Snow Storm

I know I post a lot of scenic pics, but we had a cool unexpeceted snow storm this weekend, just thought I would share what we woke up to Sunday morning, and this was just the begininning!

Usually you would be able to see a big mountain/hill in the distance. I love snow!, but we ended up getting so much by the end of the day, my volleyball game was canceled. So Adam and I just snuggeled and watched the olympics :)

Theres always someone

My job teaches me many things outside of common intellect and science, the most consistent thing being that, when ever you think "theres no way!" or "no one would really do/think/say that", I've learned theres always someone, someone willing to say "Yes, I will be that guy".

I have to be careful sharing stories, so rarely I do with people outside of the medical proffession. The whole thing is a unique culture in itself. ER's get lots of "stories" and notable events, but the thing about ICU's is that these people don't leave after a few hours like they do in the ER, so we get the whole enchilada, day after day. A lot of times I truly feel as though I am on the set of Jerry Springer or find myself laughing and thinking "is this really my job". The things people come up with is unreal! I know it significantly diminishes the entertainment of this blog, but stories must be left out for a number of reasons. Although let me describe my day today, and this is a fairly typical day at work.

I recieve a patient who "fired" the previous RN for unknown reasons. So my assignments are this patient, A, and then patient B. I start the day with my friend and coworker approaching me in tears because she has to help an awake and conscious patient take the next step in life (pass onto heaven). I still remember the first patient I had that passed in the same condition, it's very difficult to deal with. I then have pt B's family insist that we leave the EEG (brain wave) monitor on the patient, due to the fact that they have their own set of "tests" they need to run before it is removed. Mother B then insists that the patient has pink eye that traveled up the breathing tube and into her eye. Later this same women attempts to fire me and the new graduate I was orienting, because she blames us for her daughters grave and unfortunate condition saying that we were running experiments on her. She was very rude and irrational with me, but I have no choice but to try to be sympathetic. We get blamed frequently, it is a very unfortuante and frustrating thing. I show up everyday to an adequate paying job with a huge amount of life or death responsibity in hopes to help my patients and family move in the direction best for them, whether that be life or death, and to be accused of being the cause for someones deadly and unfortunate situation is very heartbreaking. Most do this intially- out of shock, and are easy to forgive, while others will spend there whole lives blaming others, these people require a whole new set of forgiveness and patience, which must be had in order to provide true heartfelt care. But anyway, in this case I was very frank and tried to address her concerns but then she refused to speak with me, so you move on. But one of the physcians I'm friends with was outside the door, heard this, walked in and berrated the lady for being so rude to me. So this contributed to the drama and lady's hatred of me. While this is happening pt A is pushing his call light so that he can write me notes (he is intubated, so can't talk) to tell me he is having chest pain, well i take this lightly considering last week when I had him, we called a false Code on him, believing he was having a heart attack due to heart rhythm changes and chest pain, well, the guy has a half inch round tube inserted into his lung through his Lateral chest wall, so pain doesn't seem far fetched but hes on enough pain meds to kill a horse. Despite the tranquilizer like meds, chest tube, breathing tube, feeding tube and endless amounts of wires and lines he has coming from him he insists upon shaving. I don't know if you understand how odd this is. Day after day I continue to be able to say, I've never seen this before! So here I am sitting on the edge of the bed watching this guy shave, reminding him to not clip the tubing that inflates the cuff holding his life support in his trachea. Now patient B's, mother has decided to leave due to the fact that she hates me, but not before her daughter started having long pauses, meaning her heart would stop beating breifly, so that went over well, and again was somehow my fault. By the end of the day, pt A was taxing on me because he's a noncompliant, manipulative man who decided to smoke meth while he had an active collapsed lung he knew about. Day's like this make it hard to be compassionate. But it never fails, Pt A's mom calls, and is a very sweet rational lady telling me of how her son was a great kid until his dad died a few years back. She goes onto to tell me about how sweet he was until his dad died and all the sudden I'm struck with compassion again. The amount of emotions we expereince in one day is unbeleivable! I suppose we need those somewhat "entertaining" moments when security gets called, a girlfriend has to be asked to not make sexual attempts with her comatose boyfriend, walls get punched in, someone is caught trying to eat a lightbulb, home insulation, and IV's; family members give you a palm reading, you have to remind a pt not to drink their own vomit, and you find yourself tied up in a family feud, that doesn't involve your family. We need those days to get through the heart wrenching tearful days.......today was a bit of both.

Utah!

Our trip to Utah:

We drove to UT and got in Thursday night (Jan's Bday) and met them at a restaraunt for the celebration, everyone was there!

The next day, we spent the whole day visiting with Gpa and Gma and then went to Chuck O'Rama (I was hoping deep down inside that that is where they would want to go, since that is a Gpa and Gma Smith staple!)

That night, a hockey game with the cousins, Marsha, Craighten and Claire.




The next day, skiing at Alta with Jan and Ralph

It was pretty much a perfect day!

Jan and Ralph



The whole crew

Adam and Ralph

Yes we actually skiied, not just took pictures all day


On Sunday morning we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with Jan and Ralph

Adam and I later that afternoon walked around temple square

And parts of downtown SLC to admire the beautiful buildings


That night was the Petty Family's famous waffel dinner

And a late bday celebration for Jan

The fam

Grandma convinced Craighten to play 1 song for us, then it became 2 and 3 and 4 songs. He is an excellent pianist

Since Monday was a work day for most, Adam and I headed to Park City to ski with our old boss at the Crab House, Nancy, who owns a cabin in the area.

We got an incredible deal on tickets and skiied at Deer Valley- Very posh!

Heres what Adam did most of the day! haha. I love skiing with him, he is better than me, but is so patient. We started skiing to have a hobby we could do together, and we have a blast!

Nanc and Adam



Our trip was amazing! And it was wonderful to see family and friends. We couldn't have asked for a more phenomenal time.

My 25th Birthday

Sorry for the late post on the birthday weekend. I have been working a lot of OT!!!! But finally a few days off and I'm catching up with the blog, cleaning and even doing a few fun things like skiing and going to see Avatar! (if I can get Adam to quit working)

On Jan. 9th it was my birthday, and unexpectedly we went and stayed in Lake Tahoe with Adam's friend Charlie and his friend Angela. We stayed in a great private cabin on the lake at the Hyatt. Charlie works for the Hyatt so the whole weekend we got hooked up like you wouldn't believe!

This is from the porch of the cabin, with Lake Tahoe right in front of us

The boys liked feeling like they were rich old men, lounging in robes.

On Friday, we went skiing at Diamond Peak in Incline Village, only about 2miles from the cabin!

Adam and Andrew (a GBA agent)

So pretty but I almost crashed many times because I would be site seeing and not paying attention!

On Saturday, the day of my birthday, the boys got me and Angela a full day spa treatment, pedi, mani, and sweedish massage! We lounged around and sat in the steam room drinking green tea with cucumbers over our eyes, it was wonderful! That night we went out to a very fancy dinner on the Lake. There was a live guitarist who came to our table, sang me Happy Birthday, and by request from Charlie, James Taylor's Handyman. I love James Taylor. It was a great dinner, I had buffalo tenderloin that was amazing. Adam and Charlie got steak that seriosly had the texture of ice-cream! It was an unforgettable birthday!

A Smith Family New Years!

Adam and I went to WA for New Years. to see my family. My brother Jordan had just gotten home a few weeks earlier from two years in Chili! I was very excited to see him. He brought me back black coral earrings!!! Very cool. Danielle had just had her twins and I got to see them as well, although they were not able to come to the cabin with us all to celebrate the New Year, I made sure and got in my time with her and the babies (wish I had pictures of that). We stayed in a beatuiful big cabin in the woods in Mossy Rock.

My mom had wrapped up 5 large boxes and told us each to pick one out.

Inside we each found a Christmas quilt she made with fabric from my Grandma who passed away about two years ago. It was such a special present. In the quilt we found fabric that our childhood stockings were made out of and fabric we had grown up seeing at our house and our grandma's.


A very special gift!

We (9 adults and 8 children under 10years old)
went to the fish hatchery in Mossy Rock


The man working there was kind enough to give us a tour and let the little ones feed the fish.



Most of the time was spent lounging and playing games. We had so much fun with games!


Being the Aunt without kids, I made sure and caused trouble with my ideas for fun with all the kids. We created a mattress room, where all the walls, except the one in the back there, were covered with mattress's, so ultimatley being a safe room to jump and bounce in. (I wanted one of this when I was a kid) This "safe" room lasted maybe 4 minutes until someone was crying. I had a blast running, tackeling and playing games all my nieces and nephews!


We had sooooo much fun and were really excited to see the family! It was priceless. When we got back to Vancouver we were able to spend the birthday day with one of my best friends Terra, and see another friend of mine expecting her first baby. The whole trip was great and we enjoyed spending so much time with the fam. Love you guys!!!
Sometimes the best moments don't have pictures. Check out Kara's blog shes a bit better at this

Our Christmas Decorations

The day before Christmas Eve is apparentley a great time to buy Christmas decorations. These are a few of our good steals.

Frosty and Santa stockings (50% off)

A tree train (75% off)

A blow-up Frosty (75% off, Adam's personal Favorite)

Neighbor Daves First Christmas Story

Merry Christmas

Dave and I got into a 1hour plus conversation about God, faith and religion. He is so fun to talk to because he has no foundation whats so ever and has sincere questioning. He kept calling the crucifiction the crossifiction. So he comes over a few days later and asks Adam and I if our cats have souls. We tell him no, when they die, they just die. He thought that this should make us sad. So we got into a conversation about what happens to your soul after you die, we said some go to heaven some go to hell, depending upon your acceptance of Christ. His take on things is so interesting, he says so if your "bad", you really don't want a soul cause then you just rot in the ground and dont have to suffer hell?
That same night we were going to a live nativity scene at a local lutheran church and asked him if he wanted to go. We had to explain what the nativity scene was, which included explaining Jesus's birth and what a manger is. After the little nativity presentation that was put on we get in the car and Dave says "so that's it?". This allowed Adam and I to explain and elaborate on the whole story. Dave thought that because it ended with the three wise men bringing gifts, that Jesus and his family were then rich, hence the point of the story. As much as this story makes you chuckel at Dave it really was cool to explain to him for the first time the story of Christmas and Jesus's birth.

But here is a story simply for chuckeling at Dave (as a disclaimer he is aware and okay with our occassional chuckels at his expense)
Daves says while having a discussion about his bad driving: "It's not that I'm a bad driver, I'm just too cheap to get my breaks fixed!"