Monthly Archives: November 2011

Adults can eat chicken nuggets, too, dammit.

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I am an adult. I do adult things. I come home from my job after putting in a long 12+ hours. I pour myself a glass of wine. I watch shows like Parenthood that focus on adult-type family-centric problems. I am an adult. Like, a real one.

But sometimes while I’m watching my adult Parenthood-esque shows, I put some chicken nuggets and steak fries into the oven, and then I eat way too many of them for dinner, because, you know what? Sometimes you just need to eat chicken nuggets for dinner, ya heard?
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This song was on last night’s episode of Parenthood, and I kind of love it. On the episode she, Sierra Noble, was the only one singing, and I was a fan of that. The guy she’s singing with is okay, but she’s pretty great. My friends who lean towards the country side of things will appreciate it, for sure. Sarah1, that’s lookin’ at you.

Ask for the help that you need.

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My preceptor and I turned over all of our beds today. That means that all of the patients we started our day with were discharged during our shift, and we got all new ones to fill our empty beds. On top of that, it was a meeting day. That means that each of us had to spend an hour-and-a-half of our day in a conference room, instead of being on the floor doing the massive amounts of work that we had to do. And there was a lot of work. A lot.

Discharges require their fair share of paperwork, but more than that, they require time. Admits require time and paperwork. Time and paperwork. And then a little more time and bit more paperwork. And for me, they require a lot of focus and very deliberate planning. And list-making. I couldn’t survive admits if it wasn’t for my well-developed list-making skillz.

I’ve had to do enough admitting and discharging that I’m starting to feel moderately comfortable with the processes. Today, my preceptor and I both functioned as “real nurses,” because I was able to do things without her having to guide me every* step of the way. And even with both of us working our friggin’ asses off, and even with all of the help we had from other nurses on the unit who generously offered their time to us, we barrrreeelly got all of our business handled. Barely.

A fellow nurse-friend asked me how my day was today. I said that there are days when I feel like someday I am going to be able to handle this job on my own — days when I think I’ll be okay after I’m out from under the safety of my preceptor’s wing. But today was not one of those days. I could never do the amount of work we did today if I was on my own.

My friend laughed at me, saying that I was right, and of course I wouldn’t be able to do it alone. Saying that I’d learned the right lesson: I can’t do it alone. I will always need to ask for help. Learning how to ask for help is the hard part.

So I’m choosing to not be defeated today. I’m choosing to take those words to heart. The hard part is learning that I’ll always need to ask for help. My preceptor and I did an impressive amount of work today, and we were only able to do it because we relied on all of the support systems that were surrounding us.

Lesson learned. Ask for the help that you need.

 

Depression recovery is not a linear process.

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Here’s the trick about recovering from depression: It’s not a linear process. It’s not math; it’s not simple addition and subtraction, where you work your way down a numberline, taking away bits of your depression until you’ve reached a value of Zero. Oh, but if it were only so simple.

photo by glacier tim

This road does not accurately depict my recovery from depression.

But it isn’t. Instead, there are times when I think that I’m doing better. Times when I go for a couple of days or a week without going to this place in my head where everything is slow and cloudy and wrong. In those times, I don’t even think about how I’m getting better because I don’t even think about depression at all. I mindlessly take my antidepressant every day and I give no space in my brain to active thoughts of depression or depression recovery or anything of the sort, and it’s wonderful.

I still haven’t learned to see the changes coming. I’ll just be going about my day doing normal things when it rolls in. And then I’ll feel tired. I’ll lose my appetite. I’ll want to go take a nap. I’ll want to be by myself, which, as you all know, is rather strange for me. Sometimes I don’t even recognize it in this stage. It’s still subtle enough that I can block it all out. I blame it on extenuating circumstances and refuse to assign my feelings the weight and validity that they deserve.

Other people do notice, though. People who know me well will remark about how quiet I’m being. Family and friends start to ask me questions about my eating, concerned because they can see I’m losing weight. They see me canceling plans, leaving parties early. I guess from the outside it’s easier to notice as I close myself off from the people around me. By the time everyone starts talking to me about these things, I am forced to face up to the truth: it’s getting bad again.

Zack deals with the ebbs and flows of depression pretty well, but when I get to the point where I stay in bed until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, he starts to worry about me. He hasn’t said it in those words exactly, but I know he worries about me. I know he worries that I’m going to go back to the place where I was last year. Hell, I’m worried that I’m going to go back to the place where I was last year. I think everyone is.

That’s about where I am right now. Isolating, in bed for 12-14 hours at a time, not eating much, obsessively cleaning–you know, the usual. Part of me isn’t scared because I’ve been here before and things that you’ve done before aren’t usually as scary as things you haven’t done before. The other part of me is terrified because I feel out of control. Now that I’m sliding towards the wrong end of the (over-simplified) depression-numberline, I want to do something to stop it, but I feel helpless. I mean, I’m already taking the little magic happy pill every day. What more does my depression want of me?!

It probably wants me to be more purposeful. It wants me to eat, and it would be happy if I would do some yoga, or really, any kind of exercise on a regular basis. It wants me to take Scout on more walks, get out of the house more often, and make more dinner dates with friends. Those are the things that helped last time, so I won’t try to reinvent the wheel this time. I’ll just do the things that I know to be helpful, and I’ll hope for the best.

Hope with me.

On Christmas Shopping for Men

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Zack meandered into the office the other day holding all the catalogs I’ve been getting in the mail from stores wanting me to buy their stuff this Christmas season. He set them down in front of me on the desk and pointed out that he’d kindly dog-earred some pages for me, you know, if I happen to be interested in figuring out what he wanted for Christmas this year.

Since then, I’ve caught the shopping bug. But instead of browsing websites endlessly for my primary benefit, I’m browsing for my secondary benefit. Because, while I’m shopping not exactly for me, let’s be real: Zack dressing all sexy and sharp definitely is a very good thing for the both of us. Hubba, hubba.

P.S. To those of you who love Zack and were planning on writing me soon to be like, UH, WHAT THE WHAT SHOULD I GET YOUR HUSBAND FOR CHRISTMAS BECAUSE, I DON’T GOT NO CLUE: I have good news. I have created a pinterest board called For Zack, and it is filled with sexy, (sometimes even) purchasable, Zack-approved items for your shopping inspiration. 

Black Friday Part II

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Zack and I slept in this morning. We finally crawled out of bed at 10:30 and drove to Target just in case they had the TV of our dreams. We were in and out of there in less than 10 minutes with our ideal TV for cheap. $200.00 less than cheap, actually. (And by that, I mean $200 less than we were expecting to spend.) Score.

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And we didn’t even have to wait in line! Double score!

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P.S. For the record, it should be noted that I found some cute, functional, and cheap chimineas today, but Zack said he didn’t want one. So, I think the Garden Ridge cover has been blown. He totally just wanted to go in there. It had nothing to do with chiminea hunting.

On The Time Zack Wanted To Go To Garden Ridge

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Zack and I decided to give up on our crazy Black Friday lark when we saw that the line to get into Best Buy at midnight extended all the way around the back of the building. Well beyond the back of the building, in fact. There were a lot of people there. Thousands of people.

We have wanted a new TV for years now, and somehow we decided that this night was going to be the best night to buy one. We were fooling ourselves. The internet is the best place to buy one. In fact, the internet is kind of the best place to buy almost everything.

After we gave up our Best Buy Black Friday mission, Zack suggested that we go check out what was happening at Garden Ridge, which is right next door to Best Buy. “Seriously?” I asked, “Garden Ridge?” Zack defended himself by insisting that they have chimineas there, and that was the reason he wanted to go. I laughed at him and refused. Plus, I told him, I was pretty sure it wasn’t open.

As we drove past Garden Ridge on the way out, it became obvious that the store was, indeed, closed. I told Zack I was super glad we didn’t go check it out just to make sure, because I didn’t want to be the only person yanking on the locked doors of Garden Ridge while in the same parking lot as thousands of other people waiting to get into Best Buy.
“They’re all waiting to buy big items like TVs and computers,” I said, “and we’d be down there yanking on the doors, screaming, ‘LET US IN! I MUST CREATE A SILK FLORAL ARRANGEMENT!’”

Happy Thanksgiving

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Tomorrow is the first time I will be required to work on a major holiday. So far, my impression is that working on a major holiday mostly just means that you feel like that major holiday doesn’t really exist. Thanksgiving doesn’t feel like it’s here. Until about two hours ago, it just felt like another tomorrow was going to be another Thursday on The Unit.

We’re having a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner at work. I signed up to bring cornbread dressing. I signed up for that particular item because, every year, I very much look forward to eating my Mom’s cornbread dressing. She is the most awesome cornbread dressing maker of all time, and it’s a cryin’ shame that I only get to eat that deliciousness once a year. Because I have a mother who makes the best cornbread dressing of all time, I am very particular about other people’s dressings. I couldn’t risk letting someone else be responsible for that item, because they could have messed it up.Therefore, I had no choice but to sign up for the dressing, and hope that I would be able to, with my mother’s help, re-create her Thanksgiving Deliciousness.

So two hours ago, I was wrist deep in cornbread and I had to call my mom to see if I was really supposed to follow the recipe. It didn’t seem right to me — too soupy or something. She assured me that I was doing it right. I just had to do what the recipe said. I could tell she had me on speaker phone, which is not uncommon for my mother; my mom’s hands are never still. The woman is always making something. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that she was just finishing up her dressing, too.

As it turns out, she and my dad are going to spend tomorrow with my brother and his family. As soon as I found that out, it felt like Thanksgiving. And then it struck me. Tomorrow is REALLY Thanksgiving. She and dad are going to go eat turkey and hang out with their oldest son and a handful of grandkids. Tomorrow is a holiday.

I almost felt conflicted about this whole scenario, like I was going to turn all sad because I wasn’t going to be spending the day with my family. But I had a realization that helped me not feel conflicted at all. The fact that I’m working this Thursday means that I am finally working the job that I have known I’ve wanted for years. The job where I knew that I’d have to work some weekend and holiday shifts. The very fact that I’m not celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow with my family is, indeed, a part of the thing that I have to be thankful for this year. I’ve survived nursing school. I passed boards. I got the job that I wanted, and I love it. And as a bonus, I even like the people I work with.

I have so much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

On Thursday Night TV

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So, is it just me, or has Parks and Rec been totally killing it this season?! Seriously. I’ve always watched the show because I felt like I had to — I watched every other one of NBC’s Thursday Night shows, so I had to watch Parks and Rec, too, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s in a contract somewhere. But this season, that show has consistently made me laugh more than any other show I watch.

And, y’all, I watch a lot of shows.

In other news, Community is awesome. It’s always been awesome. (I mean, it has Donald Glover is on it, and Donald Glover is just beyond.) I was sad, though, that they kept having shows where they were all fighting with each other. I mind-communicated with the writers of Community and told them that they need to have more shows where the gang works together and the characters don’t fight with each other, because those types of episodes make me way happier. So this week, they had a show where the gang didn’t fight. You’re welcome, general public. The writers of Community are clearly tuned into my mind’s wavelength, and that is clearly benefiting society as a whole.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Workout Inspiration: I Has None.

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I folded all of my clean laundry and put it away tonight. As I was stuffing my freshly folded clothes into my drawers and closet, I realized that I didn’t have to open my “workout clothes” drawer to put anything away because I haven’t utilized any workout clothes in… a while.

Apparently, Antigravity Yoga is known for it’s inspirational ability. Perhaps the reason that I’m not motivated is because I have yet to do any yoga whilst suspended from the ceiling?