Haiya Titanic era nini??

So today my client at work was telling me she had been given an assignment to do research on the Titanic - trust me she has watched the movie over and over...Speakign of which (some useless piece of info) it will be 100 years next year since the ship went down that they are doing a recreation of the actual Titanic and it will set forth on April 10th from Southampton, England to NY the same route the original one was goin....so anyhu I was thinking about it how things in the world economic order is changing the game of everything - well maybe its coz I saw a Payless store going out of business and I panicked for a minute there.I mean since I came to America gosh Circuit city begun the Domino effect, then Linens and Things, then MY FAVOURITE - Borders, the Bug-a-boo creek, then Blockbuster soon I mean gosh we are living in a Titanic era.I mean people and businesses are barely staying afloat.Then it hit me again to survive in this global economic order you cannot afford to live by the status quo.Think about it - when the Titanic was sinking - who was saved first the richest got the boats and the people in the lower class were locked up MJIPANGE lol.However in my opinion I also think some of the smartest people from the lower class survived - look at Jack (Leo) he immediately told Rose (Kate) lets go to the top of the ship when he saw it was going to sink and that bought them time.So to tie this whole little script in I think we are living in a time where you either have money or you have to be able to circumvent the way things are done or you sink.I dunno I can personally feel the pinch - my paychek has not increased but heck I spent 45 dollars to fill my gas tank and three - four years ago I spent 30 dollars - iincome has stayed the same and living expenses have hit the roof...so as my good friend Andy Mana would say Get Rich or Die tryin lol miss you Andz!!!

From Novice to Expert

So yesterday I was in the E.R - yet again...and in the process of driving to the ER in the hugest wheelchair van - my goodness those things are big I lost my mulika mwizi nokia phone - trust me its not even a 3310 its smaller than small.I did not have my charger for my samsung so I did a little swap for "in the meantime" and darn in a night my phone dissapears so am stranded until tommorrow - I will get new sim - oh boy all my contacts...so anyhu...there is a nursing theorist - Patricia Benner whose theory is on from the novice nurse to the expert nurse and it was funny in the ER I started remembering my first days in nursing school.My whole class and I - it was an assesment class had absolutely no idea what we were doing - when the instructor would say ok listen for lung sounds and we would hear nothing. not even that taking a blood pressure was torture - Korotkoffs sounds, systolic dyastolic so many terms.And so yesterday in the ER with a patient as I heard crackles in all his lung fields and gave report to his nurse and actually talked the lingo lol I remembered my novice beginning years when we would freak out when the instructor said "ok go in and assess your patient" and you gave the deer in the headlight look.Of course am nowhere near expert but am just glad that as I look back at the nursing journey it has been real - we were reminiscing with my friends on clinical days driving half an hour on a cold Sunday snowy morning, hustling on the train to Boston - going to Childrens hosi for pedi I mean it has been an amazing journey.Yeah so thats my spill for the day I just had a de ja vu moment.
Oh so I saw this quote outside the door to some ladies house by Albert schweitzer

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” ― Albert Schweitzer

The Moipei Quartet

Okay so if this is not beautiful music I do no know what is.The Moipei quartet - amazing voices kwanza the little one here is a link to one of their songs and another one as they practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F2q16bR9c....
Here is the other one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nq61yOiXXU&NR=1&feature=endscreen...
wow they have vocals that are off the charts...is that an english word???

All in a days / shift work

So Sunday night I had the ride of my life.First of all I picked a random shift after vowing that the next two weeks I am not picking a shift until school is out so I was like ok whatever its an eight p to eight cant be that bad I will go and sleep as usual and be ready for class the next day.My supervisor begged me to do it - said it was a neighbor of the owner of the company - apparently big money, lives in a huge mansion by the sea in MarbleHead and apparently my supervisor reckons "am good with families". So am like whatever will do it.Shock on me I get the text that the patient is in the hospital so it would be a night vigil.Am like ok stay positive Penny cant be that bad - though remembering my nights at Sunbridge am thinking oh boy...So anyhu night starts of well met the family as they were leaving - gave me a little run down of the patient bla bla bla showed me pics of the grand kids and great grand kids....She had her own private room - yeah big money but in my head am thinking yeah we can draw the curtain and catch a few zzz.I really hope I do not reach a point where I offer care to someone differently just because they are so and so or can pay for my college fund lol..So night starts fine hang out with Mrs X - names withehld for HIPAA privacy (sic) chat a bit ask her about her kids - she was on and off - abit uncomfortable basically I was doing the Florence Nightingale stuff - reposition, dry lips with vaseline etc..However she started getting very uncomfortable her face seemed to look pale so I called her nurse her pulse ox - was 85% saturation - you want it at least above 92% so big problems looming.Called respiratory they did an ABG - blood from her artery - very painful and there Mrs X was such a good sport - mind you she is in her 90s.I Was encouraging her, reminding her of her big cheering squad - her grandkids -racking my head to remember their names...Listened to her lungs - crackles all around - more looming problems, her edema in her feet was getting worse, her jugular vein was becoming distended,her abdomen was retaining fluid too - more problems looming.(read as Congestive Heart Failure.)So its one a.m all this is going on my sleep had started kicking in coz I have not done an overnight like that in a minute so he doc comes in and after a few pokes and prodes he determines she needs to go to the ICU...Okay You can do this Penny...so took down her pics on the wall, packed her stuff and off we went.By this time the family had been notified of the change of status - by the way had I mentioned some had flown in from Florida,Kansas so am like wow ok so now I have to deal with the family as well to add on to the mix...So off we went to the ICU - had to wait a while as they did they admission assesment In the waiting the family came in - I was in the waiting room.And they immediately run up to me asking me the tough questions that I honestly asked myself wow am I reallycut out for this?? "Do you think she will make it through the night?" "Will it be possible to take her home on oxygen maybe she pass away more peaceful?" In my head am thinking wow how do you look someone in the face and talk about the realities that they may loose their loved one .what answer can you give thats not a lie and thats not brutally gut wrenching honest.And just like a scripted E.R drama I was like "we cannot determine anything though I can tell you she really is a tough cookie." So anyhu into the ICU we went - its about 5am am like wow 3 more hours - yeah any idea of sleep at this point is out the window...However after like half an hour the family was like you know what Penny you have been so good to us and our mum we wiill stay you should leave and get some rest we have already paid for twelve hours though...so they insisted and I was like ok.told the family and Mrs X bye and trudged to my car and off to bed...- it was freezing.....so what should have been a quiet shift turned into quite a learning experience - I mean from a nursing student perspective - she had a bladder scan, IV lab draws, ABGs done, respiratory it was the full bang for your buck...and then of course it showed me a place in nursing that is my ultimate fear - death and dying.We actually had a class on Hospice care the day after - coincidence or what and the speaker was like not just anyone becomes a hospice nurse - there is that factor X which I do not know if I personally have it.Next day after passing out for a few hours - supervisor voice mail - family loved you they want you back as soon as possible but no really am on a two week hiatus until school is out...but hey will not mind hanging out at the mansion by the sea lol ;).

I hear and I forget.I see and I remember.I do and I understand.
-Confucus

Years that ask and Years that answer

Yeah so its been a while since I have popped into my blog (read as Public Health paper) Yeah the most dreaded part of nursing school - but come to think about it - the paper was not as bad as people say it is - I did TB in Lynn I am all sold out with TB stats mortality rate etc...but in general I loved the class - you know you go through nursing school - clinical after clinical asking mmhh which field do I really want to dive into and then bam you have your light bulb class - and for me Public Health sealed the deal...The professor is amazing Dr. Poremba you rock she has done amazing work in Vietnam, Honduras, DR.I mean class after class was just liek ok Penny you have found it - from watching videos on homelessness to a symposium from some guy who was in Haiti after the earthquake to Peru I just loved it loved it...so anyhu back to my topic - a few years back I stumbled upon a quote that stuck in my head - well just liek so many others and it was something like, "there are years that ask questions and there are years that answer them,"so today I met a friend I had not chatted with in a while and she tells me how she was going to My Brothers Table to volunteer which is a homeless shelter she serves food and how on Tuesdays she tutors kids at a homeless program and you know me I was like where have you bee girl you are my kinda person!!!..ok will tie this in later...So anyhu back to my line of thought...so I am hoping to get an internship for the Spring - crossing fingers its in global health... the interview was a self administered one - like you talk into your webcam as you answer the questions.And one of the questions I remember was about what volunteering have you done that is relevant to the work we do - and as I talked about working with the Girl child Network , volunteering at Thomas Barnados Home, AMREF etc... later I thought about it and was like wow 5 years ago at that time I would have no idea that the work I did then would impact my life now.I remember going to Barnados in the morning at eight when my friends in the hood - lol in the hood that sounds so barbie yeah well in the esto were catching the Daystar bus or going to Strathmore and I would think wow I cant wait to go to college...then with the sanitary towel campaign sittign at Nakumaat asking people to buy sanitary towels for the girl child in rural Kenya .Gosh and the mother of all walkign in the hot sun with going to primary schools in Eastleigh, Umoja etc getting sugnatures from school kids to make education in the developing world an agenda at the G20 summit..anyhu my point is now that I look back as I served those hot meals, got cut a couple of times slicing carrots, mopping a kitchen floor I look back and think wow those were my years that asked questions like what next for me?where to?is this my calling?? and then years such as the one I did the fellowship at MGH, just the other day over the interview they are years that are like showing you this is what you were preparing for...Things may not have made sense then but they sure as heck make sense now...It was a preparation of sorts for future callings...so anyway am getting carried away...so yah thats what I have come to conclude ove rthe last couple of weeks -oh also my very dear friend finally got accepted to Pharmacy school and a year or two ago she had been trying here trying there knocking on this door - volunteering as a pharm tech... no it even started way back at home working at her mums chemist - am sure then she would have no idea what was in store for her - you know things may not seem to make sense right now or it may look hazy up ahead but if you remain diligent stay the course as George Bush says stay the course....the sun will shine again and your questions will be answered.....Yeah so thats my re entry into the blogosphere its been a minute.....am busy practicing questions for my end term exam....wow tommorrow is my last clinical day Yipee I made it...so fingers crossed I get the internship - its unpaid but heck am in it for the experience more than anything....over and out.Queen pen....