best friends all the way through high school and are still really close today.

(me and Superwoman- yes I did actually have a Superwoman sign on my graduation cap, haha)

(Superwoman, me, and Reen at our High School Graduation Party) She's one of those friends that no matter how much time has gone by when we get together nothing has changed. Anyways, as kids sometimes we played dress up. I know for me that's really girly, but don't worry that was mixed between our times of playing outside. Reen could also go by "horse enthusiast." So we spent a lot of our time playing (or rather working) with her horses in the dirt (of course), if that makes you feel any better about the girliness. Anyways, when we played dress up we used to run around the house in Superwoman underwear. I guess they made us feel powerful or something. haha Yep, those are great memories. But, I'm thinking that may be where my Superwoman Complex started...

I have these phases in my life where I decide that I must be Superwoman. I know I'm studying Multiple Personality Disorder (actually it's called Dissociative Identity Disorder now), but I think this is taking it a little far. I think I can take on the world. Yeah, unfortunately I am quickly reminded that I am not a superhero and I am only human. Booooo. Last week I spent 3 or 4 days under so much stress I was actually physically shaking. I looked like I had Parkinson's tremors (yes, everything is a medical analogy for me, you'll get used to it). Something major was going on with every member of my immediate family and unfortunately I live in Virginia which is approximately between 1700 and 2400 miles from my different family members. Entirely too far away for me to do much of anything. I have this problem with wanting to take on everyone's problems and take away their pain. Not that this is a bad thing, but unfortunately I've found you can't really solve anyone else's problems and you can't take away their pain. You can be a support (which is hard from this far away) and love them, but you can't things away. Yeah, I'm not a superhero and I am not God. He is the only one who can really do this for us all. Anyways, you add all of this stress plus enough homework to last me into the next century (at least that's what it feels like) and other stresses which I won't get into here...but it turned me into a complete disaster. I wasn't sleeping and when I slept I had nightmares. Plus I was still sick (yeah, for the last month). Unfortunately my family and my best friend got the brunt of this hyperventilating, sick, basket case. Poor things. Bless them for sticking by me. Then it occurred to me that I was trying to be Superwoman again. This has happened many times before (you'd think I'd learn). So I finally had to admit that I can't do it all, I can't fix everyone else's problems single-handedly and I'm not Superwoman. Damn. Hmm...maybe I just need a side-kick. Nope. No. No. Jennie, you're still not Superwoman. Back to reality...until I try to be Superwoman again. "Up in the sky, look! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's....[Yeah, it ain't me, so keep looking]!"

"Come Fly Our Friendly Skies"

(This is really long, sorry...it's more me de-stressing than anything. You don't really need to read it all. I won't be offended if you don't) :)
So after 3 weeks of vacation in Colorado and Utah I finally flew back to DC a couple of weeks ago. It was by far the WORST trip I've ever taken. Everything that could have gone wrong (minus crashing the plane) did.
This was the sequence of events that fateful day (I added that for dramatic effect :), you're welcome):

I had a really bad night because I was really sick coughing and I was on narcotics so I didn't get very much sleep...

I ran out of time getting ready so I didn't get breakfast (my favorite meal of the day), then we took my nephew to a friend's house before Kindergarten and I said goodbye to him.

My Sister-in-law drove me to the airport, but by the time we got there, both of my nieces were fast asleep so I didn't get a chance to even say goodbye to them. Booooo.

Salt Lake International Airport is not exactly a large airport and I usually don't have problems flying through there because it's small enough that checking in and security doesn't take very long (nothing like DC). That shouldn't have been any different this day right? WRONG! I waited a good eh, 45 minutes in line just to check in my baggage because there were families all over the place from Europe with skis and a freakin' ton of bags. Lovely. Good thing I got there early and my flight was already delayed.

Getting through the security line took another probably 20 minutes, the line was all the way out into the hallway. But of course, what should happen when my purse goes through the x-ray? TSA person: "Who's bag is this?" Me: "Mine" TSA person: "We need to run it again" Me: "That's fine" (what did they think I was going to say? No? Yeah right.) They run the purse again. Nada. Me trying to be cooperative: "Do you need to look through it?" TSA Peeps: "Yes." Me: "Go ahead." At this point they proceeded to rip apart my purse piece by piece, which is an ordeal in and of itself. Nada. TSA Peeps (who is obviously new and being coached by someone else next to him): "Can we run this through (the wallet, the purse without the stuff in it, etc.)?" Me (annoyed by this time, but acting very nice and calm and cooperative...and glad my flight is delayed since this is taking forever): "Of course, you do whatever you need to." They finally told me what they thought they saw, a pocketknife. Are you kidding me?! A pocketknife. In my purse. Yeah right. I don't have any clue what they thought they saw that looks like a pocketknife in my purse, but I'll tell you this much, I don't have a pocketknife in my purse. They finally let me go when they didn't find anything. Good grief.

So I get to my gate and my plane is delayed....like a while. So I get something to eat, oh and I get my seating arrangement since I didn't have an assigned seat on my ticket (nice one). But only after standing in another line for a good 30ish minutes. Then....*Ding* "Attention: flight 522 (or whatever it was) to Chicago O' Hare your flight has been delayed" AGAIN. Ok, so that's not exactly what they said, but close. Apparently the President of the United States was in Chicago so NO flights were going into or out of Chicago. I guess he's more important than we are. :) Well, a lot of people were already going to miss their flights out of Chicago and the more we got delayed (since they kept changing the time we were leaving) the more concerned I got about missing my flight.

Salt Lake to Chicago was ok. Then run to find my gate....phew, made my plane. But, I'm absolutely miserable by this time because I'm coughing and I'm on a narcotic and I'm feeling somewhat sick. So we get on the plane and we sit and we sit and we sit. The Captain finally gets on the intercom and proceeds to tell us that for some reason (we switched original planes or something) we have no crew and not only do we have no crew we don't have gasoline. Say what?! That definitely got my attention. I looked at the two men beside me and we were like, that's never a good sign. I was more than nauseous at this point and basically conked out against the window. We sat there forever though. We finally started taxiing and we taxied and taxied and taxied and then STOPPED. What? Why did we stop? Runways are for taking off. Not stopping in the middle of. Needless to say, Chicago is not know for its good weather. There was actually lightning and rain that was visible out the windows of the plane. Back on the intercom, "Sorry folks, no eastbound flights are taking off at this time." They did let us talk on our phones though. I was quite possibly the shade of green by this time and it was roasting on that plane. Their idea of a free movie to show everyone was Jane Austen's Book club or something like that. Uh, no. I didn't watch it. We sat on the tarmac for about 2 hours and 15 minutes. On the runway. We couldn't even re-route because, oops, we don't have enough fuel. At one point I saw the line of planes behind us. It was long. We finally got in the air for one of the bumpiest rides I've ever had (and I was already nauseous). I don't think I've ever come so close to having to use one of those barf bags before. I actually had my head between my knees for a long time. I could describe how sick I was in detail for you, but I won't. Narcotic + Motion sickness (which I get really badly) + bad turbulence + little food (airport food for that matter) + sinus infection + cough = recipe for disaster. It was pretty darn close. I have never been so glad to see the Washington Monument and the Kennedy Center!!

I felt horrible for my roommates, by this point, who were supposed to be picking me up because I knew they both had to get up early the next morning and it was getting later and later and I had a lot of luggage: a huge suitcase, a Massive duffel bag, my laptop bag, and my purse. I had some serious issues carrying all of those at once. Moving on....I made it without puking all over everyone and everything. I'm sure United appreciates that, as do the guys sitting next to me. But, now I have a headache headed toward a migraine. Who wouldn't? So I wait for my bags and duffel bag? Yes. Suitcase? No. They delivered it the next day (I didn't get it on the way there either) Booo....That officially made this the worst trip EVER. I'm NEVER EVER EVER flying through Chicago again. Not if I can avoid it at least. By the time my roommates showed up and I had filled out my missing baggage claim ticket I was nearly in tears. I was dry heaving when I got home and then the trip from HELL was over. The End.

Narcotics Anonymous

I have been horribly sick for the past week and a half while I have been on vacation in Colorado and Utah. I finally went to the Dr. and he gave me some meds, so here is my disclaimer for the past few days and for the remaining time that I am taking said medication,

To whom it may concern:
I, Jennie, cannot be held responsible for anything I say or do while I am on narcotics. Thank You.
(If you don't believe me, read my appendicitis blog)

Now I am feeling slightly woozy and should go to bed before I pass out or throw up, whichever comes first. Good night.