Buy the ticket, take the ride. - Hunter S. Thompson

It's been awhile since I talked about what I have seen come through the doors of the hospital.  I do this because I forget about a lot of stuff because so much comes through the door, and also to help protect the privacy of those that seek help in our hospital.  In the last few months we have had a group of kiddos ranging in age from 1 year to 9 years old that all came in for STD screens.  I don't think I need to be any more specific about what I am implying in this.  How horrible. How tragic. How these people, these innocent people, are completely corrupted. By people that are trusted by them or family members.  I keep getting asked to get my SART (Sexual assault and response team) training.  I just don't think I would be able to stomach this.  This stuff happens all the time, and I guess I know that it does but it doesn't mean I want to be confronted with it, go to work anticipating it, knowing that I am going to be a part of a child/parents/grown persons worst nightmare.  I suppose the flip side is that I would also be the person that helps to start the forward progress of realizing the problem, empowering the family and the people affected and helping to gather the resources to push forward.  I just think that my emotions would get the better of me.

On another note that is completely unrelated I have seen what it looks like when a police officer introduces a noncompliant individual to the ground and a humerus gets broken. Although this person probably had it coming. No crazy new high BRAC's to report.  Just the run of the mill .300 and the like... which would kill basically most but the professionals that I see.  I was actually challenged by one person. I was told that I wouldn't be able to beat them.. I agreed and said I would die before they got drunk. This person actually thought it was funny.  Probably is.  This was also the individual who told me that in the last 6 hours, before coming to the hospital to sober up before returning to their home town no less... your tax payer dollars HARD at work, had drank two fifths of R&R whiskey (this is by far the NASTIEST substance I feel one can legally purchase currently).  They kept drinking cause they "just weren't getting drunk.".  How lucky am I to not know this beast called addiction? I know so many struggle with it daily, and I think they are some of the strongest people I know when they stay the straight, and on the wagon.  I hope to never know this struggle personally. Nor do I ever hope to meet one of these patients in a bar in a drinking contest.

Funny story for all you!  Moms and dads and soon to be moms and dads... did you know a one month old can literally (and I do mean LITERALLY) shit 10 feet across a room?!?!?!??! My mind was 100% blown by this fact.  Now I have been shat on by the elderly, a grown person with full control of their bowels and a newborn.... Yes we laughed hysterically as the mother was standing there in pure horror as the crap dripped down the wall, from the trash can, and down my arm.  Why do I want kids again?   We had a brat child come through who needed to have earring backs removed because they were swallowed into the back of her ears (Dear Mom, Thank you for being a grown up and telling me to turn my earrings and rubbing them with alcohol every night so this never happened....) The family gave this child (under the age of 8) a choice in the matter... this is maddening. I am starting to really hate grown ups and their inability to be a parent.  Like this is a CHILD. They do not get opinions. Sorry.  Welcome to what is called "Parenthood".  This was a child pointing to our doctors and nurses screaming "I don't trust you!", "Stranger danger!" and other such things... one thinks... what on earth is your home life like that you hear these things on a regular enough basis to say them to adults?  Best part... our doc that night was like "...listen little one, someone is going to get hurt if you don't cooperate with what is going on." and this kid was all "You aren't the boss of me.. only my mom is"... Congrats parents of the year. Great job of raising a COMPLETELY entitled monster.  Yes the earring backs were removed... yes it took 3 of us to hold this kid down to do it; But alas, the parent stepped up and was a parent.

In other news Bentley is doing great, it's sounding like my cat lady status may increase by one when Bentley comes up after spending so much time with so many playmates.  Sigh. I have no hope of not being a cat lady at this point.  Perhaps the new goal is just not to be a cat hoarder. No cats will be found dead under a mattress! I can do this!

Supervisors meeting. 

I am currently in Anchorage enjoying 80 degrees and sunshine. T is building a deck and I am a rock solid supervisor. Wine in hand, whilst sitting in the hot tub.... probably makes me one of the worst supervisors ever... but I digress. I have been studying for my CEN (Certified Emergency Nurse) certification which I am taking in October, and have been collecting things for my new home (Which won't be mine until sometime in September). T and I are going to a wedding Monday so tomorrow we are going to hit up Costco for the village run. Lots of frozen chicken breasts, milk, and gifts to those in my little town that have asked me to bring things back for them.

T just asked me about my grandpa. 5 years and 14 days ago.  Forever in my heart.  In Anchorage and in Nome I think about him a lot as the planes fly by overhead. I know that he would be smiling. The same way he did when we went to Seattle together to find me a place to live.  Watching his face as the sea planes landed in Lake Union.  Memories are incredibly powerful.  If it weren't for the passing of this incredible individual and the passing of my incredible grandmother, who affirms that I have indeed made the right choice, I wouldn't have made the career path change or the this move to the edge of nowhere. But you know what? I know both of them are looking down on me from up above and smiling.  What a crazy granddaughter. What an incredible adventure. Enjoy everything about life. You get one shot. Live it. Love it. Regret nothing.

Until later my lovelies!

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. - Stephen King

Playing in the fireweed. Once all the flowers die on the stem summer is over

Okay since the last post a lot has happened! Lots of fun times, good friends, and adventures.  However nothing too terribly exciting has been happening in the ER. Lots of run of the mill heart attacks, possible strokes, phantom abdominal pain, etc.  We have been seeing some pretty cool hand lacerations from gold miners and contractors that are laying the fiber optic cable up the west coast of Alaska (OMG Perhaps one day soon we will have enough bandwidth for video chatting!).  So needless to say we have been doing lots of tetanus boosters! Ohhh and I learned that rabies vaccine/treatment is crazy! We don't do needles in the stomach anymore, but we are going to inject you with basically 11-15ml of serum... that's roughly 2-3ml in each major muscle group.  YOUCH!  I was punched in the face by an unruly 3 year old and told the mother she could wash her kids head wounds out (they weren't super bad, 3 stitches and it was done... only took 3 people to hold this kid down).  We had a kiddo with a finger that was gonna lose the tip. I don't know the full story on that one, but the tip of his finger was most certainly coal black.

I have also heard a vicious rumor that Verizon has put up a bunch of towers all across the state and that coming soon, hopefully October, they will flip the switch and perhaps Nome will stop owning my texts, calls and voicemails... maybe ;)

Stopped here for lunch on the way to our campsite

I noticed while I was away in Anchorage so much the past few weeks that I really do start to  miss certain aspects of this little town I call home.  I do rather enjoy almost always knowing someone wherever I go. The post office, the gym, grocery store, a local restaurant, walking down the street. I also really miss riding around on my 4-wheeler (who just turned 2000 miles old today!), when I get back I just don't feel home until I take my machine for a little ride (my god... what is happening to me?) My first trip to Anchorage was more of a grocery and errand run for some friends and myself and to hang out with T.  I flew back to Nome to work 3 days and left on the late flight out on 4th and T took me on a camping adventure.

Bottom of the mill looking up

The first night we stayed outside of a little town called Chitina, and the second and third night we stayed in a little town called McCarthy.  This state has some pretty incredible history to it.  We visited the Kennicott copper mine which is 5 miles outside of McCarthy.  To think that they built and started mining before they even got the train tracks built... in the early 1900's! We are a wussy group these days that's for sure (and yes I am most certainly in the wussy group!).  The pictures don't do it nearly any justice.  The mountains hid from me behind low clouds.  I will have to go back and hope for a clear sunny day to see the 16,000-18,000ft peaks that dapple the skyline.  Truly incredible.

Kennicott Copper Mill

Top of the mill

Our first night in McCarthy we took the mini bike (my first mini bike adventure!) into town (they don't allow tourists to drive their cars in, residents pay to use a car bridge into town, but ATVs and motorcycles/dirt bikes are allowed on the pedestrian bridge).  T and I went to a bar and had a drink and ran into some crazy Texans also enjoying an adult beverage.  We told them we took a little ride across the bridge into town on the mini bike together and they just said "You Alaskans are different".  Hahaha I was called an Alaskan... and you know what? we are pretty different.

Me and the mini bike!

Later the next day the mini bike and I got into a fight. I lost. My left lower leg took the impact of the crank case on top of a rock.  Then I must have hit the peg on the other leg during the fall because I looked like a domestic abuse victim.  For the record the really nasty bruise didn't hurt at all, and the one that looks like nothing was horribly painful. About a week out and the blood from the left leg is all pooling at my ankle and makes me look super tough. Silver linings.  I haven't had so much fun on a trip in a long time! I hope to come back sooner than later.

Root Glacier with a very hidden Mt Blackburn (16,391ft)

The night after the fall.

All the blood pooling at my ankle a week later

When a foot peg meets your calf

I got back a few days ago, worked a few days and today went out with 7 others from the ER on a long 4-wheeler trip to a fish camp that is about 15 miles down the west beach from Nome.  We took the long way in from the road and drove over the tundra and through tons of mud.  We had a pretty great time.

Creek crossing on the way to the beach from the tundra

Looking down on the tundra

The last few days have been weird for me. A lot of my past has caught me off guard and I hate when my weaknesses come rushing in with no brakes.  Letting the past interfere with the current is so ridiculous.  I know I am human, and I know that so many people have the same insecurities that I have.  I do have my head on pretty straight sometimes, and I am in a pretty good spot in life. Then a single event just brings me back to spots in my life that have tested me, and hurt me to my core, times that have clipped my wings and made me crawl.  I feel like I get so overwhelmed and I over commit to re-righting the boat that in my head has started to rock.  If you know me you know that I have an incredible ability to make mountains out of molehills sometimes and then I try to dig my way out.  Then I spin spin spin and oh goodness it just gets worse and worse.  Tonight after a lovely dinner at one of the doctors houses Emily and I took a very long walk down the beach and I was brought back to center when she told me that "...everyone thinks and feels a lot of the things that you do. You just come out with it, while most people just hold it in"  Perhaps that is why I have added this little section in this post.  Seems inner demons are always lurking and just wait until a little weakness shows and then they run rampant. I must rein these things in.  It's absurd.

Getting stuck in mud pits! Great day!

Cliffs on the side of trail

Sledge Island floating on the horizon

No matter how far you run you will always find yourself wherever you land.  You would think I would have learned this lesson by now.  Maybe this time...

The tame Bering Sea.

I am thankful for friends at the edge of the world, the new place I will be calling my home in September at some point, warm sunny days that I don't actually work on, friends that don't let my inner demons get in the way, matte finished nail polish.

Love to you all!

To be continued.

I have just got back from a five day adventure and my first day back at the hospital.  I will update this weekend! Just wanted y'all to know I haven't forgotten you! Good times were had by all!

Where there is no struggle, there is no strength. - Oprah Winfrey

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"  'I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?'  To shrug.”  - Ayn Rand

Let's discuss some of the things that I have witnessed over the last few weeks. I have seen when  a loved one beats the living crap out of someone, I have assisted in a sexual assault exam on a 4 year old, I got to be in the room when a person was told that they have Hepatitis C thanks to the IV drug habit of their significant other.   It's been a rough couple of week in terms of figuring out how to cope, absorb, learn from each situation and how to let it roll off the shoulders.  I found my inner strength from talking to my family, but also from the incredible group of individuals that I am so blessed to have surrounding me where I work. Kindred spirits that have all had to walk this path of struggle.  From what I gather you just have to take it at face value, to know that I did what I could in this persons time of need, and that's about it.

Sunset behind the hospital at 130am with low cloud cover

I just got back from a few days in Anchorage. Did the Bush shopping spree at Costco so I picked up excessive amounts of chicken breasts, candy, salt and pepper pistachios, picked up stuff for others that don't leave Nome that much. I went to Target and touched all the things.  Met some new friends, and hung out with amazing older friends as well.  I was so proud of myself. I didn't even cry on the plane going back to Nome! It's like I'm actually okay with it now.  I know it's not a forever home, but I do, at times, miss this little town.  I do love that my soul mode of transportation is either my feet or my 4-wheeler.  I find myself getting possessive of the Norton Sound region.  In Anchorage there are lots of walrus ivory carvings and such for sale, but they aren't from the villages and carvers that are in and around Nome. And those are the carvings that I want.  I guess I'm turning into a bit of a homer.

My mom has now gotten to experience being "Nomed".  She had sent me a box of goodies and it said that it had arrived in Nome on June 15th... I got the box today. July 1st.  Nome likes to hold on to things and when she is ready she will give you the goods.  It's like that with weather, mail, text messages, phone calls, really anything you might actually like to have. For instance Nome likes to hold my text messages for a few hours at a time and sometimes I get a mass grouping of messages from a few people (like 10-20 text messages), or when I just get a voicemail and my phone never rings... Nomed.  Nome looks out for me by screening my phone calls like that I suppose.

I have 3 days of work ahead of me, then I'm headed back to Anchorage for a little getaway with my friend T.  We are going on a trip to a little town called McCarthy.  I am looking forward to seeing more parts of this amazing state that I have yet to experience.  Alaska is now closer to my 1.2 favorite state.... uh oh.  So there will be many more pictures after that little adventure.

The weather has turned for the yucky. Low 50's and intermittent drizzle.  Delicious. I wonder what will come through the door tomorrow.  I kind of love that about my job, even with seeing the worst of the worst, it changes every single day.  I love the variety.  Keeps me on my toes!

My love to everyone.

Until next time lovelies!