Thursday, January 24, 2019

oh snap!

I keep coming to my blog to look up a post to link to someone and find I have never posted that story at all!

 You all should be mad I'm short sheeting you!

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Doing drugs

Years ago two Certified Medication Aides were allowed to destroy narcotics that were discontinued or left over from residents who passed away.

The nursing homes would have a locked cabinet of narcotics that needed to be destroyed. When it got full the RN would let us know by poking her head in the med room and asking, "Who wants to do drugs?"

After a while it came down from the state board of nursing that it had to be a licensed nurse or a pharmacist who was the second person.

I was usually chosen as I was working in med records and on the floor, so I was available.

My favorite time was when the head pharmacist came over and he as I sat for 6+ hours logging and destroying a HUGE stock pile a recently fired director of nurses had let pile up in her office.

When it came time for the vials of morphine, we dumped them on the table, and used syringes to empty them and squirt them in the bucket. It was a pile of over 360 vials.

It was endless, snapping the lid off with your thumb, sticking the vial, sucking the contents out, squirting it into the bucket.

We settled into a quiet rhythm as we churned through the pile.

snap...stick...suck...squirt...
snap...stick...suck...squirt...
snap...stick...suck...squirt...

On about vial 100 my thumb was KILLING me.

I looked over at Dennis and commented. "My thumb is hurting."

He chuckled. "Mine too."

snap...stick...suck...squirt...
snap...stick...suck...STICK...squirt...

We had both gone for the bucket at the same time and Dennis had stuck me in the base of my thumb and injected me with some of the contents.

His face paled as his mouth opened and silently mouthed SHHHHIIIIIIIITTTTTTT!!!!!

"well" I said quietly, "on the bright side my thumb won't be hurting anymore."

"That's not funny." he commented and then regained his professional composure, "Are you allergic to morphine?"

"We are about to find out." I said with a straight face and then dissolved into hysterical giggles.

He joined me and we laughed until our sides hurt. Then returned to our task with no further mention of the incident.

snap...stick...suck...squirt...
snap...stick...suck...squirt...
snap...stick...suck...squirt...

The memory laid in my mind forgotten for many years until I was in labor with my son and the Doctor decided to give me morphine for the pain.

"Have you had morphine before? Do you know if you are allergic to morphine?" she asked.

The memory resurfaced instantly and I started laughing. "yes, I had it before and no I am not allergic."

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

5 mg

No I am not churning out a bazillion blogs in a manic induced high. I took a night off work so I could write and empty out my writers bucket that has been over flowing with ideas.

Last September my rheumatologist scared me by reminding me of the dangerous side effects that go along with long term prednisone use.

So I dropped my dose down to 2.5 mg. Which eliminated some side effects and made my life hellish as the pain came back.

Work was harder, everything was harder to accomplish.

This month we re-ran labs and of course they are all off. I simply must be on prednisone to treat my polymyositis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Three days back on 5 mg and my pain is under control and I can function again.

There is no going back. I need medication to go forward and function within the limitations of my illnesses.

5 mg is the lowest effective dose. I am at peace with that. I won't be decreasing it again.

It kinda reminds me of when the check engine light came on in my car Hellfire. I simply put tape over the light and ignored it.

Taking that pill is putting tape over the flashing "You've got a incurable chronic illness" light on my dash board.

I  can live with that for now. Or more accurately, I can live better with that for now.

the 8th of December, I do remember

So in November I got the idea to put my rose story to the ultimate test.

Original story here.

Decided to push the issue with the universe and challenge this weird phenomenon in my life.

 Heh, yeah I wanted the universe to dazzle me.

So I did this last November

Shave and a hair cut

My hack job was severe and I was sure there would be no more 8th of December roses.

Turns out I worked the night of Dec 7th. Arrived at work to find a new resident. My shift took a strange turn as the high medical care of this woman consumed my night.

I'm pretty good at recognizing when the universe is trying to teach me something, so I was all ears on this one.  Its a strange thing to be conscious of your life being affected and changed by the situation at hand.

As the night mulled on I kept thinking....is this linked to the 8th? I thought long that night about maybe it was time to stop grieving. To allow this day to pass without recalling the pain and destruction is brought.

In a heart beat, a 911 call and a flurry of firemen and paramedics, I sent the new resident back to the ER ….solely on my gut telling me something was wrong.  25 minutes later the ER called to let me know the resident had died.

That morning as I went to clock out a woman was sitting in the lobby. I stopped to smile at her and ask if she needed any help.

I went home and went straight to the bushes.

No rose.

Everything washed over me and I sighed deeply. I raise my head to the warm sun and let the night tension flow out of me.

Yes.

At long last I can let this day pass.

Bounding forward a week to the work in-service, the big boss stood up and said, "I'ld like to introduce the new night shift worker." She pointed to a woman. The same woman I had seen that morning. "She came in and sat in our lobby before applying.  She liked what she saw and decided to work here."

My stomach did a flip flop at this point as my spider senses tingled...are you serious universe? Did you give me my …..

"Her name is Rose."

...8th of December rose after all?

I exhale and silent whisper...wow.

Dazzle away you wonderful universe, you've got my attention!

Print run 2018


I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in December and did a few things I don't normally do. After wrestling with the anxiety and social awkwardness..it wasn't too bad. In fact, it was fun. Running on that high, I got in t he mood to do a print run of my books. Now that turned out to be sooo much fun that I look forward to doing it again!

I picked the ones I wanted to print and ran 20 copies of each. Twelve tittles total with a few that I ran special in sets of five.

All printed and ready to cut and bind.
Ran a special colored copy of Rainbow Flip. First ever colored print run! That was pretty exciting seeing that come off the copier.
It was dreamy to see my art work and images of youth and fun, and play.
To remember a time when I daydreamed of a time every kid would have my books on their shelves. Sweet dreams of quietly working in my shop like an elf and handmaking books for everyone.

Cut and ready to assemble.
I have learned  much over the years with doing multiple runs. One being that all my books are 8 x 8 .... Now...but not back then. LOL The old masters are all sorts of sizes and its a real pain in the buns to have to pay attention to the sizes as you cut them.

I should mention that I chose to cut/bind the colored copy first and proceeded to make every error in that process. Mangled the first two books so bad I had to reprint and start from scratch. Which made me heehaw with laughter.


First set done and in the box.

Two down

I stopped to have my son shoot a few pictures of me working so I could look back. I'm binding here. That machine was the best thing for my books ever. 

Its like yoga or meditating for me the rhythm of cut-sort-punch-bind is relaxing and hypnotic.



I still do the back covers by hand. Each and every one. I at one point looked into getting a stamp to do that bit, but, it felt cheap to stamp hand made vs hand writing "hand made."
Cutting, sooo much cutting. Relaxing also.




Box is filling up.
Continuing the tradition of throwing in custom backs everyone in a while. Always thinking ahead and dreaming of the day my books are fought over by collectors and the rare custom backs are high money bringers at auctions.


Discovered something new, as I have never printed this many books at once. If I back 60 to 100 books at one time I get high from the pen fumes. gaahhh…...head ache. LOL
Fuller.
wait are we all most done? I'm not ready to be done yet.

Casualty of backing books. RIP my hand. Maybe I DO need a stamp after all LOL.

darn it only two left.
That's twenty set of books to give away to twenty kids.

Blackberry War Paint.
Oh, Bonnie and Todd...the two original kids who started my book empire.
I started stamping and numbering the books a while ago. As I started stamping this run I hit number 1000 after like the 3 book. It was a moment of reflection. A long journey. I tossed the counter into the trash and ended this practice. It just felt like time.

Thing have dropped off the printing process all along. This run I changed a few things, refined them....and FINALLY after forEVER  called its quits to writing the tittle: A very boring Tuesday afternoon on each copy of that book and renamed it Tuesday.  bwhahahahhaha! Wish I had thought of that years ago!!

I also ran that one you see on the top. First time its ever been printed! It was fun to run a few special copies of books that I don't regularly print.


I want to do more. Heck I want to write/illustrate some new books. It feels good to create again.

Night break

(a short bedtime story from the forest)

She raised her head and softly asked, "Does the darkness of the forest go on forever?"

"No." I replied and kissed her forehead. "It does not."

"We will eventually find the edge and the sunlight?" her eyes reaching out, pleading, needing an answer.

"No." I say again, curling up in the nest of fern leaves. "We learn to bring the sunlight into the forest."




Saturday, January 5, 2019

VICTORY!!


OMG! ARE PUTTING YOUR BOOBS ON THE INTERNET AGAIN?!

Well technically, just a boob. LOL!

Thursday, January 3, 2019

sobering fact

Went looking for a post yesterday and plugged in "pain" as the key word to search...and 203 posts came up.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaayammmmmmmmmmmmmm

203/503 of my posts have the word pain in it.

Guess pain is my muse?  No guessing about it, I've known that for years.

gack…

I need a new muse.


Wednesday, January 2, 2019

2019 pain scale

Rheumatology Nurse: On a scale of 1 to 10 what is your pain level today?

me: 82

RN: *looks up from the computer*

me: no really, I added it up for you. 


RN: 

me: your pain scale doesn't go high enough.