Family Gatherings

This year we had our "pre-Christmas" party with my mom's family at my sister Becky's house. She's a realtor, can you tell?

Now doesn't that look cozy?

Mom, during our annual wrapping paper fight!

We had lasagna for dinner. My grandma made sure we had plenty of wine to go with our Italian themed pasta dinner.
Overall I've really been enjoying the holiday season and the break from school spending some time with friends and family. I hope that all you have been enjoying yourselves too!

The Quicky Update

Hello dear readers (who might actually only be my own sister) I haven't blogged in a long time so I thought I should give you all the "quicky update."
Christmas Eve/Christmas: I'm at work...But I'm eating some really yummy potluck food and I'm looking forward to my mom's sticky buns in the morning.
Work: Last night I got to direct a code and push the shock button 7 times! Tonight I'm blogging at work, enough said.
The Rwanda Project: My formal proposal passed it's final "thingy." I got a leave of absence from work for the month of May. I got some of the donated medical supplies shipped with a container going to Burundi. I'm working on creating a non profit organization to facilitate such donations and exchanges of supplies for the longer term.
School: It's over! I miss students I had in clinical group through, they were a fun bunch. I won't have any students next quarter so I'll be concentrating on the Rwanda project.
Life in general: I'm tired and I want to go to bed!

Nighttime Trauma/Drama

My final proposal for the Rwanda project was due by midnight on Tuesday. My previous draft needed some serious revision to make the mark and I was pretty much busy every second of everyday until the deadline. Unfortunately I had to work that night at the hospital so I took my trusty laptop with me and called my trusty editor in Arizona as I was walking into work.
One of my patients wasn't doing so well so I thought that I would encamp myself in his room and work on my proposal close by. I just sat and prayed and asking God to hold things over until midnight. But alas that was apparently not part of the plan and found myself manually ventilating my patient and eventually intubating him. Of course while all this is happening I'm emailing my editor in Arizona. To add to the shear irony of this event I got an email from Julie (who is already in Rwanda) telling me that there had just been a bus accident and that they were expecting some pretty serious trauma patients at the hospital. Of course the bus accident gives a great argument for the need for my project but I've got to tell you that moment was a little surreal. I felt like I was on a nighttime drama TV show like ER or Scrubs or something. A little too ironic, don't you think?

But Darn it, the Students Like Me...

A card from the students!
I just finished and submitted my proposal and my final portfolio. I'm not exactly proud of them however as I feel there is MUCH to be improved upon. It wasn't too terrible, but it wasn't the best either. Just when I was feeling a little doubtful and down over the whole thing I got a little card from some of my students I had this quarter. Inside where tucked some rave reviews.
"April is a wonderful instructor with a very positive attitude. I found her to be a wealth of knowledge that she was always willing to share."
"April was very valuable in our learning process this quarter. She was always available, knowledgeable, helpful, patient and fun."
"I have nothing but glowing things to say. We're been very lucky to have you on the floor."
"I thought you were very involved and very helpful with it being our first quarter. I really appreciated how you always tried to keep us on our feet and test us on the the info and on our patients. Thank you for being so upbeat and keeping the mood bright and cheerful!"
I'm might be a pretty crappy technical writer but darn it, my students like me! They gave me confirmation that I'm doing exactly what it is that I'm supposed to be doing and I couldn't be more proud of them either. They will all be fantastic nurses and I would be honored to work with any of them.

Five Minutes Later...

As I said in my last blog entry; "If you don't like the weather in Seattle, just wait five minutes." Well... It's been five minutes! Yesterday on my way home from campus I found that my freeway on ramp had been closed due to flooding. Fortunately my house is on the top of a fairly large hill and the ground water seems to be controlable. However, everything I need to get to is at the bottom of the hill. This morning when I left to teach clinicals I had to go "upstream" to get the on freeway. For those of you reading this blog from other states, parts of Washington got 15 inches of rain in 24 hours and a 20 mile stretch of I5 is closed due to extensive flooding. This means that if you want to go to Oregon, you have to drive over the pass and into Eastern Washington to get there.
This is an intersection just a couple of blocks from my house!

A Momentary Winter Wonderland

On Saturday I woke up to snow. By about 2pm it was really starting to come down hard. I left early for work to give myself enough to time make it through traffic and get to campus before the snow got too bad. I also had an ulterior motive of wanting to see what upper campus looked like in the snow! Check this out:

I should have known better than to take a walk on a snowy college campus on a weekend! I got stuck in snowball crossfire in my scrubs, BRR...

By the end of my 12 hour shift the snow in the Seattle had pretty much mented, but I came home to this!

As is the saying around here; "If you don't like the weather in Seattle, just wait about five minutes."