Smile

I'm looking forward to next week cause I'm going with Alina with her first grade class to Stone Zoo! I was chosen out of a hat to be a chaperone with four other parents from Alina's homeroom, I guess there were about 7 parents out of 5 that volunteered. Alina was hoping that I could go, so inevitably she's thrilled I'm going and luckily its even on my day off so I CAN go! Logan plans on keeping Mertz home and they will spend the day golfing after Logan gets a home visit from the nurse. It was about a week ago that Logan went in for a sleep study and they automatically told him after the study that he's going to need a C-PAP machine to help him sleep better at night. His oxygen levels go way too low and he stops breathing at least 30 times in a 2 hour period! I believe it cause I've been home and have watched him sleep and its scary and I knew he needed a machine due to my line of work, I have some knowledge of these matters. Its true that if he continued to go without a machine, he could die in his sleep for lack of breathing! The nurse is going to set up the machine for Logan and show him his settings etc. The machine forces air into the airway to keep up the oxygen levels. It shouldn't be for life, just until he loses the weight sometime after his surgery. Again he will go for another sleep study and he will (hopefully) not need it thereafter.
I have been unable to lose much weight lately, am I lazy? Living on the third floor with walls and ceilings and floors that are from 1960's not so soundproof and movement proof, so my neighbors downstairs will not like me jumping around, dancing, excercising cause that's all they would hear. I even hate yelling cause the whole place can hear it! I have a bike now but its transporting it to a safe area that's a pain! I have my excuses, its dumb, I know.

This weekend, I want to say Sunday morning, Alina was looking out our living Room window where we can see the busy intersection on our corner lot and she was particularly looking at the birds who like to flock on the power lines along the streets. One bird, who we now have named "Mr. Trouser" has got a unique home he lives in a space over the top of the red light on the stop light on the corner of Pine and Lake Streets. He was, as Alina said "Spring Cleaning" his home cause almost every time he'd pop out of the top of the light fixture he'd spit out some twigs, grass, straw, whatever is making his home uncomfortable. We pulled out the binoculars and even got a closer look of him , but not that much closer he's close anyways. Logan, the kids and I laughed cause he's like us; he lives on the "third floor" of the stop light. I've never seen a bird have a home in the stop light but this one must have a cap missing off the top of it and he just hops down in the hole and comes out and watches the busy of the area. Just about the entire stop light top is covered in bird doo doo. I guess he's marked his spot so other birs know its taken! Mr. Trouser is our nice neighbor for the summer who sings a gleeful song each day outside our window!

Life as a Nurse

Last night I was working the graveyard shift as I faithfully do...and at the top of my shift I greeted the other nurses and LNA's and they told me that one of our residents had just died. Our job before the undertaker comes we have to make the body presentable combing hair, washing face, and so on and the bed made nice with clean linen. The girls did that before they left, however they mentioned another soul was about to leave their mortal existence as well and to keep an eye on him. I did, I would walk by the room every hour to check if he was still breathing, and most times he was! This poor man had been a bit difficult in his short time with us. He was pulling on tubes that were not supposed to be pulled, he was always undressing himself and frustrated and in a ton of pain even with painkillers, trying to crawl out of bed. He sometimes fought with the nurses in physical combat, but with me he was for the most part cooperative.
So the undertaker came for the first man who died, I have dealt with deaths before but for some reason this time I was feeling sad even to tear up. It was just a bit strange when I helped the undertaker and another nurse to transfer the body from the bed to the stretcher. I had to kneel up on the bed and as we placed the body on the stretcher strangely, I was kneeling right where he'd been laying and the bed was sooo warm! Of course I knew why cause when we die all the blood pools to our backs. Okay so maybe you really are CREEPED OUT about my blog this time, but I find it so fascinating!
There was a bit of perspective playing out in my mind how even the fancy things in life have no meaning. And much of my current life has been set on some wishing of materialistic things and less on the more meaningful things. I have been having some experiences lately that are quite personal and thought processes that have really got my wheels turning and maybe why I was a bit on the emotional break last night. I didn't even know these men. The second man who was ready to leap into the afterlife I knew only a short time and mostly he slept and caused me to change his johnny and bedding many times and was on a mission to make me work for my money-actually he had no idea what trouble he caused and he's innocent really. But after a few hours after frequent checks he left this world. I called on the nurse to pronounce and then asked for some assistance in helping him get properly prepared for the next undertaker. It was also a sad moment but with all the suffering he had been thru, it was a relief. After I and my co-worker combed his hair and made him presentable I looked him over, and strange as it sounds, it looked like he had a smile on his face, almost as if to be glad he was done suffering! Death had come with a force last night, taking those ready to be taken home from the pains of this world! Life is short. Life can feel long in all the pains we have either mentally or physically, but we need to stay focused and discover for ourselves what our life is really about, and where our values lay and be sure we are not idling the wrong idols. To stay close to a Father in Heaven that love us and to share that love with others. I was touched how lately my life has had its ups and downs but the real anchor in my life is my belief in God and his plan for me. These deaths even though they were not of my blood relation, gave me a chance once again to reflect on our existence on earth and how precious it is!!

Recent Events

Yesterday (for Alina's late birthday gift) Alina did her first Build-A-Bear granted to her by my Step-Mother-In-Law who met us there and spoiled Alina till her hearts content!! Money was not an issue so Alina was able to pick out anything she wanted really---that was nice for a change cause there's always a limit when shopping with Logan and I! The experience was unique building the stuffed animal that she chose and picking out clothes and accessories. Mertz was a good sport walking around with us watching his sister smile! Afterwards she paid for them to go on a little train ride in the mall and the carousel where they both had a good time together.

On another note, we got a phone call on Mothers Day from Logan's brother who's son was in the hospital. Just a background--the parents are divorced, the son decided a while ago not to stay in touch with his dad and that's been about 5 years or so and this is the kind of phone call he gets that his son is in the ICU with a fractured skull and is in and out of consciousness. It was a crazy day! Apparently nobody is saying what really happened, and all we know are a few details that he was found unconscious on a street in Manchester and his wallet was with him with nothing stolen from him that they can tell, and the friends were out drinking and a car broke down and my nephew left the scene cause he didn't want to wait for a tow truck being it wasn't his car etc... that's all we really know, we think he was jumped. Nobody is talking or returning phone calls! My nephew, 21, is able to talk and doesn't remember what happened and so far he didn't suffer any injury to prevent him from moving or talking so he isn't a vegetable but he'll be in the hospital for a time and currently moved into a regular hospital room. With this incident, his dad and he had a good talk and hopefully will be seeing more of each other in the future and lets hope the step mom doesn't get in the way of their relationship, which may be the reason he stayed away in the first place according to my S.M.I.L. Who knows?

Birthday activities

Here I am about to put the layers together of batting and the backing.
I had just added the circle pieces still without backing and without the antennas.
So it has been, a birthday for Alina! This is the quilt I made that is shaped as a Butterfly! She Absolutely loved it! The day was wonderful for her! We made cupcakes the night before her birthday for her class. She helped make vanilla and chocolate batters. I had plans of marble cupcakes, but she wanted to do some just vanilla and just chocolate, well its really what she wants so we did some cupcakes vanilla some chocolate. For herself and her teacher however, she added half vanilla and half chocolate for the cupcakes--I thought how sweet! The morning of her birthday after she left for school and after all the cupcakes had enough time to cool, I added the frosting and then dropped them off to the class for snack time.
After school after her little family party with just the four of us, we had to depart Logan to work and karate, Mertz, Alina, and I had to go together to Mertz' piano lesson. After that we went out to eat and enjoyed some root beer floats or Shirley Temple drink with a dinner that turned into consoling a trembling son who broke out in a panic attack! I was sad for him and trying to calm him while the server took forever coming back to take the check so we could go home where I could better console Mertz in private. Mertz calmed down after we left and fell asleep on the way home and the attack ended. But aside from that we all had a pretty decent day. Just don't ask me how I did working that night because it was awful, I hardly got any sleep so today I made up for it and slept 10hrs today while the kids were in school and Logan was able to pick them up so I could sleep more! That was great after all!

Understanding and accepting change

I just want to take a moment and say for once, I'm glad I have for the most part a strong bill of health! For I am able to physically help others who have limited abilities. This goes for at work and home. I have been working hard to keep my head on straight as there are days when I've think I have lost it, and if I have than I pretend well! I am surrounded by those who are less fortunate than myself and however there are those around me who are strong too! I recently found out, although it really shouldn't have been a surprise to me, however it was, I have a brother-in-law who no longer is able to work. He had a great job with IBM and over the years his diabetes have caused his eyesight to really diminish to the point where the docs have decided that he's legally blind. I was aware of his eyes going blind, but his workplace was accommodating him with super large magnification on the computer to do his job with and all sorts of other stuff, but I guess its been months since he's worked, and I just found this out.

Its hard to make that realization that as we get older we change. We change with personality thru our experiences, we change physically, we change all the time in endless ways. Change is good for most things, change is hard also to accept and realize especially if it affects the way we would normally go about our day. I should know about change, I see 50+ years ahead of where I really HOPE NOT TO BE when I get older. When I go to work dealing with many persons that have dementia and limited abilities from other ailments its so sad. But there is hope, most elderly go on to lead very happy and decent lives & cross my fingers&

So it goes, there are days of rejoicing, there are days of quiet heartache, and days that never seem to end. Its how we approach them, how we prepare ourselves in dealing with these matters if they are to come up. I believe its good to stay close to God. This is how I've got thru hard things before, just knowing that I can with His help. Sometimes His help comes from those around me, or from a motivating song I hear to get me moving, or a thought runs thru my head that it just needs to get done. I am so far from being perfect, but He has blessed me with the ability to do many things to help even my family or those who I am employed to help, and making progress with them truly makes me happy!