november?!

I write sitting on a mattress (a real one!), with a big smile on my heart and lots of fun stuff upon which to update.

I went home to Indy in late September to visit my family and friends.  It was so good to see everyone; a whirlwind, ridiculous amount of visiting for the time I was there trip.  I went back to Bend sad to say goodbye to everyone but happy to return to my new home.  I also went home with a permanent position at the hospital in Bend. 

Two weeks prior to leaving for home, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next.  My seasonal job was ending, the winter was coming, and I started getting calls about jobs I might be able to legitimately take.  The problem was that I could not imagine a place that would be better to live than where I am.  I make great money, pay nothing in rent, work full time to overtime at a great job, and have great friends in Bend, Oregon.  The culture here is totally up my alley: informal, fun, free.  I identify with the people here (aside from the pot, ha!). All this notwithstanding, I live in the Northwest outdoor mecca.  Bend is amazing.  I did so much outside this summer and only scratched the surface of the really awesome places to go and things to do.  Anyway, I had asked my supervisor about what my options were in regards to staying at my current job, and he said that I needed to apply for one of the two positions that had been created for myself and one of my friends.  I applied and got the news that I got the permanent job the day before I left Indianapolis.

My roommate was happy to hear that I was staying around, so as of now I continue to have cheap rent and an awesome roomie. 

Shortly after I returned from Naptown, one of my friends from Bend decided he'd finally go ahead and let me know that he'd be interested in being more than friends, so yes kiddos, now there's a guy involved, and he's absolutely incredible.  If more men were like him there'd be a lot fewer bitchy women on this planet. 

So winter: I swore I'd never do it again.  However, I am now in a place where snowsports are common, and I have decided to embrace winter and the fun activities that come with it.  My goal is to learn to snowboard (yippee!) this winter.  The Man is a big fan of snowmobiling, so that activity is most likely going to work it's way into my life in the next few months.  Also, I have three big trips planned (easy to do now that I am on-call and choose when I work): Vegas in four weeks, Indy in six, and Florida in nine weeks!  I am so excited!!

I am so, so happy and satisfied with my life right now.  There is no question in my mind that I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing.  For that I am so, so grateful. 

long time no write

I've been doing a lot of living life recently.  It's good but it leaves no time to type into the computer.  I love that I can access my e-mail on my phone.  That way I very minimally need this thing!!

In the past month, I've gone camping, wake surfing, paddleboarding, hiking, swimming, flown off a rope swing into the water, floated the river a few times, made more friends, spent a lot of time with a couple of chihuahuas. It takes the edge off the doxie shaped hole in my heart. I have had so much fun and have seen so many things!!! It continues to blow my mind that I have lived my whole life without meeting any of these people, knowing their stories, or laughing with them.  It's an incredible concept.  How many more life stories are there for me to hear, friends to hug, and things to see? 

I get to go home in a couple of weeks and I am SO excited. I can't wait to see my friends and my family.  Those fluffy boys (aforementioned doxie void to be filled with Dex and Diego kisses).  I can't wait to smell corn country, see the fields ready for harvest, and be in my parents' house again. It'll be so good to see everybody. Facetime really, really helps, but it's not the same.

I'm definitely getting the travel bug again. I love, love, love Bend, Oregon.  Someday maybe I'll buy a house and make a life here.  However, at this present time, I'm getting restless.  The ocean is calling my name, as are the palm trees, hammocks, and year round water sports. :) I have to figure out how to be a nurse in the Caribbean without getting paid minimum wage.  Today is a little bit chilly and though I like autumn, the familiar feel of dread of winter is creeping up into my psyche. 

My position is officially done October 20, but I'm going to try to see if my boss would let me stay on through the beginning of December.  Getting a travel job for just the month of November doesn't look very plausible at this point. Anyway, it'd be really nice to just take a few weeks to be with my friends and family for Christmas.  I'd love it. And those fluffy puppies...I can't wait to smell their little frito feet!

Update!

It has been so, so long since I last sat down to write any kind of update.  Sorry!

So, in the past two and a half weeks, I have gone through orientation at this new hospital, and I start working on my own on Friday.  It's been a hefty learning curve.  You have no idea how much you don't know until you start working in a new hospital.  All of the policies, procedures, charting, and even what I can or cannot do until I take this class or that class.  I think it's funny that I have worked with ports, psych patients, and conscious sedations extensively over the past year but must take extra classes in order to do any of that work here.  Another huge thing is that, in Indianapolis, people are sick. S-I-C-K.  I'm talking mass amounts of comorbidities, which, in layman's terms, means that these people have several different illnesses, chronic (long-term) and/or (acute).  Because of this, I have lots of experience working with people who have COPD, renal failure, diabetes, and a chronic MRSA issue, all together and working as a team of illnesses to further sicken the patient.  Here, people have very few, if any, comorbidities, and many of them who come to the ER have traumatic injuries, or weird stuff that I haven't dealt with before.  In short, my experience isn't super valuable here (Community people, I have seen zero asthmatic/croupy kiddos, zero MRSA/CDIFF, one COPDer, and one diabetic in the past six 12 hour shifts.).  I am asking a lot of questions, trying to learn about how to assess and stabilize these traumas and funky hemopneumoemboli shenanigans.  I keep reminding myself that my boss hired me with the knowledge that I have very little trauma experience, but it's scary sometimes. 

I am feeling kind of insecure because my preceptor last night expressed some concerns over my lack of trauma experience.  She kind of insulted me about it, too.  It didn't make me feel very good.  Again I remind myself that God has made it really crystal clear that I am to be here at the moment.  Sometimes that helps.  Sometimes it doesn't.

Last week was really hard.  I knew when I decided to leave Indy that I would miss home, miss my family, miss my friends, and miss my dogs.  I had no clue how much I would miss knowing the exact location of the nearest Walmart.  Or how to get across town in the most time-efficient way.  It is the most humbling thing to me to have to ask for directions because I'm on the other side of town from my appointment because I'm lost.  I spent a lot of last week crying and missing home.  I decided to go to Portland to visit my aunt and cousins over there, and while taking that break from Bend, God finally got through to me.  I finally shut up and listened and discovered that this whole adventure is not just about adventure: it's about changing the person I am into a better person.  I also had three hours in the car to think about what a piece of work that is going to be.  This weekend, I read Don Miller's book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years," which is about the concept of story and how it applies to our reality.  In short, character is only developed through conflict.  So, in essence, this time in Bend is not going to be easy.  I'm going to have fun and have adventures and explore, but I'm also going to cry and pray and understand what it is like to rely on God for everything that I took for granted in Indy--He is the only Person here who knows me for who I am, my history, my inside jokes, my heart of hearts.  I spent so much time in Indy socializing (you would too if your friends were as awesome as mine are) that it was easy to ignore the still, small Voice (not okay). 

I have a day off tomorrow and since I don't know anyone well enough here to hug them, I am getting a massage for the benefit of touch.  :)   I am also going camping this weekend with my aunt and cousins--should be a good time!

Bend

After two years of checking and re-checking the hospital website for open ER jobs, and prowling the internet for examples of crazy travel nurse information, I’m awaiting the start of my first job after Community.  As it is the night before any important occasion, sleep is not coming tonight, regardless of how amazingly comfortable this memory foam pad is on my new air mattress—my bed for the next few months. 

My aunt and I drove over the mountains today, starting in misty, pure Portland weather and ending in eighty-something, sunny high desert.  The mountains had some cloudy clothes on them, but you could still see them, and, most importantly, the sky was blue above where we were as soon as we went through the pass.  It is crazy to me that you can go from rainy-grey mist in the forest up by Mt. Hood down the mountain to a sunny, forested valley that leads to a hot, Utah-esque canyon down by the Deschutes river—and back up again to fields of grass and hay that lead to sagebrush and juniper.  Mountains, snowy and not so snowy, hang out in the background.  Coming from the Midwest, where everywhere is pretty much the same this time of year—hot, humid, with the occasional thunderstorm—this blows my mind.  The thermostat in my car went from 66 degrees to 91 today within the same three hour time span as we drove to Bend.  That was all during the day, too; no night lows involved!

I cannot believe that I am finally here; that I am finally doing this.  I met my roommate today and she is the epitome of who you would want as your roommate.  The house is beautiful.  The area is gorgeous.  The view out of my window is a butte with mountains in the background—to the West, no less, so I see the sunset.  God totally laid this whole adventure out for me.  I am still trying to figure out what it is that made Him give me, a sinner that does a very good job of ruining the good gifts He gives me, this incredible gift.  “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is my favorite hymn, and it sure rings true throughout not just this season, but my entire life.   “All I have needed,” His hands have provided.   It’s not up to me to figure it out; I know this.  How lucky and blessed and GRATEFUL I am to have been granted this request to live my dream, this particular desire of my heart!!

Sunday

After 33 hours, 2200 miles, and very little sleep, Alex and I rolled in to Bend, Oregon at around 1:15 a.m. Saturday morning.  We stayed the night in the Super 8 there before checking out my new house, the hospital where I'll be working, and Pilot Butte restaurant before heading out of town west towards Portland.  It was really great to see the neighborhood.  I had been slightly worried about where I'd be living, but the area is really nice and I don't think I have anything to worry about at all.  I even met one of my neighbors, who also happens to be a nurse!  She's been practicing for a few more decades than me, but she was very friendly.  The hospital was even more beautiful than I remembered.  Something about it that I thought was cool is that there is a plaque by the main entrance letting everyone know that somewhere along the way, this hospital donated a bunch of money to some nuns in Indiana.  Now I'm not the only person or thing reppin' Indiana!

We rolled in to PDX around 5:30 and were so happy to have a place to stay for the night.  Aunt Sherri has been kind enough to give us a bed/couch and I think that I speak for both of us when I say that it was amazing to just sleep and not have to drive anywhere.  Personally, my body is just hurting a lot.  I was rotating Tylenol and Ibuprofen all the way out here from Indy for girl stuff; I'm pretty sure that my back was in a lot of pain that I did not know about until the first time that I didn't need to take anything for cramping.  It's also been a very busy, very hectic week and I've been doing okay holding myself together; now that it's over, I think my body is just falling apart.  I'll be happy to do some running tomorrow after we rest today.

This evening, we are headed downtown to go see a movie at one of the McMenamins theaters before we put Alex on a plane for Indy.  Extra Kudos to a girl who would drive with me all the way out here.  I owe her big time!

From the Road

Alex and I pulled out of her driveway at 7:08 p.m. EST on Thursday, June 30. Mapquest had us following I-74 west over to I-80, rolling on I-80 for about 1000 miles, and then hopping off on I-84 in Utah.  The worst part of the trip was the first part: Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.  We finally got out of Nebraska at 8:30 a.m. Wyoming time.  Speaking as the co-pilot that drove through Nebraska in the middle of the night, Omaha seems like it’s actually a big[ish] city. 

Currently, we are in the middle of the lower part of Idaho.  The countryside is beautiful here; the sky is huge and the ground is very, very green.  I don’t know what the people here are growing (potatoes? I have to ask), but there are lots of sprinklers in the fields.  It’s reminiscent of south Oregon here.

We had anticipated arriving in Portland Saturday afternoon, but we have made killer time and it was more likely that we would arrive at five in the morning, so we are booking it to Bend tonight, spending the night in a hotel there, and heading to Portland tomorrow afternoon as previously planned.  The friend that she is, Alex wants to know where I’ll be living, working, and playing during the next few months. I love that she cares.  It’s really cool to be able to share this town with someone from back home.  Even more so, I can’t wait to share my West Coast family with her.  Hugs from any and all of my little cousins are in my top 10 list of things to hurry up and get to this week.

I cannot believe that I’m actually on this trip.  It hasn’t hit me that this is the drive I’ve been dreaming about for the last six years minimum.  I used to fantasize about getting on 70 West and just going until I hit the Pacific Ocean.  I may not have used I-70 and I’m not going straight to the ocean, but I am “headed off to the West Coast” as the Kenny song says.   “Grab the wheel  and turn it West” from the Miranda Lambert song.  All of my favorites have played once, if not twice, on this drive.

Last Week

This week has been crazy.  So much to do, so many people to see for the last time in awhile.  Not knowing when I’ll, or even if, I’ll see people again makes these hugs and kisses more difficult than usual.  Goodbyes are not my forte—ask anyone I’ve dated. 

As of Sunday night, everything in my beautiful little apartment was neatly packed, ready to go in the morning.  Mom came over Monday and we loaded one and a half truckloads out of my little one-bedroom and into a 10 x 10 storage unit in the rain.  The rest of the day was spent running around town and taking apart the monster bookshelf.  I had been dreading taking the thing apart since I put it together, the first night I spent in my own little place.  It took me four hours to assemble and forty-five minutes to take apart. 

Monday night was the third of four parties that people have been nice enough to a) put together and b) show up to in the past few weeks.  I’ve told a few people that I really didn’t think anyone would care that much that I was leaving.  I had no clue that they would take time out of their lives to not only show up to a party, but write notes and letters and buy me gas cards for the road.  It blows my mind.  Everyone has been so encouraging and in such support of this huge life decision I’m making right now.  I need that encouragement right now, because this week has not had a whole lot of “happy” moments; rather, many goodbyes and letting go moments.  As previously stated, I am not good at letting go, so I need to move on to the adventure part of this saga before I start thinking too much about what I’ve lost.

Tuesday was the day I officially moved out of my first place.  That was not fun in any way, shape, or form.  I loved living there and had so many good memories.  Putting that damn bookshelf together, assembling my little table and chairs, studying for NCLEX, keeping my own little place clean—reconnecting with friends that I’d missed for many years, many good conversations and even more glasses of wine .  Having a silent sanctuary when I’d been in a loud, obnoxious ER all night, a place to stay in when God decided four solid inches of ice was what Indy needed this past February.  I cooked for friends and cried by myself and paid bills and wrote letters and kept myself company for a year, and I loved it.  I am so grateful for the time I spent in Apt 304.  It was really, really hard to hand over the keys and drive away.

After another great party thrown by awesome people, today came with final goodbyes to the last of the friends, and the first of the very close family.  Grandma and I went out today for lunch and spent a couple of hours talking together for the last time in awhile.  She did a really good job of not crying until the last minute.  I hate to see her cry. 

I spent the afternoon on paperwork: getting the rest of my travel nurse paperwork together for Cross Country, completing every step besides the fingerprinting for my California license endorsement, and sending off the rest of the bills.  Dinner with the fam, a last minute drug screen (seriously?), and now I’m sitting in the living room typing, as everyone else is in their own space or asleep.

It’s my last night at 728 feet; the next time I sleep in a bed, I’ll be in Portland, Oregon.