She never saw me watching her.

She was an older woman in her 50s, who didnt' have that many friends in our shul. Her family had switched from a different shul nearby and i recalled heearing her husband and son's comment that they never felt fully welcomed. But she was sitting in shul with her chumash and listening the sounds of the leining coming over the partition from the mens' side. It was simchas torah night and while the dancing had finished, the shul was still noisy and bustling with women still chatting, and little kids running around, full of candy and the excitement of staying up way past their bedtimes. Half the chairs were still pushed back against the wall but she sat calmly amidst all the bustle with her finger moving along and she mouthed the words that were read out loud. I had been davening in the shul practically all my life but there was something on her face that i didn't see on the faces of the other women who sat around me. It was practically glowing. As the last words of Sefer Devarim were finished i saw her look up with a smile on her face and tears of joy in her eyes and for the first time in my life, i saw a woman who truly understood the simcha in simchas torah.

Mom, Dad, I love my name. I think it's beautiful, and it encompasses my personality. But sometimes I wish you'd named me Sara.

I've never had an issue with my name before, and I never had to fall back on an English name in college (good thing, because I don't have one). But somehow over the phone it is impossible to catch my name, no matter how slowly i say it, or how many times i spell it out. Sometimes i have to laugh at the odd variation that people come up with, and sometimes i grit my teeth when my patients ask me *yet* again, to spell my name out for them. It's five letters. And it causes so many problems. But nothing is as funny as the time someone called me and bungled my name, followed by "did i get that right?" i never bother to correct people over the phone unless they ask, so i corrected her and spelled my name correctly, to which she replied, "um, no that's not what you told me".

as the teenagers today like to say, smh.

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you expected them to. When i graduated from nursing school I always thought I'd end up working in a hospital. I wanted the experience of working alongside seasoned nurses (even though they're said to eat new nurses for dinner), and see different things. But I ended up working in homecare, and I went from seeing patients in their home, to doing coordinating of nurses' visits in the office, to doing case management from my dining room. While the mother and housewife in me is thrilled to be able to stay home with my 15 month old and get laundry done while working, the nurse in me every so often wonders if i'm really happy. Some days i feel like i work in a call center. I case manage about 60 patients, which means i field phone calls for questions like "I need to see a dentist who takes my insurance" to "my aide didn't show up today" or "my mother's incontinence briefs are the wrong size". In between those phone calls I check up on my patients monthly, review their medication, make sure all their services get authorized, and generally try to keep my bosses happy. Since my homecare agency partners with a managed care company, I have two supervisors and two directors to answer to, which can get stressful. But then I stop to think about why i'm working in the first place. Yes, i want fulfillment. But i think i get that from my family and my hobbies, so i don't need to get it from a career. it might seem old fashioned, but i think my values allow me to be happy even if my "career" isn't what i thought it would be.

Right away, I knew something was wrong.

I'm a morning Facebook checker. I log in every morning before i get my day started. When i opened my Facebook app, i saw ten new posts. and i knew right away that something bad had happened. most of my friends and acquaintances live in the same time zone as me, so not much usually happens overnight. and then i saw the stories. and the pictures. white siddur pages, stained red. Tzitzis strings, also stained bright red. a man lying in a pool of blood, still wrapped in his tallis and tefillin. i felt what i always feel when i hear about these attacks. shock. horror. pity for the victims. compassion for their widows and orphans. and more recently as of late, anger. a slow burning inside. hate for someone who can so coldly take a life. and then sadness again, that there are four less people who will daven mincha this afternoon. four kedoshim, who were taken back while they were in the middle of morning prayer. four people whose last moments were as holy as possible. it's a small comfort for those of us who will probably think about it once or twice throughout the day, maybe another time during the week, and then move on. but how much of a comfort is that thought to the wives who sent their husbands off to shul, not knowing they would never see them again? to the 20-something children who are now fatherless?

that is the thought that i want to hold on to, so that i think of these four men throughout the whole day.

may their blood be avenged.

     Starting out in a new office is always an adjustment, and working in home are is no different. Because I'm in orientation I've been spending a lot of time at the office, desperately trying to learn everyone's names. I'm constantly being told to "give this to Deana" or "go ask Carol". It's not helpful that there are two Carols at this office. Learning names was hard enough, but last names too? Double the work!the. There's Maureen and Monique, and by the time I learned the difference, I found out that  Monique was resigning. What a waste of brain cells. Of course now I can see that Maureen is clearly the one who has long red hair, pictures Irish clovers hanging over her desk, and a last name of McSomething. Silly me.

     I didn't end up doing the start of care on my own because the patient canceled. I see that being a nurse requires more than compassion and the ability to look at blood. It calls for patience. A lot of patience. Patients don't pick up their phones when you're trying to schedule a visit, they don't have their meds together and spend half the visit scrambling to find them, and they shove pictures of their grand kids in your face when you're trying to take their blood pressure. So being a good nurse means you schedule extra time in the visit to help them gather their pill bottles, and smile politely and tell them that yes, it is definitely the cutest kid you have ever seen. Because that's the proper way to treat people. With the dignity and respect I would want a nurse to treat me when I get old. 

I'm doing my first starter case today! Starter cases are the admission cases, when the nurses from the agency go to the patients' house to introduce them to the agency, get them sorted out with medical equipment and medications, assess their ability to adjust back to being home. Often times patients come back with a new diagnosis, a shopping bag of pills, lists of instructions from the doctor, and are feeling very overwhelmed. Yesterday the patient we saw had to learn all about how to take her blood sugar and administer Lantus every day. It really is going to be her husband's job, and I could see the worry in their daughter's eyes, wondering how her parents were going to manage on their own. I want to be the nurse that sits down with the patient and their family and tells them that it will get easier, that they'll eventually be able to list all their meds by heart, that taking their blood sugar will be something they can do while reading the paper. But getting a diagnosis of diabetes when you're over 70 can be something you never get the hang of. That's why I want to be the nurse that helps make everything seem just a bit easier to manage.

My preceptor told me she's going to have me go through all thr consent forms, look over the medications, and do the physical assessment. This is whole job is a big step, not just for me but the agency as well, because they never hired a 'brand new' nurse before. And trusting me to handle something as big as this really gives me the confidence that I'm getting the hang of things.

I'm excited. 

Yesterday was my first patient visit. I didn't go solo of course, which made me feel a little better, because i think there's always a part of you that's nervous whenever you start something new. It kinda felt like the first day of clinical all over again. I mean I've done vital signs on countless people in the last three years, but I still felt my heart beating a little faster as I listened to my patient's heart and lungs, felt a little shaky as I took his blood pressure. And though I've felt for countless pedal pulses (on the feet), I still found myself praying that they'd be easy to find (which they were). I was supposed to see a couple, but the next patient wasn't available and the nurse I was with got a flat tire so she sent me back to the office where I'm waiting to receive my second PPD shot. Tomorrow is my weekly meeting, and then off to see more patients. So far I'm doing well! 

I went through a lot of changes since I first started my blog. From Frum College Girl to Frum College Woman (because you automatically become an adult when you get married), and then to frum college mother. When I last blogged I was frum graduate girl, looking to the future and wondering what it would hold.  It's been over a year, but the next chapter in my career has begun. I am now an employed nurse. 

It's funny how life has a way of turning out in ways you weren't expecting in really hoped to get a job in a hospital and eventually work in the emergency department. But getting into a hospital was harder than I imagined it would be. Even moving (and taking my mother's only grandson away from her) didn't help much. So I readjusted my expectations and just when I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever find a job, I found a long term home healthcare agency looking to hire nurses. They were hesitant about hiring me as I have no experience, but it must have been my overwhelming charm that won them over. Or the fact that they're looking to hire. Either way, I started orientation here a week ago, and after waiting for human resources to determine that I'm medically fit and don't have an incriminating criminal record, I'm ready to go and visit patients, with a preceptor. It will be slow going at first, until I get then hang of all the paperwork, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

I think the end has come for my blog.


Besides for the obvious reason-I don't blog anymore-if I did continue blogging I'd probably have to change my name from FCG to FGG.

I'm finally graduating :)

It's been a long road and I've come a long way from my first day when I didn't even know the difference between sodium chloride and normal saline. Along the way I've learned about more diseases than I knew my brain could hold, given dozens of injections, administered medications, inserted foleys, cleaned gangrenous diabetic foot wounds, watched a c-section, a PICC line insertion, a cardiac catheterization, and laparoscopic cystectomy, did a shift in the NICU, the ER, OR, cardiac unit, pediatrics floor. I've spent countless hours reading, studying, written papers and essays on everything from nursing management to cultural awareness. I've ingested a lifetime's supply of caffeine, made a dozen friendships along the way, and now it's finally drawing to a close.

Of course I'll be going on to take the NCLEX exam and then go for my BSN and then hopefully a masters, but for now I've come to the end of an era. For those of you who have stuck by my side with your endless support,I thank you, and know that I would not have made it without your encouraging words. I look forward to the next stage in my career.


FCG

While every summer there are kids who come very often, there's always that one kid who manages to come up with the stupidest excuses. This summer that kid is a boy going into sixth grade. He once got a bee sting on his lip which blew up so now he thinks he may be allergic to bee stings. So every time he thinks he may have gotten stung he comes rushing into the office so we can tell him that he's fine. The latest was when he was convinced he'd gotten stung on the back of his neck when it was just his tag rubbing against his neck. But the latest incident takes the cake. There was a bubble machine in camp one day last week. It was a big inflated pool that had a machine blowing large quantities if bubbles out for the kids to jump in. In the middle of this activity the boy came in

"My friend pushed me down and forced me to swallow two bubbles and I saw on the side if the pool it says that you shouldn't eat the stuff and if you do you should seek medical attention immediately so I'm here"

We gave him a cup of water and sent him back.

Little kids have a habit of volunteering way too much information. Not in a gross-I-didn't-need-to-know-that-kind of way, but in a way that makes you want to interrupt their story to tell them to get to the point already.

A seven year old was brought to the infirmary with a sting. In order to make sure the kid wasn't reacting to the sting, I asked him to tell me how he got the sting. "so I s standing in the pool area next to Pool One. No actually it was Pool Two. I was really closer to Pool One but I was walking to Pool Two to go swimming. Not the really shallow pool. That's Pool Three. And i was facing the green tent. I was looking at the purple sign hanging up....."

So cute.

Sometimes it's less than cute.

There's a junior counselor who talks like that too. When he brought a camper in who'd hurt his shoulder it took a full two minutes for him to get to the part about the shoulder. "he had the ball and he was trying to dunk so he jumped up with his arms outstretched like this, (at this point the jc demonstrated for me) and when he came down his foot was like this, (another demonstration) and then he landed on his shoulder"

A simple "he fell on his shoulder" would have sufficed

Then there was the camper who simply did not stop talking. To be honest, I'm not sure why he was even brought in in the first place. He was complaining that it had been very hot in his apartment that morning. But the boys' bunkhouses are air-conditioned. In any event,he sat here for a bit to cool off and then waited for his counselor to come pick him up. Since it was the beginning of the day it took awhile for the division head to send someone to come collect him. So he sat for fifteen minutes talking non-stop. About absolutely everything and nothing at all. About his breakfast that morning and the air conditioner in his apartment and his recent wii score and I'm not sure what else because I sort of tuned him out at that point. Thankfully he left before he drove us all mad.


Sent from my iPad

Working in a nurse's office means hoping for a boring summer. We're the only part of the camp that hopes that we sit around all day with nothing to do.

Today was definitely not that kind of day.

One of the camp buses had a little fender-bender on its way to camp this morning. Thankfully everyone was OK, but as per the camp's policy we had to check all the kids to make sure there weren't any problems. So the entire group piled into the little nurse's office. It had been a mini bus and a few kids were not coming to camp so there were only about thirteen kids and three staff members. We gave them each a mini checkup and handed out bags of chips and powerade to the kids to keep them quiet while the nurse called their parents. It's kind of difficult to keep thirteen kids (mostly boys) quiet when they're hyped up about "getting into an accident" of course The Nit Lady was here too, huddled over the phone and glaring at the kids. Add that to a camper who split his finger open on a metal gate, and a pair of siblings with matching nosebleeds, and it was total chaos. With the help of two counselors and a division head who can whistle REALLY loudly we managed to call all the parents, staunch the flowing of blood, and bandage up the bleeding finger so he could get into his moms car to go to the doctor without staining her seats.

And that was only in the first hour of camp. The office door has been revolving non-stop all day. But thankfully nothing too serious.

Nothing some powerade, a handful of pretzels and some TLC can't fix

I have to issue a warning that this post is not for those readers who are squeamish or faint-hearted (*cough* FBB)

There's a woman who works in the camp. Well I'm sure she has a name but in camp she's referred to as The Nit Lady. She checks the heads of all campers entering camp. Almost every week she finds a "case" as she likes to call them. When that happens she brings the child to the nurse's office and plunks them down in the back of the office. I wish she would give them something to cover their heads. The children are often young and don't understand that if they actually have lice, they can jump from one head to another. Call me irrational but I'm terrified of getting lice or nits. She then proceeds to tie up the phone line for twenty minutes while she chats with the parent and explains the while life and birth cycle of her little friends. She even pulls them out and tapes them to a piece of paper to send them home with the camper. I'm not kidding. It's almost like she actually likes these pests. When we see her trudging up the hill with a camper in tow we send a message to the main office that we need to take any incoming calls at the main office because she's going to be on the phone for awhile.

Shudder.

Blogging regularly was on my list of things to do this summer. Unfortunately our laptop screen is currently out of commission because mr. Fcg stepped on it. Which is a story in of itself. I was searching for an app that would allow me to blog from my iPad. Thanks to blobby I found one.

So I'm back in the same day camp I worked at last summer. A lot of the staff are back as well. It was funny to see the counselors and jc's, some have gotten taller, some lost weight, some put on weight. When the campers need over the counter medication we need to get a prescription from the physician. When a staff needs medication, like Tylenol or Advil we need to obtain parental consent if they are under sixteen. The girls' staff members usually whip out their cellphones and call they're moms who are more than happy to give them permission to take the medication. Anything to prevent their daughters from coming home grumpy. But when the boys' staff comes in for advil and I tell them I need to talk to their moms, all of a sudden they don't have such a bad headache. I feel like telling them not to be so macho and just call their moms. But I guess to a fifteen-year-old boy the worst thing is admitting you still need Mommy. One of the many differences between guys and girls.

being a mother means learning the true meaning of sleep deprivation

being a mother means making no plans for the mornings because i never know how the nights are going to go

being a mother means I've traded in my purse for a diaper bag

being a mother means getting used to the smell of spit up on my clothes

being a mother means planning my day in two and a half hour increments

being a mother means learning how to multitask, and do things with a baby over my shoulder

being a mother means falling hopelessly in love with a twenty inch, nine pound boy

being a mother is exhausting, frustrating, demanding, thrilling, exhilarating, and I'm loving every second of it

i always loved words. they helped me daydream, express my feelings, and communicate with others.

but there are no words to describe the feeling i had when i held my son for the first time yesterday :)

i sort of assumed pesach at my in laws wouldn't be that different than succos at their house. but that was before we decided to go for the first days.

of all the Jewish holidays, pesach is the biggest when it comes to family traditions. and my family is full of them. from the tunes, to the songs, to the food, and just about everything in between, i always knew my family did it differently. my mother makes food from scratch, like mayonnaise, strawberry jam, orange juice, chocolate syrup, tomato sauce...it might taste a little different, but once you get used to it, it's very earthy and wholesome. the seder might go until 2 am because my family has songs for everything, and there are some divrei torah that are said every year, even though we all know them by heart already.

on the flip side, my mother in law buys pesach processed things, so there was ketchup and soda, potato chips taffies. and my father in law is a rabbi so he has to "work" the day after the seder, so the seder is slightly shorter (by about two hours) the tunes they sing are different, and even the way my husband's family reads the haggada is different from what i was used to.

i missed my mother's traditional chocolate mousse and cucumber salad, but my mother in law has her dishes that she makes every pesach that my husband and his siblings look forward to.

it wasn't difficult to be with my "other family", it was just different. and I'm looking forward to spending the second half of yom tov with my side.

people love to complain about change.

Facebook obviously has a lot of issues because they're changing the layout every five months, and they sneak in subtle changes in between. for the first two weeks after the changes have been made, everyone groans and talks about how they want the "old layout back" but they fail to remember that they complained just as much when the old layout was the new one.

so i usually wait to get accustomed to changes before I'm so quick to complain. that's why I've waited since the summer to comment on the changes in the Starbucks i often frequent. they changed the whole look of the place, down to the tables and chairs. there is now a three foot table which is great for accommodating large books plus a laptop and notes. but the chairs are really, REALLY uncomfortable. they're rounded wooden chairs with a little lip around the edge which makes it uncomfortable to sit for more than ten minutes. there used to be two big green poufy chairs at the window, which were almost never unoccupied. they got rid of those chairs too, and now there are four brown leather chairs, which aren't nearly as comfortable. at least they've made the music a little quieter. some of the other changes are more subtle; they now keep the sleeves at the counter and you can opt not to take one, the counter with the sugar, straws, milk, and napkins are closer to the door (which makes sense)

i say bring the old chairs back. and get rid of the new barristas. they make a racket, and are always laughing hysterically, at a decibel level which is too loud to be polite for public. and it's not because I'm getting old. it's because they're loud.

as a little kid i loved getting the mail. there's a satisfaction in opening the mailbox to see it stuffed with envelopes. and on occasion there was actually an envelope with my name on it.

these days, getting the mail is a lot less exciting. we don't get that much mail-we pay our bills and do banking online. most of our mail is the rent stub or a wedding invitation, and the monthly magazines that we get. but yesterday i got an envelope with my name on it that i was not excited to see at all.

it was from the Jury Department. i know, it's all part of being an adult and good citizen, bla bla bla. to me it means yet another hassle to deal with. at least I'm not missing work, and i don't have kids so i don't need to find arrangements for that. but it also means that i don't really have a plausible excuse for missing it. it's in the beginning of April, so i can't use pesach as an excuse, and it's on a Monday so i might not even be able to use school to get out of it. it's probably worth it to do it now and then not have to worry about it for awhile.

still, I'm not looking forward to it.

life is a series of ups and downs. sometimes bad things happen that set you back, and leave you stunned for a bit, and sometimes good things happen that leave you with a good feeling for a bit. recently we've had a high point in my family, which left many of our family members with the good feeling.

my siblings and i made a surprise party for my parent's anniversary.

they had a milestone this year, and as their children, we felt it appropriate to celebrate with more than just the usual card/gift. my mother is not really one for surprises, but my dad loves them. and what better way to show the two people in your life that have done the most for you than by throwing them a party?

we started planning months ago, from the food to the decorations. we split up the chores and the phone calls, and got to work. brother1 is away in school, sister2 has a busy senior year schedule, and brother2 is at school till late at night, but they all pitched in with their opinions and help whenever possible.

we were sure my parents (especially my mother) suspected something was up when brother1 called my mom on Thursday to tell her he was coming home for shabbos because he "needed a break", or when i called to invite them for melava malka, but my mother's face when she walked in the door proved that we had successfully pulled off the party.

the aunts and uncles and grandparents helped with the food preparation, and my siblings decorated my apartment with lots of signs and appropriate colors for the milestone. Mr. FCG did his part by shlepping soda and chairs up the stairs and taking the decorations off the ceiling the next morning. who needs a step stool when your husband is over 6 feet tall?

the food was great, nobody spilled on the couch, the speech was nice, and my parents loved the party. the Far Away Aunt and Uncle got to join in the celebration with the help of Skype, and we all went to bed exhausted but happy.

happy anniversary! we hope to celebrate many more with you!