The beeper on my waist vibrates and the loud screech of the notification pulls my eyes away from the computer where I am charting on my patients for the day. I look down, and heart sinking I read the page.

Code Blue 319

I jump to my feet and a red pen, black pen, highlighter and sharpie fly off my lap. I grab them and stuff them into my scrub pocket. I race around the desk, banging my hip into the corner of my way.

Ow.

As I hit the wall button to open the double doors at the end of the unit I have been squatting in using their computers I yell to the ICU staff  ” Code team, out!”.

I round the corner running and hit the stairs. I have 52 steps between me and my destination. I take the steps two at a time, pulling my hair back into a hair band as I go. A piece of hair swings back into my face. I grasp at it and shove it up under the ponytail and pray it stays there. The door says 3. Third floor. 319. I bang through the door and make a right. It is easy to tell what room is where I am headed. People are crowding around the door and nurses are scurrying back and forth.

I check my watch. 0215. Man I wish I had finished that coffee earlier.

I push into the room and stop by the bedside. Shit. I know her. I took care of her earlier in the week. She wanted to go home to make her daughter’s college graduation. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I am already climbing up on the side of the bed and kneel over the patient. I’m short, this is the best way I can do this, especially on an overweight patient. My hands clasp one over another and I curl my fingers, instinct taking over. The nurse currently doing compressions hits her mark and steps back. My hands cover the space where her hands just were.

I start moving, counting aloud. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.

Some of the counts are almost yelled, some are whispered as I try to remember to breath. At thirty my head swivels, eyes searching to the cardiac monitor to see if there was a rhythm. Shit.

I hear a doctor yell an order for meds to be pushed. I wait, head bowed while straddling the gray woman beneath me. I hear the confirmation from the nurse and the order. Restart compressions. I immediately fall back into my rhythm, counting in and out and trying to will life into this body.

I reach thirty again and once again turn towards the monitor. All I can see is the pulse made by the drugs and my hands. I climb down, two minutes at a time on compressions before passing the baton. That’s hospital policy. Whatever. I hear a stool being dragged and see a co-worker hop up and start compressions from the side of the bed. He is way taller than me and still needs a stool. Huh.

I sign the code log book and then start running. Literally. I am now in the running phase of the code. My job is to go back and forth from the bedside to the locked cart where the medication is stored. A nurse is there waiting for me and hands me two syringes and some fluid. I grab them, spin on my heel and sprint back down the hall to the room. My fucking hair is in my face again. Oh well. Will have to wait.

I cross the threshold of the room, hand over the precious cargo and take a step back to see if they need me. Compressions stop. Meds pushed. Nothing. Start again. This cycle happens twelve more times. Compressions stop.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Shit.

Wait.

The room stills and the doctor makes the call.

Time of death: 0339

 

 

I suppose this post is supposed to be my Blogher12 recap. I’m supposed to talk about all the inspiring women I met and how the sessions I attended were amazing.

The people were fantastic, the sessions so well done.

I learned other things at Blogher this year.

I explored by myself.

 I went to no less than three parties alone, just to see if I could do it. I can. I approached the taxi line and asked around until I found someone going in the direction I was. I rode the subway alone for the first time in years.

I have not felt so at ease in my own skin since July 5th, 2005. The day I had my first panic attack. Since then I have been a ball of well hidden mess. My mind is constantly searching for escape routes and easy exits. I almost always know where the closest medical facilities are. I’m seven shades of crazy most days. The only time I feel fully in charge is when I have my scrubs on and am working with my patients.

I try really really really hard not to avoid situations that I think may make me nuts. I don’t want my children growing up thinking that a crowded park, a public restroom or a train is something to be TERRIFIED of. I don’t want them to have fear as the underlying current in their young lives. I want them to remember me as adults as the mom who always was ready to play and go on adventures. My mind screams no and my body literally tries to rebel…but I can’t avoid everything so we go. We play…and sometimes I even get past the fear and actually relax.

I owned New York City last week and made her my bitch.

I wandered, sat, watched, talked, drank, hugged, listened, cried, laughed and danced. Some of the time was spent with amazing ladies who I can’t thank enough.

I have been blessed in this community with a friend who will dry my tears even though her own heart is breaking, and then bust into the Thriller dance in an office at the Babble HQ just to get me to smile. I got one of the best hugs in my life from a lovely lady from Indy. I mean THE BEST. I was able to catch a ride and connect with tiny blogger who loves her coffee.

I got to be me. I wore my normal sundresses and explored the conference. The Exop Hall. The city. When I got overwhelmed I hoofed in upstairs and took a break.

It was amazing. For the first time since I was 22 years old I feel like a grown up again. Like I can make it through any damn day.

And I will.

Twitter is a abuzz ( and going freaking nuts if you ask me) and the Internet is alive with posts, contests, giveaways and events.

Blogher must be upon us.

I have been sending out random PSA announcements on Twitter and people seem to like them, so here are some more and my tips. You know. Since I’m an expert and all. HARDLY. However I did go to Blogher10 at the Hilton so I may have a few good ones that you may have not thought of.

* You will see this EVERYWHERE but it can’t be stressed enough. Wear comfy shoes. You will be back and forth running around alllllll day. Your tootsies will thank you. Also, walking 8 blocks to a party in brand new shoes? Not fun. Bring band aides and hook up your heels, yo.

* Do not get lulled into a false sense of security because you are at a conference. This is NYC. Be safe and use a buddy system at night. Make sure people know where you are and travel in groups when at all possible.

* It is quite possible that August in NYC will be melt your feet to the sidewalk hot. Like really hot. However? The rooms that the panels are held in and some of the event venues will be COLD. Bring a shrug or a sweater if you are easily cold like me.

* Schedule. Make a schedule. Write it down. Put it in your phone. WHATEVER. But make one. And be where you are supposed to be. If you have conflicts? Tell the hosts of the event so they can release your ticket to someone who can go. There is always someone who would be thrilled to hit the event that you are about to blow off. Think about it.

* Be nice to the sponsers and staff. There is an obscene amount of work that goes into a conference this size and many of the people that you may want to mouth off to have NO say in how these things go down. Be nice.

* When scooping up all that free crap you are so excited about, think about if you can actually get it home with you. Seriously. I have seen people have to buy extra suitcases. This year I am packing my carry on inside of my fullsize suitcase ( I am driving), so that is my limit. If it doesn’t fit in my carry on it’s not coming home.

* Don’t forget to eat. Nothing ruins a day more than missing the meals and then feeling like crud at party time. No fun at all.

* See Blogher for what it is supposed to be. A convention of women bloggers coming together to learn more about their art and reinforcing our idenity and community. It is NOT a convention of free shit. It is NOT a convention of who gets more invites than someone else. Don’t miss the message. Go to the panels. Listen to the Keynotes…you will feel so empowered by these amazing women if you TAKE THE TIME TO LISTEN. Take the time. Seriously.

* Have fun. Leave some time to see the city. Don’t miss out on NYC because you want to collect the 4837439483th flash drive you will come home with.

* See a blogger you have always wanted to meet? Go say hi. If they are a dick? Whatever. Don’t read their blog anymore. If they are awesome? Yay. Either way, don’t let it make or break your day. So not worth it. Go up and introduce yourself. I am not the most outgoing person, but I make it a point to try and shed my shyness and walk up to people. Join conversations. Take advantage of all the amazing people around you and make some new friends and connections.

* For the love of all that is holy, if you go to an event that you RSVP’d to stay and spend some time talking to and learning about the brands and hosts. Do not run in, grab your swag and head off to the next party. These people spend time putting together these things, do not disrespect them.

*Flip flops are awesome. Flip flops on the streets of NYC make your feet black and funk. Just something for you to consider.

* Make your home screen on your phone your twitter name. Or email. Or stick a piece of paper between your phone and case with some info on it. Someone will lose their phone. Someone ALWAYS loses their phone. Don’t let it be you.

* BE YOU. These brands that you are talking to want to know you. Not some glammed, weird version of you. Be authentic. Be you. We like you. If they don’t? Their loss. Don’t fake it and come home with a bunch of contacts with brands that aren’t a good fit for you.

 

All in all have fun. SO MUCH FUN. Seriously. Make sure you come by and say hi to me

 

PS- You can’t take Play-doh on your carry on. Just sayin. Got some of us in trouble a couple years ago

 

 

UPDATE! Sorry for the delay, we had a death in our family recently.

 

Anywho. The winner is BRITTANY P! Check your email soon! Thanks for playing everyone!

 

So. Gots a special little lady in your life? Yes? Then you are in the right place my friends.

TuTu’s are all the rage for little people these days. You can’t log into Facebook or twitter without seeing an adorable picture of a cutie patootie surrounded by mounds of tulle and ribbon. I have been known to post a few of those myself. So, in honor of …I don’t know…just because, I bring you a giveaway from my lovely friends over at Chugga Chugga TUTU! They have offered up a classic tutu and a stacked bow to one of my readers! TuTu and bow will be shipped to the winner. Open to United States only (sorry my canadian loves).  Winner gets to chose the colors of the tulle, ribbon and bow! I so wish my Maddie was still young enough that I could get her to wear one of these things!

OH THE BOWS!

There are a couple ways to enter this giveaway here on my little ole blog. Each comment that meets a requirement will be ONE entry EACH!

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT FOR EACH REQUIREMENT MET!

1. Go over to Chugga Chugga TUTU and tell me what your favorite item on the site is.

2. Follow me on twitter.

3. Follow Chugga Chugga TUTU! on twitter.

4. Like me on FaceBook.

5. Like Chugga Chugga TUTU! on Facebook.

6. Tweet about this contest linking to my twitter (@adil320) and this post. Please link to tout in    the comment! You may tweet this contest ONCE A DAY each day for an extra entry.

This contest will run until 11:59 on JULY 12th 2012. Winner will be chosen using random.com.

GOOD LUCK!

In March Jim, the kids and I road tripped to North Carolina to visit my biological grandparents. This was the first opprotunity for my kids to meet their great-grandparents. So at 10pm one sunday night when Jim got home from work, we loaded everyone up and took off down 95. We arrived at about 6:30 in the morning to 75 degree weather and fresh coffee.

That’s the way to do it people.

Now we  had a very mild winter here in south eastern PA, but we weren’t having weather like that. We had six fabulous days of museums, the beach, Medievil Times, playing with cousins and eating amazing food.

Did I mention they own a resturaunt and catering company? No? This is me getting fatter.

Jim and I have discussed recently what we will do if I can’t get a job after I graduate next May. The job market for nurses around here is awful. There are about 15 nursing schools in a 30 mile radius and the job market is just totally saturated with new graduates. That’s no bueno for this girl.

Well, we have tenatively arrived at the idea of moving down near my grandparents when I am done school. There is an ungodly amount of jobs for me down south, and Jim could very easily work in the family buisness. But not THAT family buisness. This isn’t the Italian side people.

Anyway. I’m totally freaking out about the idea of moving 600 miles away from everything that I know, but no snow? Incredibly cheap houses? JOBS? Amazing weather?

I’ll take it.

Well, I did it.

I made it through my first full year of nursing school, only one to go! The amount of information I have managed to retain in the last 12 months is truly amazing. I have the best classmates and clinical group I could have ever asked for. Nursing school is unlike any other type of education I have ever been involved in. The 30 of us are a family now, and we all want each other to pass. I couldn’t have done it this year without their support.

                                                      Look at me looking all official, yo.

The boys are done school for the year ( thank the sweet baby jesus) and poor Maddie has to keep going until the 6th of June. I forgot how early you can get out of school when there are no snow days! We are so looking forward to lazy mornings, reading groups in the super chilly library, afternoons in the pool and generally doing NOTHING for the summer. This is the first summer that I haven’t scheduled the kids out the wazoo all summer and I am really happy about it. I won’t be working this summer outside of pet sitting and some babysitting since I am still taking online classes over the summer to go toward my BSN, and I am really stoked to have some quality time with the littles.

 

 

We had a fantastic Mother’s Day around here. I was thrilled to find that it fell the weekend AFTER I completed clinical, and we celebrated on Saturday since that is Jim’s day off. Jim took the kids to the grocery store and let them each pick something out to cook for me. Then they came home and he helped them make what they had chosen. I ended up with home made burgers (Maddie), spinach salad (Jim), corn on the cob (Chase), and Jimmy wrapped it up with dessert… Scooby Doo fruit snacks. It was the best meal I could have asked for and I am so thankful to Jim for helping the kids make it special. On Sunday I spent the day home with the kids; we played in the sprinkler, drew with sidewalk chalk, made crafts and generally just enjoyed being together.

Chase’s preschool class put on the sweetest little Mother’s Day tea for us. They sang us songs and we got to have snacks in the class room with the kids. This is always one of my most favorite things and I really enjoyed the last one that I will have with Chase since he is going to KINDERGARDEN in the fall. WHAT THE HECK. So not ready for all of that.

 

                                                             Doesn’t he look thrilled?

So that’s sort of where we are up in this piece. We are staying busy, having fun, trying to learn stuff, eating food, playing hard and loving each other. Jim and I have some plans in the works for some possible big changes and I will get back to you with that one tomorrow!

I haven’t mentioned here it but if you follow me on Facebook ,  you probably know I was involved in a pretty nasty car accident on October 12th. The accident was not my fault, but the result was me hitting a pickup truck in their driver’s side door at about 50mph. He was attempting to make a left through my lane of traffic and “didn’t see me”.

I drive a Nissan Pathfiner. It’s huge. And bright red. And I always have my lights on. He must be blind.

I managed, on that Wednesday afternoon, to do 12,000$ worth of damage to our beloved SUV that we had had for less than a year and only had 31,000 miles on. It was a hot mess. The whole front end was destroyed. The airbags deployed and burned my hands. We were missing all sorts of mirrors and grills and plastic, OH MY.

I had all three kids in the car with me. Talk about scary. The 30 seconds it took us to crash, me to process the situation and jump out of the car to get the kids was the scariest of my life. I had no idea what was going on. There was smoke everywhere, which came from the airbag, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was the that I was in the middle of a very busy road, there was smoke, and my babies were all screaming.

Jimmy had been napping when we crashed and was very rudely awakened. He almost seemed the least upset, he just couldn’t figure out what was going on and was crying because the big kids were screaming. Jimmy was harnessed in a 5 point harness behind the passenger seat. He ended up with a small bruise on his hip from the seat, but no other injuries.

Chase was seated behind the driver seat also in a 5 point harness at four and a half years old. Chase left the accident with a couple bruises, but physically alright. Emotionally he was in worse shape. For weeks he didn’t want to get in the car, and would ask if we were going to have an “assident”. He started wetting the bed again at night for a few months and was so embarrassed about it. Now he is fine, but is was hard to see him so worried.

Maddie was riding in the third row on the passenger side in a low back booster seat. She was screaming the loudest after the crash, and for a minute I really couldn’t tell if she was hurt or not. Her glasses flew off her face during the impact, and I think it really scared her to hear the boys crying and not really being able to see what is going on. She was a little sore for a couple days after, but overall was fine.

I am still dealing with some chronic neck and back pain. While my MRI’s are all negative, I continue to have muscle spasms, pain and tension. I really don’t care about it…because my babies are Ok.

The morning after the crash my insurance company called me to go over some details. The man was so relieved when I told him all three kids were fine and only needed follow up Dr visits and no hospital care at all. He said he is always scared to call when their are children involved, always worried that there will be a funeral to plan.

Thank god. My babies were Ok. Thank god.

Well. Thursday night we bowled. I had the idea on Thursday morning that Jim and I should take the littles bowling that evening. None of the kids have ever been, and Jim and I haven’t gone for a looooong time. We used to go all the time (what? Our town is boring and Rock and Bowl is the cool thing to do).

ANYWAY.

We had a ton of fun, and the kids LOVED it. Chase has now decided that he NEEDS to have his birthday party there this summer. We will see little man, we will see.

Maddie went for the between the legs roll. She bowled a pretty decent score, but still came in second out of the three chitlins.

 

Chase went for the Kung Fu Master bowling style in which he threw the ball down the lane and then danced around like a crazy person until it got to the pins.

Which took a very long time. Chase came in third out of the chitlins.

Jimmy, on the other hand, was very serious about this bowling stuff. He walked up, bowled, and then promptly went back to giving me a heart attack with trying to get his fingers smushed in the ball return. Yet, he had the highest score of the small ones. Go figure. Jim and Jimmy hung out a lot and watched the older kids do their thing, they love their Daddy time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And YES! Jim and I did manage to beat Jimmy’s score of 82, though not by much. WHAT? HE HAD BUMPERS.

 

I am currently on a little 10 day break from school, which is mas bueno. Since I actually have time to breathe, eat, play and ….shower, I am just now getting to play with some of the new stuff that Jim and I have acquired recently.

iPad- I love it. What I love even more? My kids are currently very happy playing Oregon Trail on it. All they need to see completely into my elementary self is Where in The World is Carmen San Diego. I spent all my time in the computer lab when I was little between those two games. Though I have learned my lesson about naming my Oregon Trail characters after my kids. First time Maddie got taken by a hawk I was a little peeved. 

Lightroom 3- Every since the internet gods decided to do away with Picnik, I have been trying to figure out what I was going to do as far as editing my photos. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fancy schmancy picture taker who needs some amazing software to play with. However when I came across Lightroom 3 for 52% off I just couldn’t pass up on the deal! I have only been able to play with it a little so far, but I am loving it. I for sure had to watch a few tutorials first though.

HP Photosmart printer- Now this, THIS makes me very happy. We have been needed a photo printer for a while. Maddie was going to murder me if one more picture ” is stuck in your camera and I am NEVER GOING TO SEE IT”. Now I am able to print photos whenever I want and I seriously can’t tell the difference between mine and the one’s I get printed for me. It’s fantastic, not to mention super easy to use and sexy as hell looking.

Looks like I am not going to be very productive on my break. I will get some flashcards make in there somewhere, I promise.

PS- Blogher ticket is bought! God bless being a student. Who is going?

 

OK. Now that all the whining poo-pooing and poor pitiful me-ing is over ( see earlier post), on to the good stuff.

Maddie turned 6! She celebrated her birthday with a party to which her entire kindergarten class was invited to. Oy Vey. Regardless of how much that was so beyond me to handle…she had an amazing time. It was her first real birthday party with her own friends and I so wanted it to be perfect for her. I am so thankful to have this little girl in my life. She makes me nuts, but I love her dearly.

 

 

Jimmy also turned 3, the day before Maddie turned 6. We had his party a week later, but on his birthday we had some cupcakes to celebrate my littlest man. And maybe because I wanted cupcakes. Don’t judge.

Anyway, Jimmy Jam had a great time with his cupcake and his party was a hit as well once we got to it. Seeing him zoom around with all of his little friends from school was so cute. Amazing to see that even just at 3 years old they have these little relationships already.

 Speaking of the above photo….anyone have any ideas on how to convince Jimmy to keep his clothes on? It’s getting ridiculous.