Big. Green. Flat. Friendly. Proud. TEXAS.

From the moment I set foot foot in Austin I realized that Texas had several defining characteristics: it is big, green, flat, and friendly. 

Oh and covered in water towers. Seriously, driving through the country side I couldn't stop taking pictures of them. I've never seen anything like it.

And the Texan flags and stars are EVERYWHERE. I haven't seen a people who loves their land this much since ISREAL. (On a side note, I learned that Texas was briefly it's own country in the 1800's, they then entered into the union on a treaty that made several stipulations... and that's why they can fly their flag at the same height as the American flag.) 

{Greg and Sarah and Delicious food}

Anyway, Dan had a three day pass from FT Hood for Easter Weekend so I flew out to Austin. We had a really awesome weekend meeting up with one of Dan's good friends that he meet back in his initial army training, Greg, and his cute wife Sarah. They're both native Texans and definitely showed us some wonderful southern hospitality. 

They took us to awesome restaurants where I ate my body weight in fried food and blue bell ice cream. 

They got us tickets to an Old 97's show (a classic alternative country band), in a really sweet outdoor amphitheater. 

{Here we are in our easter finest before leaving the hotel. Dan got extra electric toothbrush heads from the Easter Bunny, hence the toothbrushes presence}

{This picture of the dessert table is the only picture I took while with Sarah's family A) because I really love dessert and B) I thought it might be creepy to snap pictures of people I just met while they try to enjoy easter}

And best of all, Sarah shared her family with us. We got to go to their family's weekly happy hour at her sisters gorgeous home and then on Easter Sunday they took us with them to their big celebration at a family winery. It was so beautiful, and every one of her 50 family members welcomed us with a hug, which I'm learning to appreciate (Bensons don't hug, ever, under any circumstances). 

On the way back from Sarah's sisters house we got pulled over in our rental car, Dan was driving and admittedly going to fast on a farm road. The cop went back to his car, wrote us up a ticket, then asked for a good phone number from Dan. Dan gave him his phone number but warned him it would only work for the next few days. "Where are you going, son?" The officer asked. "I'm going to be in Afghanistan." The officer suddenly seemed super sad, "Are you in the service?" He asked. Dan replied that yes, he is in the army. "Oh man, I wish would have told me that earlier and this whole thing would've gone different. Now that I've written the ticket, I can't take it back, but I wish I could." Dan assured him it was okay, that the ticket was justified, we were in the wrong - no worries, I'd pay the ticket by mail in 5 days for him. We went on our merry way when 30 minutes later Dan's phone rings. He was driving so I answered it. "Ma'am, this is the officer who pulled your husband over earlier. I got it worked out and I need you to rip up that ticket. Do not attempt to pay it, it does not exist. Ya'll have a good Easter and thank your husband for his service." I mean, if I wasn't already head over heels for Texas, that sealed the deal. 

Additionally, our hotel (which I booked for a steal on Hotwire) was gorgeous and modern and a 5 min drive from my mall nirvana: a Lululemon, Nordstrom, Madewell, J crew, and Sephora all in one spot!!!! Things could not get any better. 

It was hard dropping dan back off at ft hood, many a tear was shed. But driving back to Austin, surrounded by big sky and water towers I felt nothing but love toward and from the Lone Star State. Everything is bigger and better in TEXAS. 

You're a what? A scribe. Yes, that's a thing.

I'm a Scribe. That is literally my job title. I thought "scribing" had gone out when people stopped writing on stone tablets, but apparently its not so. In the ER, the doctors hire mostly young pre-med guys to be their scribes. Basically we follow our doctor around and do charting during the exam, put in lab/radiology orders, write up prescriptions, discharge orders, etc. Basically we do whatever the doctor wants us to do. To this point, my dad, who I scribe for, refers to me as "minion." I've only been at this for 2 months, but I've already come to some interesting conclusions:

1) People cannot use a pain scale
When presenting in the ER, I'm supposed to ask patients to rate their pain on a scale of 1-10. This is a total joke. A patient who we later found to have absolutely nothing wrong with, other than being whinny, rated her pain at "at least 1000! I mean on a scale of 1-10, I'm at a 1,000 right now!" A 20 year old young man whose wife had mysterious abrasions on her face that appeared out of nowhere (alien abduction?) rated his wife's present level of consciousness at a "definitely a -2, on a scale of 1-10." A patient that we found had a kidney stone blocking his ureter for so long that it basically blew up his kidney, he rated his pain at a 3. A lady who broke her freaking femur in half, she said it was "probably a 6, well maybe thats too high, how about a 5?" You can see why its very important I have them use this scale.

2) Don't come in to the ER already knowing what you want
There are many red flags on a chart that signal that this patient is going to be a nightmare. The best diagnostic tool i've found however, for determining how awful someone is going to be, is if they come in knowing what they want. Perhaps my least favorite patient of all time came in demanding "I'm going to need 4mg Dilaudid (narcotic pain killer, basically morphine on steroids) and then you are going to take my gallbladder out. I'm not leaving until you do!" Seriously, if you already know how much Dilaudid you want, please go away, now.

3) Colorado City is a case study in how wrong things can go
I think most people who grew up and St. George can tell you how wrong things are in Colorado City. Besides being polygamists, the culture seems to give rise to a society of abuse. The abuse is really really sad and leads to many awful neglect cases in the ER, but there's another interesting phenomena that comes from our wayward fundamentalist cousins: genetic disorders. Apparently if you keep marrying your first cousins, strange things happen. I've worked in the ER for 8 weeks and already have seen some of the rarest genetic disorders in the world. Its super sad, but for my morbid fascination, super interesting. If I was smarter than I am, I would be a geneticist. One little tweak of one little genome and all hell breaks lose... Anyway.

4) You have to have thick skin
You have to have thick skin to work in the ER and not get your feelings hurt. Not by patients, (they save their hate for the nurses I think) but by your co-workers. I don't know if this is a phenomenon unique to the ER, or just to our ER, but seriously, people go for the jugular:

"So you're 25 and living with your parents? That must be AWFUL!"
"Are you living back in your same room from high school? Hahahaha."
"Does your mom do your laundry?"
"You must be literally bored out for your mind every weekend, must suck to be alone like that."
This is but a small sampling, but you get the gist. Or the time I wore this rather bright blouse to work:

I swear, every doctor, surgeon, nurse, phlebotomist, tech, patient, EMT, or police officer who saw it had something to say:
"Oh my gosh! I'm blind! I'm blind!"
"You know, you don't have to glow in the dark to work the night shift."
"Are you so fluorescent so your dad can find you, even from miles away?"


5) I love my job
I've highlighted some of the less attractive aspects, but overall, I seriously love my job. It is by far the best I've ever had. I get to work with my dad, which is awesome, since I've always though he was the coolest guy ever. He's really great at teaching me why he does what he does, points out thing for me to learn on EKGs or MRI's, and answers all my probably annoying questions. I've learned so much about medicine that will hopefully help me out in the future. And though they can be mean, there are a lot of fun people we work with. I'm sure I will soon have more awesome stories to add in the future. My scribing has just begun!

Happiness= Reality-Expectations

I have returned to the world of blogging! Ostensibly because Dan is gone for an extended period of time on military assignment and this is a good way for him to see what I'm up to whenever he has a free minute, regardless of his time zone. But also just because I missed writing and sharing and connecting. Part of the reason I stopped blogging in the first place is because I was, well, not incredibly psyched to share my increasing less glamorous existence. But then I read an interesting article (sent to me by my mother on Facebook) that argued that part of the reason there is so much unhappiness amongst my generation is because of "imaging crafting". You know, utilizing Facebook/blogs/Instagram to present a perfect life (which isn't reality) which in turn makes other people unhappy at how imperfect their life is in comparison to your (fake) perfect life.

{Yup, Im living in my old bedroom. But with a cool new ram's head. Thanks Mom!}

 So let me unimage craft my life: I'm living in my parents basement. It makes sense in so many ways: I don't have to be living alone while Dan is gone, I feel much safer/happier this way, we're saving a ton of money, I work with my dad and can thus carpool, I really love my family and would prefer if we could all live together permanently in a commune... And yet - I was tempted to get my own place simply so I wouldn't have to face the stigma of telling people that I am a twenty five year old that lives with my parents. I was seriously considering being miserable and alone in some one bedroom apartment in dixie downs in order to avoid embarrassment.  But the article, coupled with this quote I found on evil Pinterest, inspired me:

I'm trying to be much more concerned with creating a life that feels good on the inside, not looks good on the outside. And do you know what feels good on the inside? Living at home while Dan's gone. So there it is. A small sampling of what I've been loving while living at home:

1) I will never stop thinking Southern Utah is the most beautiful place on earth. Zion NP is 45 minutes away. Hiking "Observation Point" followed quickly by eating at Oscar's is basically Nirvana.

2) I get to be home for such important events as my childhood dog, Cedric's, 14th birthday party! I mean really though. 

3) I'm this little sister's sunday school teacher. I'm sure Katheryn just looooves having me harangue her and the other 16 year olds in the ward into coming to my class every week. Not to mention the new "Come Follow Me" manual has very little guidance, so I'm basically just up there free basing every Sunday.   Figuring out how to make five really interesting lessons on the atonement without resorting to color pages isn't really my forte...I was apprehensive at first, I had the sunbeam teaching thing down, but I actually really being a big kid sunday school teacher after all. 

More to Come. 

You're an Integral part of the Health Care Team! Not.

Last night was my first clinical for my CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) course. The whole reason for doing this probably merits its own post, but its basically so I can get into an RN (Registered Nurse) program. I was hesitant to do the CNA course as soon as I learned that there were required clinicals at a NURSING HOME! I have very intense feelings of anxiety whenever I see the word NURSING HOME. I think of:

A)   My great-grandma Ash who was in a pretty nice nursing home in SLC towards the end of her life. But whenever our visit was over she’d say “But do you have to go???? Please don’t go!” It was fairly heart wrenching. And even though I was 12 years old tops, I felt immense guilt that I had let her down and was failing her in some way.

B)   I think of a “Sub for Santa” project my family did when I was young. During one Christmas season, we went to visit and bring little gifts to 3 residents of a local care center who didn’t get visitors. One of our little residents didn’t speak at all and  had a very serious tremor. I was pretty freaked out, but I remember being really impressed with my dad who took her hands, spoke slowly and tried to communicate with her. My dad really has the kindest heart. Anyway, though I know this project brought joy to some people who really needed it, it also reinforced that NURSING HOMES are sad and scary places.

 

{my beloved iodized stethescope that i "invested" in}

So yesterday 2:00 pm rolled around and I found my self with a faux veneer of bravery marching into the care center. I located my RN supervisor right away and she was really nice. Then she saw my stethoscope and said that I should go lock it and any other valuables up in my trunk, unless I wanted them stolen. Hmmmm, not sketchy at all. Me and the other CNA students got paired with our veteran CNA overlords who we’d be shadowing. Luckily I got paired with a nice 19 year old girl, and not one of the scary, older, potential stethoscope stealers. Then it was time for floor assignments. There were four floors:

A)   Rehab: only 12 patients, all totally there cognitively, and generally in good morale since they are here briefly.

B)   Alzeheimers wing: 18 residents, all with varying degrees of dementia.

C)   The Hilton wing: 12 PRIVATE rooms with carpet and nice furniture.

D)   The Trailer Park Wing: 12 shared rooms of 2-3 residents, no carpet, with 2 rooms of mechanical lift patients. This is the low income and highly physically involved wing.

Of course, I got as my RN supervisor called it: The Trailer Park Wing. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, and we were so busy running around that the 8 hour shift went by quickly. It was really physically demanding.  My quads are super sore this morning from the amount of resident transfers I did. Though both the highlight and lowpoint of the shift was using the mechanical lift to transfer four patients who were 300+lbs. Seriously. It looked like this:

I know this post has already been lengthy enough. But allow me to share my take home messages from my first CNA shift:

1) Being a CNA sucks, big time. But somebody has to do it. The majority of our job involves bathrooming and showering and feeding people. Which is so unglamorous its not even funny, but I saw what happens when it doesn’t get done, and its not pretty.

2) I need to swallow my pride. I can’t even tell you how it would make my blood boil when the LPN’s (who have done a 16 month course at a technical school, all have red hair, and are all evil) would talk down to me. Then I remembered I am JUST A CNA. I need to stop repeating “Oh how the mighty have fallen!” in my head and learn some humility. Even though the LPN’s use incorrect terminology all the time and I really want to correct them. Learn humility, ASAP.

3) Be nice to your kids so they will take care of you when you’re old. There was a huge difference in the rooms and the morale of residents who had children that both visit and participate in their care. If you’re really nice to your kids maybe they’ll do your laundry for you, then the scary maintenance workers wont lose/steal your good stuff.

4) By virtue of number #3, you must actually have kids. Not chocolate labs for Kids.

5) Be grateful for what you’ve got.  After I got home from my shift I went straight to take a shower (for obvious reasons). It sounds cheesy, but as I showered, dressed, and fed myself, all while making my own choices, and in privacy, I realized that I’m lucky. Aging can really take away a lot of things from you. Be glad you’ve got them while you do.

6) DIE YOUNG. I know some will disagree with this, but the 90 year olds I cared for were not living life to the fullest. They largely didn’t know where they were, were scared, and really sad. I would like to publicly declare that past age 60 I want no medical interventions: no chemo, no stints, no bypass surgeries. I think our bodies have a way of knowing when to give out before our minds do.  I hate to get all Lana Del Ray up in here, but “I was born to live fast, die young.”

Never Again. I mean it this time.

Last year, after running the marathon with less than optimal training, I swore that I would never do that again. So as soon as I signed up for this year's marathon I printed off a 16 week training program. And that's as far as I got. I literally did not train at all. But somehow the first weekend in October rolled around, as it is wont to do, and I found myself huddled around a small fire up veyo canyon at 5am, shivering in both coldness and fear at what I had gotten myself into....

{Bonfire are the best. Especially this year - it was COLD! }

The logical thing would have been to simply not pick up my packet and forgo partaking in an activity that I was not in physical condition for and would most certainly destroy me. But I couldn't. I mean, I signed up. And not only was Anna doing it, but our younger and far more athletic sister Katheryn decided to join in on the "fun" for the first time this year.

{veyo hill}

Things started off well. Anna and I ran together the first 6 miles and I was buoyed up by the fact that we could make fun of peoples' bizzare choices together (who runs a marathon without shoes? or pulls 5 inches off the road to squat and poop? or wears a full blown spiderman costume?) and ran at a fairly decent clip. But as soon as we hit the evil veyo hill, she peeled off while I struggled to keep moving at a pace marginally above that of a protected desert tortoises'.

(they make it all too easy to jump in)

I overcame the hill, popped an honestly delicious salted caramel GU, and felt quite good as I ran across the half marathon point. Huzzah! I made it through a half marathon! And then I realized I had used up all my energy and muscle fibers. And there was still ANOTHER 13.1 miles to go. From that point on it was miserable. Around mile 18 I took one of my earphones out and realized that masked by my ridiculously loud Miley Cyrus and Eminem playlist, I was very audibly moaning in pain with each step. It. hurt. so. bad. I was sooooo close to getting in a rescue van.

But the thing that kept me going was the posters my Dad had made. He had spent all this time lovingly handcrafting this motivational poster for me to see at the finish. I had to make it to the finish! (Please note that if I had known that my dad was actually not at the finish - my grandma thought she had broken her hip and needed him - I definitely would have bailed.)

(For the record, my sisters both beat me. But they are way younger. So it doesn't count)

Somehow, I kept jogging (read: slowly shuffling) and made it across the finish line at 4:36. I cried. I hurt. I was embarrassed of my time. I hurt. But mostly I was just so glad it was over.

My mother, who is now a professional at tending to her children with masochistic running tendencies, made us a nice ice bath, then served us pizza as we sat in her jacuzzi tub. Truly, life does not get better than that.

I was a bad person and didn't take any pictures, but it should be noted that Dan, Kiersten and my parents were an excellent support team. Full marathons are truly awful (especially if you do not train.) I think that Anna, Katheryn and I should make a blood oath now, before our soreness dissipates to NEVER DO THIS AGAIN. I MEAN IT THIS TIME!

Books Lie

I decided that we needed to go backpacking over Memorial Day weekend. I mean, Otto has a backpack, we HAD to use it. So I did what I always do when planning something: checked out a bunch of library books. 

[My 80 year old Grandpa is the best]

I found it, the most awesome trail: Bighorn Crags in Challis, ID. Being that my grandfather is the expert in all things Challis Idaho, I gave him a call. "Oh yeah, I know Bighorn Crags. Beautiful, beautiful country. But high country! Go up there this time of year, they'll be snow up to your you know what!" (I have no idea why he didn't just say "snow up to your neck", but thats part of what makes Grandpa Howdy rad.) So basically he told me we would probably have to snow-machine up to the trailhead. And if we did make it on the trail, they'd find our backpack laden frozen bodies the next day.

[the crags, still want to do them someday. like july or august]

Back to the drawing board. Except now its the day before we leave. And I have to find a non-frozen, dog friendly, nearby backpacking trip. Harder than its sounds. But I found one! Or so I thought...

We ended up getting a super late start on our departure day. So we decided to go camp somewhere nearby and then get started on the real deal the next day. We did a short ascent up Adams Canyon and spent the night overlooking the city.

It was nice, except for the fact that it was windy, Otto sucks at sleeping in a tent, and there were rocks everywhere. After possibly the least energizing sleep ever, we headed up to our real hike: Waterfall Canyon to Malan Peaks Trail.

It was hot. And I was slow. But we made it to the end of Waterfall Canyon and headed toward what my book described as a short, moderate, rocky path up to the Malan trail.

There is nothing moderate about this. With the help of nice passerby hiker, we were able to hoist Otto by his harness and leash up one platform, only to discover many more that would only be theoretically passable with climbing rope. Awesome.

We went all the way back out the canyon. I was discouraged, but still thought I could save this. I had to save this! I quickly asked Siri for the nearest State Park (dogs are allowed in State, but not National Parks). Antelope Island it was! We pulled up right as they were shutting the gate, only to be told they were at maximum capacity. And that is when I gave up.

Take home messages: Plan out your backpacking trip far in advance. Talk to people who have done the trail, find out if there is anywhere to pitch your tent where you will not end up with rock gouges in your back. Get in shape so you don't hold up your sister and husband and dog. Perhaps don't bring your 100lb dog who is afraid of heights. But most importantly,

DON'T TRUST A BOOK!

He made it a whole year!

Otto turned one last week (on May 23rd, to be exact) and the mere fact that he has survived the last 12 months is worth celebrating.

First an ibuprofen overdose and complete kidney failure

Then having a mean dog at daycare take a chunk out of his ear

And finally contracting kennel cough and needing to be quarantined.

In addition he has also had no less than THREE skirmishes with the Logan Police Department. Most recently when I was letting him swim in an irrigation canal. A lovely woman came charging out of a nearby squalid apartments and threatened to "Beat my *&^ if I didn't get my &^%$ing dog out of the canal! There were SIX baby ducklings and now they are only FIVE! Expletive, Expletive, Expletive." She also called me a "stupid b*&^" quite a few times for good measures. (For the record, Otto was not harming any ducklings.) SHE THEN PROCEEDED TO CALL THE COPS ON ME. I received a ticket while this fine citizen of Cache Valley walked off. Apparently owning a dog is illegal in Logan. Being completely retarded is not.

Anyway, we had to celebrate Otto's big day as he has overcome both illness and legal trouble to reach his first birthday. Anna helped bake him a dog friendly cake. He loved it. I swear.

And he got a present. A doggie backpack for our upcoming Memorial Day backpacking trip.

Happy Birthday, Otto. You little felon, you.