Hooligans!!

It's not that I don't like children in general, but I don't like trespassing, hooligan children!!

Our backyard has a 6 foot privacy fence and it is surrounded on two sides by community trails that meander through our neighborhood. After school there are lots of kids that walk home on these trails, sometimes they are loud and screeching (why?), other times you hear them beating on the fence with sticks as they walk by, mostly I just know they're passing through because the dogs bark.

On more than one occasion our back gate has been left wide open which can be quite a danger when you have a feisty terrier that loves to look for an opportunity to escape. Obviously someone was opening it - not us of course, but someone from the outside. I can only speculate that it is juvenile hooligans because it always seems to happen in the after school hours. After having this happen at least 3 or 4 times, we put a carabiner on the inside of the gate - thereby making it impossible to open the gate from the outside, but easy for us if we wanted to get out.

Well today, the gate was open once again and the carabiner had been pulled off. So basically someone came through our side gate, walked though our back yard, pulled the carabiner off the back gate and left it open. When BJ came home, he let the dogs out and didn't look for an open gate (we thought we had solved the problem) and our Tosca of course took off for parts unknown. She led quite the chase, I went to the left and had a neighbor point our her direction, BJ went right and found another lead from another neighbor .... in the end when we came back she was sitting on the back porch as if to say, "I'm sure hungry. Could you let me in??"

So now we have a carabiner on the inside of the side gate, strong rope tying the inside of the back gate closed and plans to install an electric fence as soon as possible. Maybe we shouldn't tell the home owner's association about that one?!?!?

Happy Earth Day!!

In honor of Earth Day, I decided not to water our newly planted grass seed this morning given that we had showers forecast for this afternoon. See I can conserve, and reduce/reuse/recycle with the best of them!! I may be a nurse now, but back in the days of my environmental health studies I visited many a landfill, spent some time at incinerators, water treatment and sewage treatment plants and learned about local air pollution. I was thinking about going green long before the celebrities started driving their Priuses ... or is the plural Prii?? I'm trying to dredge up that high school Latin, but it's hard because I am remembering the evil clanking of Sr. Mary Annette's rosary beads - she was one tough, old nun!!

In other news, I learned that this week is Turn Off Your TV week. It is a noble effort to encourage other pursuits like reading, exercising and playing with your kids outdoors, and actually I watch so little TV these days that it wouldn't be hard at all to do this for a week. BUT - must they really choose this week??? I mean the week that Grey's Anatomy returns after a five month hiatus?!?!?!?!? Can I just TIVO it and watch it next week?? Would that be cheating?? I mean as much as I can't stand Meredith's character, I was so excited to finally see her break through and want to be monogamous with McDreamy who let's face it, should we have a lot of sympathy for a man that began dating her for months while conveniently forgetting to tell her about HIS WIFE that he eventually left her for?? Seriously, despite the cute, tousled hair we shouldn't forget that he has been quite an ass and given her good reason to be a little scared off. Oh and can we stop killing all of the viewers eyes with the George/Izzy pairing??? I mean not that I'm really into it or anything .... I'm just saying.

Why do my abs hate me?

Remember how yesterday I had a pleasant soreness, you know the sweet message from the muscles saying, "Thanks Jenn for thinking of us!!"

OK, I take it back. Today my abs are so sore that I can't stand up straight! I only did like 120 crunches and back in the day I did three times that many. Apparently, they decided to say "screw you." And I can't even take my miracle ibuprofen that cures everything ... stupid baby!
Bowling tonight should be an interesting challenge.

Welcome Back Sore Muscles!

I woke up this morning with that lovely soreness you get after a workout. Not so bad that I can't lift my arms above my head, but enough to know that I gave my muscles some challenge.

I finally got off my butt yesterday and headed to the gym. I know that I'm definitely needing to work on my cardio, but I'm also concerned about getting my body strong for the physical stresses that an extra 25 pounds are going to cause (though I'm only up 2 pounds so far). When I was working out with my trainer Cindy in Columbia, I had a great strength training regimen going on, but since starting to travel it's been nearly impossible to keep that up. Now that I'm settled in one place and have a gym membership, there's no excuse for that. I did some free weights and focused on the arms and legs then hit the mat for some abdominal work (oh my poor stomach muscles, you have no idea how ruined you're going to get!). I took it easy and just did two sets of my old routines because I knew that if I wasn't able to move my arms or walk today, it wouldn't be productive.

My plan is to strength train twice a week and start adding some abdominal work in more frequently since I really need to get that area as strong as possible. I do have a Pregnancy Fitness book kindly lent to me by Merk that I'm consulting just to see if there is anything I should avoid (exercises where I'm flat on my back) and how to modify as I get farther along.

I'm going to add cardio as I can, but probably focus more on walking, using the elliptical and stair climber. If I haven't really been running the past few months, it doesn't seem like it's the brightest thing to start pushing when I'm 15 weeks pregnant. I will be using my heart rate monitor and keeping things in a nice upper range of zone 2. We'll see if my personal motivation keeps up!

Weekend Update

Did you know that it has been raining off and on here in Arkansas for what seems like weeks?? Seriously, I've been wondering if BJ and I should build an ark because it's getting kindof crazy. Of course in general it seems to be rainy and dreary on my days off and then sunny for the brief three days that I work - suck! My favorite place to run has been underwater off and on for almost a month and of course in between all the rain we've had tornados and sirens and winds, oh my!

A few tidbits ....

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We had a major storm come through last week that spawned a total of 10 tornadoes. When the civil defense siren down the street went off and we turned on the weather channel, it was heading right into our part of town. I grabbed my flashlight, hand crank weather radio, cell phone and some quilts and pulled the dogs into the center bathroom with me. BJ insisted that I was "overreacting," even when they announced that it had been sighted on the ground 5 miles away and moving our direction. I said, "you sit in the living room and blow away if you want, me the dogs, and our baby will stay right here."
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Since I've been feeling much better as of late, we actually went out last night and visited with friends! Woo Hoo!! I'm not an anti-social, slug!! We went over to Merk and Jeff's house - Merk being BJ's half marathon training partner and co-worker. Her husband just got back from Iraq and this was our second trial "couple date" ... you know where you try to find out if you're all compatible as couples and don't completely hate one person or another. It was a very enjoyable evening full of pizza dough hijinks and shared recollections of collegiate life in the early 90s. Ahh, it's so nice to have fun, intelligent conversation! Not to mention Jeff is also a transplanted Yankee, actually being from New England he's got even more street cred as a Yank than me.

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Today we finally had the chance to do some yard work. We've been wanting to seed parts of our yard for weeks but due to aforementioned torrential rains, we've been waiting till we were relatively assured of a few dry days. BJ did most of the hard work (turning over the nasty old sod) while I did some of the prep work (breaking up the clods) and we're hoping that in a few weeks we will have some happy bermuda mix on the south side of the house. We have SO much to do overall, but we're just taking it one step at a time.

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Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm having a uneventful night at work, and BJ sent me an email asking if I was going to compose a memory lane post. Given that all of my patients are happily sleeping (for the moment) and my charting is already caught up (major shocker) - I figured why not?? The problem is searching for a topic .... hmmm, what to talk about??

Well I guess we can talk about careers and jobs. Thinking back, I honestly don't think as a kid I ever had the whole, "When I grow up I wanna be a ____ ." I was always one of the smartest in my class, always on the honor roll, but I grew up in a very rural area and I think it was hard to see what the big wide world offered. Most of the families around us were farmers or coal miners, a few maybe drove to Springfield and worked in some capacity for the state government, but it wasn't like we had career day at my school. I always knew I wanted to go away to college, preferably far away. I remember wanting to go to UCLA when I was in grade school which was funny because I had never been farther west than Missouri at the time. Los Angeles seemed so exotic and exciting! I hadn't thought about what I would study, just going there.

Even in high school, I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted to do with my life. I was lucky enough to move to a more urban area and attend an excellent, private high school that emphasized college preparation. I had a lot of opportunities to take things like Chemistry, Physics, Anatomy & Physiology, Calculus and the like - I seemed to gravitate towards the science world, but I still didn't know what I was going to do with it. Unlike my grade school days, most of my peers in high school had parents who were doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, nurses etc. and most of my friends also seemed to have a clear vision on what they wanted to do. I still just kindof plugged away, got good grades, ended up with extremely competitive ACT scores that would have allowed me to go anywhere to college. I had little colleges from all over the US contacting me and offering me scholarships, but what do you do with this when you have no clue what you want to be???

I did make it through college, plodded through lots of majors .... Pharmacy, Medical Lab Technology, Middle School Ed (science & math emphasis), Chemistry, Biology ... contemplated even more majors, thought about being a doctor, lawyer, chemist, teacher, joining the Peace Corps. In the end I still didn't have a flipping clue, but as a second semester junior I was still undecided. I ended up in an environmental health major because it seemed interesting at the time and I knew I had to pick something and just get my damn degree.

Of course I obviously didn't have it totally figured out because after 7 years working in public health I went to nursing school, but at least it's in the same ballpark.

Though it's sometimes been frustrating as I've searched for my path (which is still ongoing), I guess if I look back, I've never really known what I want to be when I grow up. I just know I want to be happy, to enjoy the work that I do, and to feel that my work makes a difference in the lives of others.

If my kid ends up being clueless too, I'll just encourage them to go to a good college, take lots of different classes, and have confidence that they will eventually find their way.

So what did you want to be when you were a kid??

Graffitti Update

We heard back from BJ's law enforcement connections and our fence graffitti was not random hooliganism, but a tag from a specific gang. We were told that we should remove it (which we were planning on doing anyway) and BJ is out with the belt sander as we speak.

Apparently gang activity does not simply live in the traditional "ghetto" parts of town given that the gang bangers of twenty years ago are now raising their families in safer, more suburban communities. Which who can blame them? If I had a decent job or decent money from my nefarious activities, I would want my kids out of the projects. Not that there is necessarily any violence around here ... it's actually a very safe neighborhood ... but obviously there are some portions of that element, or that wannabe element living around here. Either way, the police like to track where these things turn up, we will let the home owner's association know, and when we see our neighbor's we will let them know as well. I guarantee that our neighbors would be just as surprised and disturbed as we are to know that this looms somewhere in our midst.

"Tri" Again Next Year

Well it looks like 2008 will NOT be my triumphant return to the triathlon racing scene. Before you condemn me for giving up so early in the season, I DO have a good reason. It turns out that this wanna-be is knocked up and road biking and racing tri are not recommended after the first trimester and I just passed that point. I do plan on continuing running (well my pitiful run/walks at the moment) and to start swimming as soon as the neighborhood lap pool opens for the season. My goal is to maintain my fitness as much as possible during the next 6 months and stay as healthy as possible.

Next year, I want to be right back at it given that I'll have even more impetus to train so that I can get rid of the damage that I'm sure this gremlin will do to my physique. Til then, I'll find some 5 and 10K to keep me occupied.

BJ and I are maintaining a joint blog on the whole prego experience at http://jones-baby.blava.org/ for anyone that's interested.

Keep It Confidential

I'm so sorry if my recent posts on various topics are boring anyone ... I'm just going through a stage where various subjects are compelling me to write or comment, and it's hard to ignore when I have this outlet.

Today I was surfing through the entertainment news (I'm sorry to admit that though I'm highbrow enough to follow NPR and the BBC, I also like to catch E! and People online) and I was particularly disturbed by this story. There have been several instances of celebrity medical treatment status being leaked, but this was particularly disgusting because poor Farrah hadn't even told her family yet AND was even being treated under an alias.

Even before the days of HIPAA where medical privacy and disclosure were bound tightly by law, it has always been an ethical mandate that we in health care keep private information private. During every hospital orientation I have had, there is always a section on confidentiality and how you can be disciplined or fired for accessing medical information that you do not need to do your job. It's sometimes tough because I can take care of a patient for weeks in a row, but when they go to surgery, despite how much I want to know how they're doing - I legally have no right to know anything unless I am assigned to take care of them. Now I'm not going to lie, amongst nurses we often have some professional consideration for these circumstances. I remember having to be off for a weekend and a baby that I had taken care of for two months since his birth wasn't doing so well. If you're not a nurse, I can't even explain how easily and quickly we get attached to our patients. When it's someone you've taken care of for weeks, you are very much invested in their outcome. I would call in to the night shift nurse to "check" on him - not necessarily ask tons of specifics like what are his vent settings, chest tube output etc. etc. - but how is he doing? Ethically that's pretty grey given that I'm not currently working that shift and taking care of the patient, but it's FAR different than looking up patients I'm not even involved with.

When I worked in Columbia, MO which is a smaller town, I was confronted with situations more often that dealt with confidentiality. We were the biggest NICU in town, so if an acquaintance of mine had a neighbor or a family member with a baby in the NICU, it wasn't uncommon to be asked. "so is Baby X doing OK?" It usually was asked out of concern because in smaller towns, people tend to know each other. Those were times where it would be easy to say, "oh yeah, they're doing great" or "they're pretty sick" but I'd have to stick with the whole, "I really can't talk about that."

Another job that provoked similar questions was working in the Burn/Trauma unit and having patients who had made the news for dramatic fires, car crashes, accidents etc. and people wondering, "how is that college student doing who got caught in the fire?" Even though I was just a student nurse extern at the time, I still knew what was going on and people knew where I worked. Those types of questions were not uncommon and it required diligence to keep your mouth shut. I was working in the NICU at the time, but when a young, female police officer was shot (in the end fatally) by a teen aged suspect, it was all over the news for two or three weeks and was quite a high profile local case. After she died, several employees were disciplined and even terminated for accessing her medical records without cause - all worked outside the Trauma Unit. It may seem harsh, but after reading about the recent Britney Spears and Farrah Fawcett cases, I see where it's a slippery slope and clearly people have no sense. Especially when medical records are computer based and the system logs EVERY person who looks at a file. I know that I would be very upset if I were a patient at my hospital and my co-workers heard through the grapevine what I was being treated for or something specific about my health, let alone the whole flippin' world. I am glad to see that UCLA is taking a harsh stand, and I hope Farrah sues that individual for disclosing her medical information, because doing it for money?? Even more despicable in my opinion.

Apparently consumer pressure works!!

Though I've never mentioned it on my blog before, I do NOT shop at Wal-Mart and I haven't for years. I won't attempt to convince you that their labor and business practices are evil, just do some searching on the internet and you'll find that they aren't nearly as "small town" and "worker" friendly as they claim to be.

I had heard about this story a few weeks back, an example of their pathetic greed. A brain damaged woman who paid Wal-Mart for her insurance, whose insurance paid out after a devastating accident, then a corporate entity that sued to recover all of her damages awarded in a law suit to repay themselves for her health care. I'd feel differently if she hadn't been an employee paying for her insurance (and not cheap, overly subsidized healthcare either) - she was entitled to those benefits. And now that she will live out her life in a nursing home which generally costs upwards of $36,000 - $48,000 a year, that lawsuit settlement money was not going to be used by her family to buy new cars, or a boat, or a vacation home - it was going to go to her lifelong care. If that money is taken by Wal-Mart, this poor family has no funds to pay for her care. So in the end, Medicaid would be forced to pay because unless you're independently wealthy, no one can afford long term nursing care. And as a former nursing home inspector, I can tell you that when Medicaid is footing the bills, your options in choice of a care facility are limited.

I'm just thankful that the enormous response mounted by consumers and citizens who heard of this convinced Wal-Mart to reconsider. What happened to taking care of our employees? Since when has greed replaced humanity?? Of course I haven't changed my mind about Wal-Mart, don't think for a minute that they wouldn't have changed their mind had the negative press not been so overwhelming.