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Just an update on Linc while I’m thinking about it. He has, for a couple of months been talking up a storm, but with very few words that we can understand. Some of the words in his early vocabulary (many translations from Japanese):
You may notice that Mommy isn’t in there. It seems like Mommy is sometimes referred to as Daddy and sometimes as food, it is a little unclear.
Anyway, the new development is that Linc seems to have suddenly gotten confident in his ability to copy the sounds he hears, and he has started repeating us a lot of the time and incorporating them into his vocabulary. UltraGirl could give a much better list of his recent new words, one that comes immediately to mind is bye-bye.
He has also started in the last month or so to throw minor tantrums when he is tired or things aren’t going his way. He stomps his feet, but for him this involves extending his leg waaaaay out and giving the floor a heel kick. The video in the sidebar of playing with Uncle Mitsu might give you some idea, suffice to say it is way too adorable. The other big one in the toolbox besides crying and slapping is much less adorable: he will get on his hands and knees and bang his forehead on the floor. Of course that never improves his mood, and it almost gave me a heart attack when he did it on the cement floor in a shopping center. He is, on the whole, a much better boy than we had any right to expect.
He bows to say hello and he also bows to say he’s sorry. He is very quick with the apologies, but this stems much from the fact that I’m sorry means something more along the lines of “I know you are unhappy, stop telling me about it now.” Of course that is what it means for a lot of people, so I think he’s got a pretty good initial grasp of the concept.
He LOVES powered conveyances, particularly those equipped with sirens. His favorites are ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks. Recently he has shown increased interest in planes, trains, and police motorcycles. Most of his favorite daytime toys are cars, and he is almost always carrying one. At night he has two reliable companions. Dee O. Jee, the pet dog Aunt Heather gave him, and Scout the new talking and singing dog he got for christmas from Grandma and Grandpa. His bedtime routine usually includes some kissing Dee O. Jee and Scout, some snuggling with one or both of them, and letting Scout sing lullabies to him. It also often involves bedtime stories, but he has interesting tastes in narrators. He seems to prefer that I read Japanese books to him, and that UltraGirl read English. I am allowed to be the reader for Goodnight Moon, but otherwise my repertoire is コップちゃん (little cup), a Japanese book about cute puppies, and a slew of Japanese books about “working cars”.
I am acutely aware that at no future point in time will he love me as much as he does now, so I’m trying to bask in it while I can. I had no concept of how much I could love someone until Linc came along, and I’m trying to give him the best start on life that I can. I tend towards the overprotective, but I’m trying to keep it under control. One thing I need to get better at is planning outdoor activities on weekends.
Unfortunately I have no pictures to offer, as I’m not where our photo library is. If you would like to see more regular photo postings, I encourage you to comment and tell UltraGirl how much you would enjoy seeing them.
Ever since my upgrade to Snow Leopard, I have been having problems with Finder freezes causing my computer to become increasingly less functional (everytime an app needs to open a file dialog it becomes unresponsive) and eventually needing to do a forced reboot when my workaround toolbag is depleted. Before I did the backup I made an exact bootable copy of my old leopard install for two reasons: 1) in case it all goes wrong and I want to go back to my previously existing state 2) In case I realize that after the clean install I can’t recover something I need that I had in my old install, I can go back and grab it (software that is not available for download anymore, documents I forgot to transfer, etc.). I made this backup to a partition on a firewire external hard disk attached to my mac. My latest theory is that this other complete operating system volume complete with applications folder, library and all being mounted is causing confusion which is leading eventually to finder death.
This brings us to the second issue I’ve been having. I purchased the external firewire hard drive through work because I needed a substantial amount of extra space for things like video editing projects I work on there. Unfortunately, for reasons I’m not sure of, the disk always failed to automatically mount on system boot. I would have to reach down and power cycle the drive enclosure before it would mount. At this point, all three partitions on the disk would mount: MY big extra space partition (cleverly named Bison as the drive is from a company called Buffalo), my small Windows partition used with VMWare Fusion, and my complete leopard backup.
Given the long, hard to read preamble above, the goal was to find a way to be sure that Bison and WINDOWS XP mount automatically on system start, but that direct backup refrain from doing so. I know from freeBSD that file system automounts in unix-based systems are usually controlled by the fstab file so I googled around to find out if that is still the case in Mac OS X, which we all now is unix-based at its foundations. That information was not easy to come by, but it appears that it is still used, though it may be phased out in some future version of the OS. I further learned that the command for editing fstab is vifs.
The naming of that command tells me that it is going to default to using the vi editor in absence of another setting, and I kind of loath the vi editor. It is very unintuitive for me. Others swear by it, but I much prefer emacs. If you don’t care about changing the editor, skip the rest of this paragraph. So I opened up the terminal, and since my default shell is zsh I ran the command
echo $EDITORto see what the system text editor was set to, it was empty to I made a note to change my profile to add emacs as the default, and ran
export EDITOR=emacsto set the editor for this session to be emacs. If you were using the default shell (bash), you would probably just run
EDITOR=emacs.
Now that my editor was set I needed to find out the necessary information about my disk partitions to enter in the fstab. I ran
diskutil info /Volumes/Bisonto get the information for Bison, and copied out the UUID from the heading labeled Volume UUID: and verified the type of partition from the Type: heading. With this information safely tucked away I ran the same command for WINDOWS XP and direct backup and noted down their information.
Next I ran
sudo vifs. You have to run vifs as a superuser since you are making changes that are potentially very damaging to the system (always have a good backup). the format of fstab is:
Identifier, mount point, fs type, options, dump order, check order
with each item separated by a space or tab. I only needed to put in information up to the options section, as I am not concerned about making any manual settings for dump order or check order. Here was my initial fstab:
UUID=070AE21A-4CB1-3AF1-85F6-FCDA55D3C726 none hfs rw,auto UUID=21D65790-4F21-3573-A5B7-C6BDCD119E3E none hfs rw,auto UUID=90410FD7-9CC5-375D-B16C-9C4B2C502D50 none hfs rw,noauto
The last item in the list is the direct backup disk, notice the noauto option on that one. (for more information on options and all that try
man fstab)
I rebooted the system, and joy of joys, my firewire disk mounted. Unfortunately it mounted all partitions, including the direct backup one. I ran vifs again and moved the line for the direct backup partition to the top of the list so the system would parse it first and rebooted. That did the trick. Now when my machine boots, it mounts Bison and WINDOWS XP but leaves direct backup unmounted. I can then mount it at will from the Disk Utility application or from the command line.
I know this writeup is kind of rambling, hopefully it isn’t too hard to follow and can help someone else out who is having similar issues. The main reason for posting it though is so I’ll be able to find it if I run into the issue again.
A quick update: Not mounting my direct backup disk did not solve the finder freeze issue, but it does solve some other problems that were really a thorn in my side, so I’m glad I did it. Also I found a mac fixit article that pointed out some possible causes for my article, and with some further troubleshooting I found that I could get the finder to successfully come back when it crashes by power cycling the external firewire disk. The article suggested the root of the issue may be to do with launch services, so I trashed the preference plist for that and restarted launch services. Only time will tell if that fixed my worst problem.
This gift arrived via carrier Johnny. It was from my sister and bro in law and was carefully padded and wrapped in newspaper. I opened it on Christmas morning, and stared in puzzlement at the odd-looking frame. It had pegs along 3 sides and notches on the cross boards. What was it? Some type of loom to make big potholders? Something to do with growing tomatoes? I knew my brother in law had made it; it was beautifully crafted. About 1/2 hour later UltraDad figured it out. It was for jewelry! Necklaces and bracelets on the pegs, earrings in the notches! Absolutely ingenious!
As you can see, besides holding jewelry, it is a work of art!
UltraGirl, notice the ‘Sushi’ cell phone charms you got me: both the shrimp, which I did NOT like, and the Nori Roll, which I DID like!
Love the art!! I’m surprised to see you’ve got so many earrings (I don’t have pierced ears you know)!
Thanks! Yes, I have accumulated a lot of earrings over the years. Lately, I can’t wear the heavy ones; they give me a headache. Many of the dangly ones were handmade by Aunt Debi or my great niece Dakota.
UltraGirl:
If memory serves UM only has two pierced ears, but she has as much earwear as you have face lotion.
UltraMom:
Looks like a really nice jewelry rack, it appears John has outdone himself.
I bet your grandbaby Linc would have a BLAST playing with that. I know my kids would.
Only a little late; with a nod to the traditional American Christmas newsletter. I didn’t realize I had had such a busy year!
Happy Holidays!
After a late start, it is definitely wintertime in northeastern Nevada. The fall was great, weatherwise, (this coming from someone who no longer has to worry about winter snow packs for spring irrigation). Lately, however, several snow and wind-laden storms and many nights of sub zero temperatures have brought winter in close and personal.
This has been a year full of changes for our family. A year ago John and I were able to bring in the New Year in Japan with Bob and Tomoko, getting to know our then 8-month old grandson, Lincoln. Now, I know many of you think your kids/grandkids are pretty great, but I have to tell you, from a totally impartial viewpoint that Linc is actually quite perfect. His little cheeks did get a bit chapped, however, because ‘Grandma’ kept kissing the ‘sugar’ off of them! We had a great time doing some local sightseeing and trying new foods.
In May, John, Jim, my sister Debi and I were off to Nashville. We saw the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Parthenon (yes, it IS in Nashville) and The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s historic home. Oh, one more thing: we watched Johnny graduate from Vanderbilt University School of Law! What an accomplishment. Johnny is now back in Boise, clerking for an Idaho Supreme Court Justice for a couple of years. He took the Idaho Bar Exam in July, but had to wait until October to find out the results. As everyone who knew him predicted, he passed the Bar and was soon sworn in as one of Idaho’s newest attorneys in a ceremony Johnny likened to a ‘big high school graduation.”
In last year’s newsletter, you may remember Jim was newly engaged to Jessica Kasper, the tall, beautiful blond he had met while attending college at University of Idaho in Moscow. In May, Jessica graduated from U of I with a degree in accounting/dairy science. On July 18th Jim and Jessica were married in her family church in Boise, followed by a lovely reception at River Rock Ranch in Star, Idaho. The bride and bridesmaids were lovely, the groom and groomsmen dashing. The food at the reception was outstanding: fruit, unusual breads, myriad salads, prime rib and the best salmon I have ever tasted. In keeping with her Dutch heritage, Jessica had a chocolate (even chocolate iced, ) wedding cake topped with a cute, chubby Dutch couple. Another Dutch wedding custom? Bells at every table which, when jingled, required the happy couple to kiss. A nearby table of young sister/cousins made sure that happened often! The only blot on the day was when Linc got stung by a wasp when he stuck his finger into an old wagon wheel spoke at the picuresque, but rustic River Rock, but the ranch manager who was patrolling the party scene produced some baking soda which helped ease the pain, and soon all was right again, as long as ‘Daddy’ didn’t get too far away!
Linc, Bob, Tomoko, John, Kathy, Jessica, Jim, Johnny, Heather, Heath
LOTS of family.
Peter, Jenell, Tom, Jessica, Jim, Johanna, Joanne, Josina, Eric
We had a great week leading up to the wedding. Dave (Kathy’s brother) and Jane from Placerville, CA and Debi (Kathy’s sister) and John Ryder from Emmett, ID were SO much help (and a lot of fun.) One highlight of the week was a visit to Jessica’s home in Melba, ID. Jessica has a large, close-knit family and together they manage a huge dairy/farm in a very picturesque setting. We had a great time and a delicious lunch.
Kasper Family home in Melba, ID
Many of us got together at Nicki and Chad’s house in Boise for a wonderful Dutch oven breakfast the next morning. Those kids are doing some amazing things with their yard! Later on, as many of us lingered, eating, visiting and watching Johnny, Sara and Tomoko go head to head in a Dr. Mario tournament, the young newlyweds put in an appearance.
After a brief honeymoon in Jamaica, Jim and Jessica returned to southeast Idaho for a month so Jim could finish up a summer Internship at the INL. Then it was back to a tiny apartment in Salt Lake City so Jim could complete his final year of graduate school at the University of Utah in the field of Environmental Health. Jessica will be working for Liberty Tax this tax season, then studying to take the CPA exam.
We were very happy that Bob, Tomoko and Linc could make it out for the wedding. They planned for a pre-wedding vacation in Oregon, so John, Heather and I met them in Portland for a few days. I was able to spend part of my birthday on a beach in Newport! Linc, though utterly adorable had turned into a Mamma and Daddy’s boy. But from the safety of his Daddy’s arms, I was able to play with him, kiss him and elicit occasional smiles or laughs.
Heather had some exciting news for us a few months later. Her longtime boyfriend Heath had proposed while they were out hiking, and she now has the ring to prove it! It seems we will be having another July wedding in 2010. Plans are sketchy at this point, but Heather assures me that one of her New Year’s Resolutions (along with the ubiquitous diet and exercise) is to ‘Plan the wedding!’ The kids are still in Pocatello, Heath employed by the US Postal Service, and Heather still working at Sizzlers.
John is still working for Nevada Dept of Transportation, or ‘NDOT’ as we like to call it. Nevada, as are many states, is in a budget crisis, so all state employees are required to take an unpaid ‘furlough’ day once a month, as well as all wage increases being frozen for the next two years. I guess at the same time we are fortunate to be employed.
Kathy finished up some prerequisite courses at Great Basin College in Elko and, along with 21 other students, was accepted to the nursing program in June. It was a challenge, but with the successful completion of Fundamentals of Nursing and Nursing Pharmacology, I now have one semester under my belt. We spent a little time at the local nursing home, a little time at the local hospital and a LOT of time with our noses buried in books! I’m currently enjoying a month’s break in-between semesters. If I can stick with it and can pass the NCLEX exam, by summer 2011 I will be a registered nurse. I am also still working part time at the local minimum-security men’s prison, or ‘Conservation Camp,’ running an inmate canteen. At first it looked as if I would have to give up my job to go to nursing school. I submitted my resignation, but was allowed to work 2-3 times a week as my schedule allowed until my replacement could be hired. As the hiring process dragged on, my semester became less crazy and I was able to put in more regular hours at work. I put in a final plea to keep the job and after some deliberation my boss agreed for the time being. The income is much needed and I enjoy the job. Like John, I have to take an unpaid furlough day once a month. I also continue to work for Weight Watchers in Elko several times a month.
In August, much of the McDonald clan made the journey to Sawmill Canyon for our first (hopefully!) annual family reunion. It was orchestrated by Bill & Patty and Chuck & Joy McDonald. It was quite the conglomeration of campers, tents, camp chairs with lots of dogs and even some horses. Capable Patty planned and implemented meals from a large canvas cook tent. We hiked, rode horses and did lots of eating, drinking and laughing.
Chad, Nicki, (Rowdy), Johnny, Heather, (Murphy), Jessica, Jim, Sara
When we got back to ‘civilization’ (ie cell phone service) we were shocked to learn that during that same weekend, Kathy (John’s sister) & Kay Lear had lost their home in Currie, NV in a kitchen-started house fire. They lost pretty much everything, but a month ago were finally able to move into a newly acquired manufactured home. I haven’t seen it yet, but from all accounts, it is very nice. They got a lot of much-needed support from family, friends and the local community.
Kathy had spent much of the summer rising at the ungodly hour of 5 AM to go walking with friends. The culmination of this effort was the Walk to the Angel, a 30 + mile walk, run or bike from the city of Wells, NV to Angel Lake, with a nearly 3000 foot vertical rise. Kathy, Tonya and Rachel did this together; it took us 5 hours and we were the last to cross the finish line, but we had quite a sense of accomplishment and hope to do even better next year.
Labor Day weekend, John and I took a small camping trip with Jim and Jessica to Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Forest. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. The only blot was John getting stung by wasps when he went to collect firewood. He had probably been planning this since Linc got so much attention back in July! I think it backfired a little; John got attention all right, but not much of it was sympathy! Lehman Caves are unique and amazing and well worth the out of the way drive. Several weeks later, Jim, Jessica and John went for a week-long hunting/camping trip. John had a deer tag, but didn’t see one that week that was worthy of being shot. It sounded like they all had a good time, though Jessica said she was glad to see a shower again.
Lehman Cave
Thanksgiving found most of the McDonald family congregating in Swan Valley, ID at Mike and Chenoa’s newly built home. Chenoa is our niece, daughter of John’s sister, Pat. Mike and Chenoa, just a couple of months earlier, had finally been able to bring home their adopted children from Haiti. It has been more than a 2-year proess. In the meantime, Chenoa had given birth to the adorable Rowan, who turned 2 in December. Siblings Chrisnaider (called Snaider, pronounced ‘Snyder’), 8 years old and Djoulisa (called Djouli, pronounced ‘Julie’ with a hard ‘J’), 5 years old, were cute personable and seemed to be adjusting well. Billie and Brandi (Billie is Pat’s son), both attorneys in Cheyenne, Wyoming, brought with them Anna, an exchange student from Sweden. Anna was vicious at German Rummy! Also on Thanksgiving, the annual cousins (and me!) football game took place. This year saw QB Billie, Jim and Anna against QB Johnny, Mike, Chad and me. I do some running around the field, but my most important job is to pose in the after game photo holding the football.
Mike, Johnny, BIllie, Jim, Kathy, Jessica, Anna, Chad
Snaider, Billie, Brandi, Johnny, Bill, Anna, Nicki, Chad, Sara, Patty, Pat, Djouli, John, Chenoa, Mike, Rowan, Jim, Kathy, Jessica
Djouli and Snaider give Rowdy some well deserved petting
Johnny was the only one of our kids who made it home for Christmas this year, but he always makes any occasion a lot more fun. Pat came over for Christmas dinner, so we had four for an afternoon Pinochle game! We will see Jim and Jessica for a few days this week, and hope to get together with Heather and Heath soon. For Bob, Tomoko and Linc, we will have to make do with Skype video chats for the time being. I am enjoying my semester break, but am getting ready to gear up for the next round of classes. I have a few evolving health problems, but nothing I can’t handle. I am fortunate that I have been given so many blessings and opportunities in life.
So, on that note, I wish each and every one of you a healthy, happy and fulfilling 2010, full of your own unique blessings and opportunites
Wonderful newsletter. I must be certain to be a bigger part of your life next year!
You bring me to shame with such a wonderful letter that we did not get one out this year. I enjoyed reading it very much. You had a VERY eventful year and I have a feeling this next will be more of the same.
Very impressive post! Great job Mom!!!
I survived my second Hospital Clinical, and my first as student nurse largely in charge of my own patient! Here’s how it works: the actual hours at the hospital are from 6:30 AM to 12:00 PM. If it’s your day, you show up at the hospital the day before between 3 and 5 pm to ‘get your patient.’ It puzzled me when I first heard the term: do we take the patient home for a trial run? Do we play practical jokes on the patient and yell “Gotcha!”?
Or maybe just start building that important nurse-patient relationship….
Actually none of the above. “Getting your patient” means you look at the yellow paper in the nurse’s break room and see what patient you will be assigned to. Then you look through several different charts and write down….. well, if you’re me you write down everything you can decipher (which includes pretty much nothing from the physician’s notes.) In particular, you write down why this poor guy is in the hospital, what meds he’s taking, what therapies have been ordered, results of labs. There is NO patient contact at this time. Then you go home, research all the medications and why he’s taking them, research his disease process and what things nurses can do to make it better, and try to come up with some dang nursing diagnoses.
Our group was the pilot group, and 2 hours before our very first get-your-patient time, we got some startling news. There might not be enough patients to go around; the hospital census was low right now. If necessary, some of MAY have to be ‘team leaders’ or just go around and help other people with THEIR patients. Sure enough, half-way through Pharmacology Class, we got an announcement: Kathy and Adriana go see Heidi (one of our instructors) after class. We were going to be team leaders, while the other 7 students were assigned to a patient.
Even though we didn’t have to, I went to the hospital and ‘helped’ Kim gather info on her patient. I was rather disappointed and wanted to learn all I could and have as much of the clinical experience as I could muster. Also, Kim was my ride; I wasn’t goin’ nowhere til she was ready! While we were there and all had charts pulled out, we heard a ‘code blue’ for room 223 go out on the loudspeaker. Suddenly, Monica didn’t have a patient either!
At the hospital the next day, I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I ended up checking meds for Monica (who got a newly admitted patient the next AM), fetching iced water and making beds. The highlight of the day was getting to give flu and pneumonia shots to a woman in the hospital, under strict observation of the nurse, of course. It wasn’t nearly as scary as I though it would be.
So, for Clinical #2, Adriana and I were pretty much guaranteed to have a patient. And again we ended up with 2 team leaders; Melissa and Charity. I had the perfect patient for my first day. He had had surgery for prostate cancer and was recovering nicely. I got to take his IV out, do a physical assessment on him and give him his oral meds. I had a slight mishap there, as one of his pills leaped over the table and skittered under his bed when I attempted to remove it from its foil backed enclosure. Charity had to call the Pharmacy and get me another one! I was able to be there when his doctor came in, and help out with his discharge instructions. Yep, he got to go home, which made him very happy.
So though I have a lot to learn, I am happy that my first day went as well as it did. Hopefully next time even better, and hopefully next time I will do better on my assessment and documentation. Really, Heidi, I promise.
I am so proud of YOU!!! It will be so fun to talk about nursing with my nurse sister!!! Way to go.
That sounds very exciting to get your own patients. And I bet taking out an IV made everything seem very real. Hopefully Elko will stop being so healthy and there will be enough patients to go around soon.
Hmmm. I commented a couple days ago and nothing is showing. I think I said something about how impressive it is that you are already being assigned your own patients. It’s probably a little intimidating and I know you will excel at it.
Site editor’s note, the wishing of ill health on the entire city of Elko is entirely an activity of Chenoa and in no way reflects the wishes of the Dynamic Duo. The entire Dynamic Duo community would also like to take this opportunity to proclaimhow extremely proud we are of UltraMom’s ongoing efforts/successes.
Okay, I am mollified. I thought I had lost my one consistent reader. Thanks for not letting me down, Chenoa!
Nice post.I appreciated your efforts.
I’ve been meaning to post, really I have, but every time I think about starting I feel guilty and end up reading about respiratory function or thyroid hormones or watching videos on wound care. Tonight I am stifling and/or ignoring those nudges; besides, tomorrow is a holiday!
I had a revelation yesterday while Melissa and I were shadowing Chip, the Cardio-Pulmonary expert at the hospital ; people look at you differently when you are wearing scrubs, especially in the hospital. They look at you as if you had a right to be there and as if you actually know what you are doing (which is not at all the case, at least not yet!) It was very interesting, and Chip was funny and very informative. I was having a little problem that day; my ears, particularly my right year had been completely plugged for 2 days. I had tried Q-tips, vinegar, peroxide and isopropyl alcohol in the ear to no avail. If I inserted my finger and pulled down on the ear canal just right I could gain a few seconds of clear sound. I explained my problem to Chip “I can’t hear unless I do this with my ear.” “What?” he asked. I explained 3 times before I realized he was messing with me. We watched Chip do a nebulizer treatment for a 4 year old boy. The little tyke was cheerful and friendly, despite having a nasal canula up his nose and an IV in the back of his hand. It was hard to get him to stop talking long enough to listen to his wheezing and rhonchi lung sounds as he showed off his very own yellow plastic stethoscope and offered us some of his cookies.
We saw Chip perform an EKG on an elderly man who knew exactly what was going on. After the patient updated Chip on his symptoms he asked, “How is my heart? Am I in fibrillation right now?” After we left the room, Chip informed us that the man was a retired dentist. A middle-aged woman in ICU needed an EKG as well. As he hooked up the leads, Chip was teaching us: the black one goes above the red one- smoke before fire. The blue one went above the green one-sky above grass. This one was the ground. As he attached the ‘ground’ the patient suddenly yelled, “Aaaaah!” Melissa and I jumped three feet and nearly went into cardiac arrest on the spot. “Gotcha!” The patient was grinning at us. Sheesh!
It wasn’t terribly busy so Chip took a lot of time to show us the machines and tools of the trade. I was very surprised when this brilliant respiratory specialist had to take a smoking break. As Chip talked about secretions and mucus he told us a joke,”Here is how you can tell a nurse from a respiratory therapist,” he said. “You put everyone in a room with ‘excrement’ (word replaced to avoid pesky censors) up to the neck, then you hock a loogie into the room. The ones that duck are the nurses.”
At 11:00 AM our 4 hours were up and I left the hospital, determined to see a doctor about my ear that same day. After a little calling around, I got an appt with a nurse practitioner for a few hours later. UltraDad had some appointments of his own, and we met for lunch before heading our separate ways once again. After an assessment from the ‘doc’ the medical assistant put in some ear drops and irrigated my ears, removing a bunch of wax. Suddenly I could hear again! It was a miracle!
Today for nursing class, a couple of other people from the respiratory dept at the hospital came to our classroom and demonstrated a lot of the devices they use to help people breathe or breathe better. We also got a lecture on alveolar gas exchange and partial and negative pressures. Long ago when I had a bout of pneumonia I decided that breathing was a vitally important part of life that I usually quite took for granted.
Okay, time to wrap it up. You should really feel important. You beat out Senior Home Visit Assignment, Respiratory assignment and reading of 3 chapters in myNursing Fundamentals book to write you this post! More adventures later so stay tuned…..well, or at least check every couple weeks or so!
UltraMom
I thought Chip was going to miraculously cure your blocked ear.
That would indeed have been a satisfying ending, but he really didn’t seem at all concerned about my ear. Maybe if I had stopped breathing....
Ah yes, Wheezes and Rhonchi, less successful contemporaries of Captain and Tenille. Sounds like you are working very gard to great success. We are very proud of you!
Bob, it is making me type the work again...oh well...you are worth it. Kathy, I love all the stuff you are learning. Sounds like he did a really nice job. The smoking part IS pretty wierd, but I work with a RT who smokes as well...glad your ear got cleared up.
Aunt Debi, Bob says when it makes you type it all in you need to click log in and log in again. He says that will be true every time it happens. Great post Mom, I’m glad you could take a little bit of time to ‘relax’ and post on the blog.
Saturday, Oct 17th. All in all, today was a good day. I slept in a little, showered, breakfasted and took the ‘boys’ on a little walk preparatory to leaving them home alone for the better part of the day. Then I donned shorts, pink-tie-dyed shirt and red shoes and set out for the City Park in Elko, the site of the Susan G. Komen ‘for the cure’ breast cancer walk. I joined up with 6 fellow first-year nursing students: Bri, Steph, Janice, Janene, Kathleen and Chuck (also his adorable wife, Carrie.) Somewhere Janene obtained a can of spray paint with the result that all of us but Chuck ended up with pink tie-dyed hair to match our shirts. When I spied the three second-years, each leashing a large canine (one was a large, gray mottled Great Dane!) wished I’d brought Rowdy and Murphy along. Carrie and Chuck did run home to fetch Barley, their beautiful and well-behaved Golden Retriever. The park was a sea of pink with all manner of unique costumes and running/walking gear. I wore an “In Memory of” safety pinned to the back of my shirt with Mommy’s name on it, and Bri wore a “Survivor” as a tribute to her recently diagnosed Grandmother. We also had the opportunity to write their names on helium balloons that we later released en masse; a spectacular site. There were bands, singing and several moving mini-speeches from Breast Cancer survivors. After group photos, we were off, following a pre-designated route through town. We were encouraged by a group of young cheerleaders, hydrated by volunteers handing out water and refreshed as we crossed through the balloon arches after our 5 K jaunt by offerings of water and fresh fruit. Afterwards, the first-years agreed to meet for lunch at a local restaurant, where I had a bowl of delicious corn chowder.
Back Row: UltraMom, Janice, Steph, Chuck, Kathleen, Carrie, and Ashley (a second-year)
Front Row: Two second years with dogs (I don’t know their names), Janene, and Bri, who tie-dyed my shirt for me.
Meanwhile, I had further plans for the afternoon. A couple of days ago, I had heard a radio advertisement for a local theater production of The Wizard of Oz. I called my friend, Debbie A. to see if she wanted to attend the matinee performance with me. She did on one condition; due to pain meds taken for a painful tooth removal she wouldn’t be doing any driving. So after lunch, I flew back to Carlin, let the dogs out and picked up my friend. We arrived at the Elko Convention Center, bought our $5 tickets and were in our seats (pretty good ones about 10 rows back, towards the left side) 2 minutes before curtain time. The play was fantastic with some amazing local talent. Dorothy was great, as was Oz, Glenda, the guard at the Emerald Palace, Scarecrow and Tin Man. The Munchkins were adorable and creatively costumed children. But as far as I was concerned, the showstoppers were the Cowardly Lion (later someone told me that the actor is a Presbyterian minister), the wicked witch/Miss Gulch (the program notes on her said something to the effect that ‘this role was a far cry from her previous role as sister (nun) so and so, but closer to her true nature, as her husband can attest!) and Toto, played by ‘Moose,’ a smart, good-natured and loveable Miniature Schnauzer. Most of the play followed the beloved movie line for line, but there were a few additions and variations. We were treated to the scene that was cut from the movie, the dance of the Jitterbugs, who caused our heroes to dance themselves in to a state of exhaustion so Dorothy and Toto could easily be scooped up by the Flying Monkeys (aka Acrobatic Apes, aka Simian Minions) and taken to her Evil Majesty. (aka ‘My Beautiful Wickedness.) Unfortunately, after the 3-hour play, as we were getting a bit to eat, my friend got some bad news about her 81-year-old mother in law who had surgery last week and is now in Intensive Care dealing with Respiratory Failure. Hope it turns out okay.
Today after church, one of my favorite sister in laws helped save me $60 by giving Murphy and Rowdy a haircut. They look (and feel, I’m sure) sooooo much better! And I finally heard from UltraDad, the hunter, who had been tent camping all week with Jimbo and Jessica. They had fun, but no deer. Jessica got to try out a couple of Dutch Oven Campfire meals, but was glad to get back to the land of showers!
I’m nodding off as I write this, but am determined to get it posted tonight. No pithy clever ending, just UltraMom and This Was My Weekend. Until next time…..
Good to get an update on what is happening with you, and good job on the fun walk. The play sounds like a lot of fun.
Glad you had a wonderful weekend!! I was really glad to get back to the land of showers. I’m sure everyone around was pretty glad too!
I’ve long thought you would look stunning with pink hair.
I think it’s time to face facts UltraMom. Chenoa is the only reader we have left.
That looks like it was a lot of fun.
LInc of course! He is utterly adorable and has done nothing to offend me, which is not always true of my own offspring. Plus, he is now cleverly eating solid food and getting new teeth! What a smart boy.
Fairly Good Dad. Enabled me to videochat with the ever-awesome Linc today. Unfortunately, cannot give him a perfect score, because of lavish candy demands. Sorry.
The mother of my favorite grandchild, and by all accounts, an awesome one.
Chats with me once in a while on Skype. This is the kid I call when I’m feeling a little down. Whether it’s telling corny jokes or indulging in a gender-bashing fest, he can always make me laugh.
Had lots of fun with this guy in SLC last weekend. He spent half of his Saturday with two ‘mature’ women (UltraMom and Ima) and was charming and lots of fun. He graciously accepted Ima’s offer of homemade spaghetti leftovers. What a good son.
I don’t get to talk to this girl NEARLY enough, but she did email me an invite to a Women’s Seminar she will be attending in Pocatello. Unfortunately it is the weekend of my big Weight Watcher meeting. I miss you, honey!
Going on third week of wearing a plastic cone on his head to prevent scratching open the sore on this face, poor little guy. UDad says it is his Halloween Costume: Funnel Man,,,,,,er Pup
Has no plastic cone on his head; unlike Rowdy, does not spend first 5 minutes of each and every walk jumping and grabbing his own (and others) leashes. Has developed a rather cute trick of standing in the kitchen and barking when he wants a treat. After a false start, am determined to not give in to his extortion.
Dropping to the bottom. She has ruined another couch with her lethal claws, despite huge scratching post prominently displayed (and largely splayed) in the vicinity.
At the Zoo
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Linc's First Month moblog24
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I LOVE. LOVE, LOVE this post! And, yes, UltraGirl, I would LOVE to see more regular photo updates of the cutest baby/toddler in the world!
Thanks SO much for video chat last Friday night. I got to witness a lot of the Linc developments you enumerate here, ie the jabbering, hauling around of cars, and yes, the tantrum! I was also privy to a fun game of “Daddy hold Linc up in the air and make growly, eating noises on his tummy while Linc squeals with laughter and extends his arms for another go the minute he is returned to the floor!” You and UltraGirl and awesome parents.