"i love technology" (think Kip)

dang. i know where i will be on June 24th. apple just keeps one upping themselves. this is like super phone that you thought was never possible, except this is even better that i’d imagined. those guys at apple have a pretty sweet job.

i am a sucker. but man, don’t you just want to have that?

perspective

when we we were walking into costco last night i was looking at julie and we were talking, then out of the corner of my eye i saw what looked like a person with a giant baby head. like a full grown person but still with a baby head. i kind of kept talking to julie, thinking in my head '”whoa that is weird, i better look again” so i did and realized it was this… unfortunately he kind of moved the box by the time i could get my phone out (he had it perfectly aligned when i first saw him, but still, you get the idea. it’s funny how the brain can do so many things at once, but can alert you if one of those things you are thinking about/doing is a little off. summer in on here in dc. so are the tourists. holy cow. love the asian ones the most. they just go hand in hand, when i think tour, i think asians.

around here

It has been a fun springtime here in DC. Everything is so green here, I love it. Here’s a shotgun overview of what’s been happening around here.

Eastern Market is a great place to spend a Saturday morning. Not only is there really good breakfast, but all sorts fruit, vegetables, crafts, and random stuff. Lots of interesting people too. Pretty weird/amazing when you think about the fact that all of this stuff just randomly grows out of the ground or on a tree.

I surprised Julie and got some tickets to the Owl City concert. As you can probably tell by coming on my blog, we really like them (him). It was a really cool ensemble of guitars, keyboards, drums, xylophones, electronic, and even a cello and a violin. Quite a show in a really great venue just a block or so from the White House. 

We went to the Navy Yard (just a few blocks from our house) finally, where there is a really cool Naval museum and a decomissioned naval battle ship (not sure what it is called) it was cool to walk around the ship and go below the decks to imagine what life would be like on the ship. Bless those guys hearts, that would not be fun to be smashed into those little bunks and live on ship.

Julie Finally got to make her birthday strawberry pie thanks to a really nice person that sent her a supply of Danish Dessert (the xfactor in strawberry pie according to Julie). I gotta admit, it tasted as good as it looked.

And we finally made it to Arlington Cemetery. Pretty awe inspiring place. I’d say that’d be a pretty cool place to wake up on resurrection morning. We saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldiers and enjoyed a beautiful spring day as we walked around.

Pretty amazing view from the top of the hill there. Do you know the story of Arlington Cemetery? I didn’t really before I went. Google it.

That’s news from around here. We’re excited for a wicked awesome summer.

8,680

This is the number of steps that I took at work on Monday.  For nurses week we got these pedometers and I decided that I should see how many steps I take in one 12 hour day.  I did some calculating on the treadmill after I came home and figured out that I walked almost 4 miles!  Wow.

Also, many of you have asked what my day is typically like.  After working for two months I feel like I can give you a little taste of what those 8,680 steps encompasses.

Now, hopefully I don’t sound frustrated. This is literally how busy it can feel sometimes. You get moments of “how I am going to get everything done,” but you get through it.

5:20 get ready and eat breakfast

5:55 catch the train

6:20 catch the shuttle to the hospital

6:40 find the patient assignment list for the day, find a computer, look up the history on the kids, check orders, and the schedule of medications.

7:05 get report from the night nurse and peek in their rooms to say hello.

7:45 check in with your PCT (patient care technician) and give them report on your kids. Get a phone for the day.

8:00 check your meds; are they here for the day or do you have to start calling pharmacy early?

8:15 see your first patient. Assess them, get vital signs, bring 8am meds. Discuss plan of care with family.

8:30 second pt

9:00 go to “rounds” on the patient. (this is when doctors, nurses, pharmacist, nutrition, social work, etc) all sit down and talk about the patient. How are they doing, do we need to change something, and so on.

9:30 look for 10am meds. Get your meds out for the pyxis (locked chart with meds). Find someone to double check your narcotic pain med.

9:40 given 10am meds early to patient A. While you are in the room patient B calls saying they need their nurse now!

9:45 pick up patient B meds on the way. Find the right tubing to set up a new bag of IV fluid since the tubing in the room is expired. While you are doing this patient B calls again saying they need you.  Okay, I promise I am on my way.

9:50 you finally get to patient B room and the monitor tech calls saying that your patient in A (who is on cardiac monitoring) O2 saturation is down in 88%. Yikes! you run back into his/her room, but first you must don a gown, gloves, and mask because they have pneumonia.

10:00 Finally you give all your morning meds and no one is calling. Wait, you check the computer and there are new orders. Pt A will now need blood. But the resident put the orders in wrong so for the next 10 minutes you try to find them to change it.

10:10 You sit down at a computer to start charting. (Charting is our life. We chart vital signs, complete physical, pain score, skin assessment, nutrition. You also chart IV or central lines every hour. You chart education. You chart Intake and output. (And it is detailed. For example: You chart that your patient had a bm, what color it is, how loose it was…etc).

10:15 Patient C is now here and is ready for chemo. (Oh well, you got five minutes of charting in ). You get the orders from the doctor and find another nurse to go over them in detail, checking dates, doses, what time it will start. Is there something that has to be done before it starts? Is every order sheet signs by two doctors…

10:30 Patient A is screaming in pain. You call the resident and see if we can up the dose of pain meds. She agrees, orders it, and now you have to wait for the pharmacy to verify it before you can get it from the pyxis. You wait 5 minutes while listening to your patient still screaming. You call frustrated and finally you get it verified.

10:45 Patient C needs fluids, anti nausea meds etc before chemo.

11:00 Patient A now has a fever and is having increased respirations rates. She has sickle cell disease and this means blood cultures, labs, chest x-ray, and urine sample. The IV team comes to draw her blood because the patient has tiny veins. You set up all the supplies for him.

11:30 You call radiology and ask when they are coming to get your patient for the chest-xray. They say they don’t have anyone to come get her which means you take patient A down yourself. You ask your fellow nurse to listen for you other patients while you leave the floor.

12:00 The blood bank calls and says blood is ready. Great, right as you need to give noon meds and actually 11am meds that you missed for patient B since pt A’s fever was more critical. You get noon vital signs. Test the urine on patient C to see if we are okay to start chemo, give meds and finally get to blood bank.

12:30 Start blood. Try to chart on the computer on the room for your other patients so you aren’t totally behind. (You have stay in the room for the first 15 minutes to check for reactions to the blood anyways). Resident calls and asks why the patient doesn’t have any recorded output for patient B for the day yet. Are you kidding.  I haven’t even had a chance to sit down!

1:00 you sit down for lunch for about 20 minutes. 

You get the point. 

Obviously, not all days are this busy. But I would say many days are pretty similar; busy but manageable. Luckily, some days literally feel like I have been there for about 3 hours instead of 12 which is a huge blessing.

Hopefully this is some good insight into my life. peace.

here’s to moms

cheesy here we go. seriously though. here’s to my mom and kathy haslam (julie’s mom). two of the most incredible woman i will ever know. both are so incredibly christlike and are perfectly content with thinking of themselves last. they always put others first without even thinking about it. they are the ultimate examples of mothers as they are so loving, have great senses of humor (i think that was a must to raise 9 and 7 kids respectively), can cook like nobodies business, are incredibly smart and versed in the arts, are ALWAYS there when you need someone to talk to, have incredible testimonies of the savior…the list could go on forever. love and thanks to the two of you from your youngest son/son in law and youngest daughter/daughter in law.

2 years!

Well, it has been two years...wow. It's amazing how much more I love Julie today than I did yesterday. She is an amazing woman. These last few years have been an adventure and the best part about it is that is just keeps getting better. I know we've both had some "what the heck did I do?" moments, but those are quickly forgotten as we talk, laugh, experience life, debate, have fun, and grow together.

This is a little video I made for Julie for our anniversary. It's pics from our wedding day and then from year 2 of our marriage; which included a move across the country. You don't have to watch the whole thing, but mainly I just want you all to see/remember how beautiful Julie looked on our wedding day and how beautiful she is today! It has been a fun year!

Hey Lakers....

I hope you are ready for this...



and this...




it's time to put the fakers in their place. man it is going to be tough watching kobe. i cannot stand him. but it will be really fun seeing him lose, and seeing what kind of excuses he comes up with.

kingsley adventure

eli and i got to do a little dog-sitting this week

                  

our friends went on a little trip and when they mentioned babysitters kingsley requested us!.  and i must admit we did have a blast with him.  my family had a dog for a few years while i was little, but he went to live in colorado with some friends.  my sister was tired of chasing him all over the neighborhood since he knew how to jump the fence and would do so everyday.  he was meant for some more open land.  eli’s family had a dog for 13 years and so he was little more of an expert than i.  i must say i enjoyed joining the dog walkers’ life for a few days.  he cracked us up when he tried to make friends with dogs 4x his size and they were the ones to run away from him!  amazingly for two people out of practice, we only had one fiasco.  the first day we came over to visit he was chewing through the couch cushion. needless to say we did not want to be responsible for a destroyed sofa and decided to place the couch on the the kitchen table (wish i had taken a picture) and poor kingsley was forced to sleep on the floor.  we hope he will still be friends with us…

                                                                                    

Can I get you anything?

So I haven't really said much about my new job. So far it certainly feels like a whirlwind. First of all, I really do enjoy what I do. I can't say that I love it yet. But I am sure I will someday. Everyday it gets better and better.

Before I started working I understood some of what I was going to do-I knew it would be challenging and very hard. But I don't think I could ever anticipate how much responsibility I feel every time I step into the hospital; Sometimes I think I literally I can feel a pound of bricks sitting on my chest. People put their lives in my hands everyday and I feel that weight. Most of the time I am glad I feel like that; the last thing I want to do is get casual. But other days I think my mind is going to break from thinking and concentrating for 12 hours straight. I really am learning what I am made of and how to persevere.

Speaking of persevering. I have met a variety of families who really understand what it is to persevere way more than my tiny stresses in life. I took care of this family last week who child has cancer and yet I think this mom is the nicest lady I have met. At one point I was in the room setting up some medications on the pump and she was headed downstairs to get something from the cafeteria. She asked her daughter and the grandpa what they needed and then looked at me and said "can I get you anything?"

I honestly was speechless. I was thinking-you have a young child who has a serious life illness, a family at home, and I am sure many many other stresses and you are asking me what you can get for me! I wanted to sit her down at that moment, tell her to relax, and let me get her something!

Can you imagine having that attitude when you have a very young, beautiful, and very sweet child who has a very serious kind of cancer? I honestly think the families with these attitudes must be getting strength from somewhere, something, or someone outside themselves because I don't think we as human beings are be able to cope with an event like this by ourselves.

springness

yo. it is springtime here in dc and it is so incredibly beautiful. after the crazy snow/ice and nasty winter, we forgot how incredibly green this place is. something about going outside and feeling warmth as you brace for the cold is just nice. we’ve been having fun trying to enjoy as much time as we can outside. there was the cherry blossom festival which was so beautiful, but so incredibly crowded as it happened to occur during spring break so it was dc people and tourist central. what a cool gift from the japanese people though, it is quite a phenomenon to just see white blossoms everywhere you look.

the nats are back. the season started (i am talking about the washington national baseball in case you’re lost). it is fun to have the crowds walking through our neighborhood as they head to the stadium, and hearing the roar of the stadium. hopefully they’ll pick it up this year with some new pitching and some pretty good players. we went and saw them play the red sox in the final exhibition game (i think the begged boston to come and play as they new it would bring a lot of people). sure enough, the park was sold out and sadly like 60% of the fans were decked out in red sox garb. i felt bad for the nats, so i left my red sox stuff home and wore my nats cap.

things are going good around here. it’s going to be a fun spring/summer. come and visit!

this little guy was so awesome. he was taking a picture and so I made Julie run over and act like i was taking a picture of her so i could get a picture of him. it ended up looking even cooler as it looks like he is just taking a REALLY close up picture of julie.

nats vs. red sox

nothing like the green grass a the ball park to bring in the spring. get out and enjoy spring! oh, and pray for fesenko and koufus to turn into superstars by tomorrow night. read about julie’s bday below.

24skis

I’m a bit late getting to this. But Julie had an awesome birthday. It included breakfast at a little diner on Capitol Hill, some presents, and the traditional fajita dinner (Julie’s mom made her fajitas on her bday every year since she can remember so I am doing my best to keep the tradition alive. Julie usually makes herself a strawberry pie (I can’t even help with that part…it is her thing), but she couldn’t find any Danish Dessert (which apparently is THE only option), so she made a raspberry cheesecake instead which was pretty tasty. The funniest part of the day was when I gave her her presents. I was looking for a box out in the recycling and I found a laptop computer box that someone had just thrown away. So I put Julie’s presents inside of it to throw her off. It was still too light, so I wrapped my laptop up and put it inside so it weighed just right. Anyway, she got really confused and then the look like “why in the world would would you buy this” she finally figured out that is was actually my computer and then found her presents below in the box. Julie is really fun to try to trick, not sure how much she likes it, but I get a kick out of it.

note the confused look.

Julie rocks. She is just an amazing girl. Those kids at the hospital are so lucky to have the world’s best nurse at their service. I can already tell that she is making their lives brighter every day. I wish I could be a fly on the wall and watch her work her magic. I will have to dress up like a doctor or even better, a male nurse someday and shadow her. Julie makes me so happy. She’s willing to push herself and try new things and learn. I love that so much about her.  I am lucky to call her my wife. Happy Birthday again Julie!

who was this kid?

Being married to someone is such a funny thing.  You meet, decide that you actually want to be together forever, and then start this new life.  But, what about all those years before you met?  Today I started looking through Eyre pictures and found this little guy.  So many things I recognize like how he likes to play with his ears. Or how his eyes get slightly squinty when he smiles.  Or how he gets mad when people try to feed him (just kidding, i really don’t know if he likes that or not). But there are so many things I would love ask. Like, what is that kid thinking as he he throwing a fit on his moms lap(and how is that mom still smiling)?  What is he going to do with hammer?!? What does it feel like to have your eye swollen shut?  Obviously, I’ll never know that two year old or have him answer these questions, but it sure is fun to see him and a little of his personality captured.

sakura – japanese for cherry blossom

Gotta love the people of Japan. They gave these trees to the US in 1912 and they’ve become quite the attraction. This past week in DC has been absolutely gorgeous. Everywhere you look, something is blooming. More pictures to come soon, I just wanted to give you a little preview. The crazy winter we had here in DC has made me appreciate springtime more than ever. The warmth, the blossoms, the green, baseball (Pres. Obama is throwing out the first pitch at Nats Park in about an hour, I can hear the bustle outside as the crowds make their way in), we went to see the Nats play the Red Sox on Saturday (the final exhibition game). You can’t beat a baseball game on a sunny spring afternoon. It is supposed to be 88 here tomorrow!

Vieques y Culebra – we like

Well, now that we’ve been back a few weeks…going back through these photos was my escape back to these little islands. Island life is amazing, it doesn’t matter if you are in Hawaii or these little islands off the coast of Puerto Rico, there is just something in the air that makes people happier. They just have a different perspective on life. On these little islands where there are no resorts, or even hotels to speak of…just guesthouses and the homes of the locals. There is an absence of materialism, they have a roof over their head, some sort of livelihood that keeps food in their cupboards, but beyond that they have these incredibly pristine beaches to themselves. Vieques has a population of about 10,000 and Culebra about 2,000. Both islands in some sense were controlled by the US Navy until fairly recently – which has allowed them to stay rather secret and pristine. We found ourselves exploring from one beach to the next, whether it was bushwacking, cruising along on a little scooter, or a beat up old Suzuki 4x4 and as we arrived on these beaches we were either alone, or you could count the people on them with your two hands (10 or less). Then there’s the whole feeling of just sitting there, surrounded by this incredible beauty and thinking how incredible the Creator is. I mean, look at these beaches, we just kind of wandered from one to the next.

The little port we rode in to on the ferry on Vieques.

Sun Bay on Vieques. You walk onto this beach, and you know you’re officially in the Caribbean.

On to the next beach, crystal clear and calm.

Black sand (well, kind of half black sand)

In Esperanza, the little tiny town on the island we found these awesome pastries for breakfast each day. Below is the bay in Esperanza with a little row of tasty restaurants right on the water.

We read that there was a relatively small number of rental cars that were hard to come by unless you reserved in advance. We thought we’d take our chances, should have listened to what we read as no cars were available. After walking and bushwacking from beach to beach the first day (on the way back to our guesthouse one of the days, these two nice teenage looking girls pull over on the dirt road connecting the beaches and offered a ride, in Spanish first then after the confusion on my face, she looked and said “ride?” so we jumped in their car and said Esperanza, and they nodded, then pumped up the Puerto Rican Rap and took off. We quickly noticed that the girl in the passenger seat had a 24 bottle box of Heineken in her lap, most of which were empty. Her and the girl driving both had an open one they were drinking with one hand, and a cigarette in the other. It was awesome. We crossed our fingers and luckily we made it back to town in one piece). Anyway, as we were walking back to the beach closest to Esperanza, we noticed some scooters sitting outside of a little shack. We asked the guy about them, and ended up getting a deal on renting one for the day, and going on a kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay that night and some snorkel gear. So we jumped on and rode all over the island. Which would explain why Julie is wearing a helmet in the picture above.

We went to the Bioluminescent Bay that night. It was one of the most incredible/bazaar things we have experienced. We went to the bay before the moon rose, so it was really dark…we got in kayaks and went out into the bay. Anytime that you moved your oar, or there was any movement in the water, these little micro-organisms light up. The best was to describe it was magic pixie dust. An amazing phenomenon. We jumped in at the end, and as you moved your limbs around, you would just start glowing. So crazy. Our tour guide asked us not to take pictures, so here is one I found on the internet.

 

We rode to the other side of the island which was more heavily wooded, including this tree that was supposedly hundreds of years old. This was also where a lot of the navy stuff was, including tons of these hidden artillery storage units from WWII.

And of course more insanely beautiful beaches.

After a couple of days on Vieques, we rode the ferry back to the mainland, and then jumped on another one that was headed for Culebra. Culebra is home to Playa Flamenca, probably the most beautiful beach you’ll ever see. According to some travel magazines, it is one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world. Literally a mile long half moon with the most beautiful blue water and powder white sand. The best part, you could camp right there on the beach. We brought along our tent (thanks to Shawni and Dave (wedding present)) and camped there for three nights. It was our first time camping together, and all things considered it was quite nice. We rotated nights on who got to sleep on the blow up pool floatie that Julie smartly bought (they one had one), so the other one got have numb hip (sleeping on your side when it is kind of hard and your hip goes numb). This beach was incredible though, pictures won’t do it justice. But I will try.

This is an old military tank that has strangely become one of the icons on the beach. It was a pretty cool sight.

Our little camp site.

A little hike to the other side of the island was Carlos Rosario Beach which had some some beautiful coral reefs and lot of fish – and even some mine that you could see down deeper. The lonely planet book said some of them are still live, so we opted not to go down and see if that was the case.

This is that laid back island mentality I was telling you about.   

From atop the island you can see all of the little islands surrounding Culebra and St. Thomas in the distance.

Playa Zoni on the other side of the island. 

Julie enjoying her Pina Colada at Playa Flamenco. Something she had been talking about doing constantly, and what helped her survive the big huge snowstorms that came through here…she just kept saying “in X days, I will be drinking a pina colada at Flamenco Beach”

It was quite hard to leave these islands and come back to reality. Hopefully you got a little taste of the beauty though. Wow! Take a trip down there, it is awesome! We went back to the mainland and spent some time in El Yunque tropical rainforest. We hiked down to a waterfall. It was pretty amazing to be on the beach on Culebra in the morning, and then in this dense rainforest hours later.

  

To make it a little easier coming home, the weather here in DC has been Beautiful. The cherry blossoms are on their way. We went for a walk today and enjoyed the spring beauty (and encountered plenty of protestors with the healthcare vote taking place). Spring rules.