Braden's Bedtime Game

So within the last week or so, Braden has taken to singing. He sings ALL.THE.TIME! I love it, though. Jay usually puts him to bed and they have quite the routine. They sing about 6 songs together...and this is what it looks like. Braden put Jay to "bed" earlier this week!


So you caught "Twinkle, Twinkle", a bit of "The Elephant Show" song, "Thomas & Friends", a grace song "Johnny Appleseed" and "This is the Day". Aaaand Ethan grunting at the end!

Hope you enjoy as much as we do! Happy Sunday!

Schultz Farms 2012 Seeding to Harvest Video

This takes Farming 101 to a whole new level! Enjoy a video put together by local filmmaker and friend James Westgate Snell. He's been filming since May and just put together this amazing heirloom of farming. I'm so blessed to live in this beautiful land and have grown to love this farming life so much. And to answer your question, yes it really is that beautiful where we live!


(And single ladies...Travis, our dear friend helping with harvest this year, is also single!)

That Time I Was Nurse #1

Don't fool yourselves. That doesn't say "That Time I Was #1 Nurse"....I was written up and named as "Nurse #1" in an incident. Yup. That's right, Nurse Sarah got written up for the first time in her career. I guess working for almost 7 years and only 1 write up ain't so bad? And it was practically the whole shift that got written up, so misery loves company right?

[source, also a very funny read]

So what did I do? Did I finally lose it and tell someone off? The answer is no. I did not tell anyone off. Did I hurt someone purposefully or not? Nope. Make a medication error? Nope. So what was my wrong doing? Well, I'll just write down the incident the way that I saw it, which is what really happened.

*Note: The events that took place are true but to protect myself and the privacy of this patient no names or identifying details will be made*

It was a wonderful day at work. I was working the shift that I've been working a lot of lately, the 10 AM - 10 PM shift. The doc that was on call tends to be a shit magnet, for lack of a better term, for drug-seekers for some reason. Drug seekers are probably my least favorite patients. They are always right, they are not doing anything wrong, and worst of all...they LIE like a side walk. In Alberta, we now have a computer system that we can obtain all medical records, including mecial prescriptions, online. So it's much easier to catch these liars red handed. You're allergic to Tylenol, Advil, codiene, morphine, Toradol, and pretty much every pain medication under the sun except oxycontin and you're in pain? Oh, well we discovered that you were prescribed 200 tablets of Tylenol #4's last week! WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!? Sigh.

Okay, I'm off track.

So anyway, that particular night we had 4 drug seekers in a row. Three of them were seeking prescriptions for Tylenol #3's. For those of you who aren't familiar with narcotics, this is just plain Tylenol with codeine (the narcotic) in it. As far as I'm concerned, this is a rather mild narcotic and not even worth the fight to seek it! Anywho, our doc is very firm on not giving into the seeking types, so he told the first 2 absolutely not, no way you aren't leaving with a prescription, go see your family doctor. The third patient is the one who filed a report on all of us.

They have been to our ER before. They very distinctive and I'll never forget them. They stated to the nurse in triage that they do live in [The Big City] but he likes to come out to our rural hospital because we are so nice to them. They can't go to [The Big City Hospital] anymore because they don't treat them nicely there. We were really busy that night, I mean like a 6 hour wait from the day shift stretching into a few hour wait for the evening shift. So they finally get into a room, the doc sees them and tells them he doesn't write prescriptions for chronic back pain, but he will treat the pain in ER. So the doc tells me he's ordered some Toradol for this patient by intramuscular (IM) injection. Meaning I get to poke this patient in the butt muscle with an anti-inflammatory/pain killer med similar to Advil. The doc also mentions to me that the patient has a needle phobia.

Here is where I will write the truth as it happened in and what the patient and/or the mother reported, the lies in red.

I standing at the nursing desk, looking over all the orders for all 6 patients, seeing which order is a priority at the moment. My colleague is on a break, the other nurse is in triage, so it's just me for the 6 patients in the ER at the time being. 


The mother comes up to me and says "is someone coming to deal with my child's pain?"


I replied, "Yes, I have 6 patients to look after here, I will get to your son as soon as I can".


This translated to her as, "SETTLE DOWN! I have 8 patients to deal with before your child!"


Not but 60 seconds later, I am in the medication room, drawing up the injection, and the mother comes to the desk again to ask "where is my child's medication?"


I replied, "I'm drawing it up right now, I'm working as quickly as I can"


I then walk down to the room with the needle clearly visible in my hand, I approach the doorway to the room and they state, "there's no way I'm taking that!"


I was in no mood to argue with this patient, so I put my hands up to my shoulder level, palms up in an "I give up" motion and state, "I'm not arguing with you" in an "I'm not about to convince you to take this, whatever" kind of tone and turn around and walk away.


This is how they wrote up the incident: "Nurse #1 then walked into the room, threw her arms up in the air and said 'I'M NOT ARGUING WITH YOU!' and stormed out the room."


Really? Really?


I may talk big about what I think about certain patients, but I always strive my hardest to maintain professionalism and treat my patients with the respect that they deserve, but also the respect that they treat me with. They went on to lie profusely about Nurse #'s 2 & 3 in the incident...but I won't bore you with the details. They also told us many times they cannot afford the physiotherapy that's been prescribed to them  by many different doctors, but they can afford a lawyer to sue the [Big City Hospital]? So now they have no faith in our province's health care system and they are, get this...using alcohol to treat the  pain. So now we're going to be responsible for this patient's addiction to alcohol too? Grow some and take some responsibility for your life.

So I replied to the report by writing the truth and I don't know what happens from here. The good thing is, is that my bosses completely support the nurses in this incident. This is just a patient that is out to make some money or something, and not dealing with his health the way they should and the way that has been recommended to them over and over again.

I think my nursing colleagues will find these amusing...this is exactly what kind of patients drug seekers are!
 (Be warned....there is a LOT of profanity in this!)

Nurses hate the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. To us, it's just a diagnosis for an excuse for pain meds!


Are you a nurse? How do you deal with these patients?

Wordless Wednesday: There Really ARE No Words!

Interview With a One Year Old

My friend Carley had this posted on Facebook and I just had to share! If I was talented like this, I bet I could put together a great interview with Braden, he babbles/talks all the live long day! I bet my brother Ben could do it!

Happy Sunday!

How Great Thou Art

Mom posted this to her Facebook last night. And I just needed it. It is one of, if not my favorite hymns. I cry everytime I hear it/sing it and I sang it soooooo many times to Braden when he was going through his fussy/no sleep stage last year. Still such wonderful memories. Carrie Underwood is absolutely flawless.
Blessings!