I have officially completed 30 12-hour shifts in the ICU at UTMB ADC.
It was a crazy, fun, scary, entertaining, exhausting, educational, stinky, nerve-wracking, hilarious time with my preceptor, Tyra and her matrix. A few times we floated to Med Surg, and a couple of days I spent with other nurses, but I am super, mega thankful for being matched with Tyra. We were able to click pretty early on and it became a very fun relationship. She has a relaxed and helpful teaching style which I felt very refreshing having been matched with some real jerks over the past two years.
Honestly, jerks. I'm not kidding. Overwhelmingly, nurses as a profession are not very friendly to their own. They are profoundly compassionate to their patients but profoundly catty and jerky to their coworkers and students. This is something that I found in every location I was in, I took it for face value, and just tried to learn what I could and not get involved in the back biting and honest to goodness bitchery.
Tyra....and many of the other staff members on her matrix, were not that way. At least if they were, I didn't see it...and I function on the fact that if I didn't see it, it didn't happen. I got along so well with Tyra. She LOVED her patients. She had unbelievable amounts of patience with them. She has a sweet spirit and a feisty personality that I could really enjoy.
I celebrated her birthday with a gift basket, and the same day she celebrated me with a nurse caddy filled with goodies.
She bought us matching bracelets.
I sent her flowers.
She had her super talented sister make me a cake on my final day there.
She was fun and I already miss her. I miss her saying everyday at around 9am, "I'm hungry like the wolf." I miss her standing at the Pyxis with a quizzical look on her face as she starts the next sentence with, "Here's what...."
I'll miss her but dang, I am glad it's over. There are only a few things left to finish up before graduation!!!!
Easter was really fun this year. We tried something different to color our eggs this time. Caleb always really hates the smell of the vinegar when dyeing them, so we tried the shaving cream method.
Jansen over mixed his so most of his eggs turned out a bit brown, but Caleb's had a great swirls to them. The only thing he didn't like was actually touching them in the cream.
It was an excellent sensory experience for him!
I think they are beautiful.
On Easter morning, I set out baskets...well...hats filled with goodies. The boys are getting older and they are less into the whole babyish basket ordeal.
They were so cute. I loved it!
After church they hunted eggs at Nana and Pops' house and racked up on the change.
It was a fun day for all!
My husband's cookoff team participated in our town's annual cookoff. At the last minute, they asked if I would be willing to bake a couple of cobblers for the competition.
They turned in brisket, sausage, beans, chicken, and cobbler. I loved it all. I thought it was very delicious. There were 34 teams, but unfortunately, their team didn't place.
I actually got 6th place cobbler. Not bad for a last minute put together thing. Peach cream cheese cobbler for the win!
It was a fun weekend to spend with our friends.
We are having some work done on the house and everything is torn upside down...plus I had to be at work in the morning.
St. Patrick's Day breakfast was done on the fly because honestly, I forgot. So here is what we did.
Our oldest son is now a teenager. I just cannot believe that he is already 13.
We celebrated as a family a couple of weeks early because we were all off...the boys were on Spring Break and Josh and I were off work. Caleb chose to go to iFly...a very anti-gravity birthday!
I decided to try the indoor skydiving with him and we had a blast! It was so fun and really neat that we could to things together.
When we got home, I made him an anti-gravity chocolate cake with his favorite candies. He loved it and it was so easy.
Two weeks later on his actual birthday, and the weekend of Easter and the Richwood Cookoff that my husband was participating in, we had a little celebration there.
I made him a Sprite and M&M "cake" that morning.
Then, Josh and I got him an iphone and he was thrilled! Let's hope he can take care of it.
His Powell grandparents took him out for lunch and for some Pokemon card boxes and his Foster grandparents gave him a money pizza. He had a super busy birthday.
