Good morning!

I just got home from work again and this time I don‘t have to go back tonight…but I can’t go to bed until I get to Florida. Well, I could…but I’d miss my flight. I haven’t packed yet, but as soon as I’m done with this post, I’ll do that. My flight leaves at 1:10 (at least they’re saying that’s when it will leave, who knows when the stupid plane will really take off? For someone who worked all night on 3 ½ hours sleep, I’m not as tired as I should be. I’m sure it’ll hit me eventually…maybe I can finally sleep on a plane.

Speaking of sleep…JQ had a thought regarding my sleeping habits:

"...Meg, have you tried Melatonin, warm milk, soft music, as alternatives to Xanax? Isn't Xanax a bit of an overkill as a sleep aid? And caffeine can be very damaging to your sleep cycle too..."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL…sorry Aunt Bea…warm milk just won’t cut it. I take the Xanax for anxiety, not for sleep. I may mention that I take a Xanax, but I rarely take it specifically to fall asleep. One of them doesn’t make me tired anyway…if it did, I wouldn’t be able to take it every day. Two will make me fall asleep so if I’m having a particularly difficult time dozing off…I will take a couple of them. I’d ask the doc for sleeping pills but they say that you shouldn’t take them for more than a few weeks…so, after the couple of weeks, what do I do? This has been going on for years.

As for the caffeine…I don’t worry about that too much. In the past 10 years I’ve had gall bladder surgery, brain surgery, a benign tumor removed from my breast, two major cancer surgeries and one round of radiation. I’m pretty sure that I’m missing something…but that’s a pretty good list by itself. I was given 50/50 chance of surviving one year and a 50/50 chance of surviving 5 years.

Somehow I’ve survived a bunch of stuff that I thought would kill me. I was pretty much at my sickest (sicker than I had EVER been before, I mean sick, sick and more sick.) when Rick left me with all of the bills, no car, no way to get groceries or go to the doctor no income…I KNEW I wasn’t going to survive that. But…here I am…and I’m not gonna begrudge myself some caffeine. Seriously, I do only drink coffee once during most days. I may have a few cups of the stuff, but I don’t sit around drinking it after my morning cup(s) of coffee. Sometimes it’s only one cup, sometimes it’s more.

"...Meg, we've talked, I've nagged, about the dangers of shift work. Don't make me post my pictures and level 1 trauma visit story. Shift work, sleep deprivation, etc. can be very dangerous..."

Dude…I’m a nurse, what choice do I have? I’ve been a nurse for longer than I care to admit. And for the most part…it’s always been shift work. I did some home health but that job had me driving all over hell and Creation. That was nerve wracking in itself. And, even when I’m working in administration or the OR…I get to work daylight and Monday through Friday. I don’t like it. On my days off, I’m not home alone, there are people around me. When I go to the grocery store on the weekends like a normal person, everybody else in the world is there too.

So, do you have any suggestions? How does a nurse get a job without working shifts? LOLOLOL…those kinds of jobs are gotten by luck or by being in the right place at the right time.

"...I'm afraid to ask, do you wear your seat belts?..."

Duh…do you think that I’m a moron or something like that? Of course I do. They saved my life once almost 30 years ago.

I was out dancing and my date began acting a fool (the beer did it) so I started walking down the street to my mom’s but the fool pulled up next to me and said that he was sorry and yadda, yadda, yadda. So, like a fool, I got in the car. By the time we got a couple of miles down the road, he started acting up again and when we were on the acceleration ramp that lead to an interstate spur, I wisely buckled up.

I ended up breaking my back in that accident but didn’t know it for 6 months. The idiot tried to make a lateral move onto the interstate and when he did, he blew both driver’s side tires, making the car roll down the highway. It rolled onto the median and into a bush. They pulled me out through the windshield because the car came to a rest on the passenger side. Every window on that car was busted out. The rolling and bouncing left my back with a compression fracture of the T-11.

Anyway, when I got to the emergency room, they asked me if “anything hurts”. I said that, “Yes, everything hurts.” They said, “That’s to be expected.” and then sent me home. Months later, my back was still hurting so I went to the doctor who asked me, “How’d you break your back?” I didn’t know that I had.

By that time, it was too late to prove that it happened in the wreck so I couldn’t sue. That was a bitch because my back still hurts in the same spot to this day when I do any amount of physical labor…which nurses tend to do. To make matters worse, that was before the country came down so hard on drunk drivers…this guy didn’t get so much as a speeding ticket…nothing. I was stunned.

So, to answer your question, “Yes…I most certainly DO wear seat belts. BUT…I’ve seen people whose lives were saved because they WEREN’T wearing one…go figure.

OK then, I guess that pretty much answers all of the concerns that JQ had. Is there anything else that I can explain to you right now, buddy. Let me know if I’ve passed the test so I know whether or not I need to study you some more.


OK, I’m going to pack now so that I can get up and leave.

UH OH!!! I’m getting tired now.

OMG!!! I just drifted off with my chin resting on my hand and the drool going down my arm is what woke me up. I have GOT to get up and start moving again!

Meg


I can't fix this post...I will when I get to Florida unless I have a moment before I leave...see ya!