All Dressed up and Somehwere to

We made the drive to San Antonio last week to go watch Star Wars and other Space Odysseys as played by the San Antonio symphony.  It was a lot of fun.  The music was beautiful and we sat close enough to see everything.  I love watching the musicians, it seems like they are having such a great time.  The violinists were amazing.  It made me want to practice more (-:  I have been neglecting my playing, the one thing I want to buy is a damper for the violin so I can play at night time without disturbing anyone.

I am wearing heels (-:

After the show we went downtown to San Antonio and found a great little cantina that had a quiet relaxed atmosphere and a band playing some jazzy blues music, my kind of place.  Surprisingly it wasn't all that crowded, apparently most of the young night crowd prefers loud music, where you have to shout to be heard.  I for the record hate things that are loud, for example:  Popping balloons still make me grit my teeth and I can hardly stand fireworks because of the noise.  

Being a night nurse is wonderful because I get to be stealthy and quiet or creepy depends how you look at it.  The lights get turned off at the nurses station and even when we talk to each other it is more on a whisper level (for the record, no we never sleep while on duty).  My nursing shoes are chosen because they don't squeak, my scrub colors are black and blue,  I carry my trusty pen light into patient rooms to do late night checks and IV medication hanging.  I have to say that nursing at night makes it challenging sometimes to get things done.  On one hand you want to make sure you are doing everything you are supposed to, on the other hand you have to try to let your patients get some quality uninterrupted sleep which is vital for healing.  When vital signs checks have to be done every four hours, oral medications being given last at 2100, IV meds and breathing treatments being given at all hours of the night, blood sugars at 0300 and lab draws that are at 0500, being a patient in the hospital means that you will most likely be getting little uninterrupted sleep.  At the same time, you have to remember that the hospital isn't holiday inn and if you weren't sick and didn't need close monitoring you wouldn't need to be there.  At some point or another most of us will need to be hospitalized, please make sure to take a second and thank your nurse.  I have a few suggestions for all of you who will someday be in the hospital. Keep in mind that you are not the only sick person your nurse is taking care of, understand that many of them don't get a lunch breaks or any other breaks during a 12 hour shift, forgoing them in order to take care of you, understand that missing holidays, birthdays, and important events is an unavoidable condition of our career.  Cut us a little slack, being in the hospital does not give you an opportunity to abandon common courtesy and basic human politeness.  Just some thoughts from me, sorry about the soap box.