Thoughts From a Frazzled Mind

Sister's Retreat We started the month off in grand fashion, with a Sister's Retreat!  This time we went to Wolf Creek.  I am so glad that we started the tradition of our sister's retreats, it has been so good for us to stay connected and appreciate each other.  Our personalities are so much the same, but yet we have many, many differences, I feel that it is vitally important to foster our family relationships.  Julie was not able to join us this time as she had an assignment in Hawaii.  She was able to take her family, so we forgave her for missing our weekend. The weekend once again was filled with lots of goodies, games, and laughter.  For some reason when I am with these ladies I can't seem to stop laughing, often so hard that I start to cry!  Once again Rox was in charge of the craft.  I loved it!  It was a Halloween wall hanging that we colored and then hand-stitched the outlines.  It was really cute.  We took Rox out for ...

School Update After completing one semester of the DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) program at Grand Canyon University, I ran into some snags with my practicum site approvals and the school made me withdraw for a few weeks in order to get things straightened out.  Needless to say, I was majorly disappointed.  First, I had momentum and didn't want to delay my progress, second that meant that Amber would be moving on leaving me behind.  However, as often happens with trials, I realized that this was a blessing in disguise.  As I pondered my options, I realized that a DNP was not the degree that I really wanted.  I love nursing and everything about it, but my heart is truly attached to the education and teaching of nursing.  A co-worker suggested that I look into a program at Liberty University and it felt right.  I decided to change my focus to education and curriculum development.  I compared the program at Grand Canyon with the one at Liberty bec...

Kim's Mom This month had a rough start.  I was called down to listen to Joan's lungs because she was having some difficulty breathing and her O2 sats were low.  I couldn't hear any sounds hardly at all in her lungs, but she always breathes very shallow, so I didn't know if there was a problem or not.  She complained that she really didn't feel well.  Jody, Mickel, and David were just leaving for a long trip to Kansas, and Kim was at work, so Jan and I took her to the emergency room.  After several hours, they decided that she was too sick to stay at the local hospital and they transferred her to Ogden. Tasha brought her a very special puzzle.  It was a sugar cookie made into the shape of a jigsaw puzzle with a cardinal on the front.  Joan refused to eat it because she said it was too pretty! By this time Joan was seriously ill.  They ended up diagnosing her with pulmonary empyema, a condition where pus from infection builds up in the pleura...