I can't... I just can't...

... get over the fact that I had to work right after I got back from a Vacation. Dumb me planned it wrong. Being Ms. Rima, I always take 1 or 2 days post-vacation for my Post-Vacation Recovery. It's a must you know. Muy importante. You need that extra day(s) to: unpack, rekindle your lost days with your dog, fight the blues of your awesome vacation, and settle in back to reality.

Am I being overly dramatic? Maybe. That's what the The Traveling PillowMan thinks so. Now he's the pro on going on international trips and going back to work right away despite jetlag. Me? I can't. Just can't. Too much.

Especially when I spent my vacation doing these things...

 Enjoying the beautiful beach in Cancun

Visiting Chichen Itza 

 & to visit one of the Cenotes...

...and jump in to it 

Riding an ATV in the jungle, holding on to my dear life...

...and then zipline thru the jungle

...while The PillowMan tries to pull a Spiderman

Visit Playa del Carmen 

...and wearing ponchos while visiting Tulum's ruins in the rain

Waking up seaside in our Villa in Akumal Beach

Eating legit Mexican Street Tacos with a liter of Coke 

 Visiting one of the most amazing sinkholes/cenotes I've ever ever seen at Dos Ojos...

 ...with my orange hair (I don't know why my camera makes my hair orange)

So you don't blame me right when I came home, drained as heck from a super duper busy day in the ER? Because all I wanted to do is to jump right in to that blue water and float, instead of listening to nonsense complaints of toothache for 1 year & yelling for pain medication and taking needed places for real sick patients who required immediate attention? Almost 75% of health complaints that I've heard today are NOT AN EMERGENCIES. If only you take care of yourself, you wouldn't v be in the ER in the first place. Geesh.

End Rant.

xoxo,

Rima

Life as a Nurse

If you didn't know, I'm actually a Registered Nurse by day. It's what I do for a living. My background is Emergency Medicine (my home) and Interventional Radiology (my second home). I did ER for 3 years and IR for 2 yrs & 7 months and now I am back to the ER again... Hustlin'... while still helping out IR too (the goal is to do half & half. Why? Because I like the variety of things).

Well yesterday, I took care of a patient with severe Parkinson's. He was there overnight (carried on from night shift) and pretty much needed a new placement for his on going care. His brother, who was his primary caretaker, was there too at bedside the whole time. After a little chit-chat, I found out that the brother isn't able to take care of the patient anymore due to his severe stage of the disease (if you are not familiar with Parkinson's, see Michael J. Fox... but this man right here was worse thatn MJ Fox). The brother was in the verge of losing his job & he even sacrificed his own medical conditions in order to take care of his brother *tears*. You can tell that he loves his brother so so much.

So Mr. Patient here has occasional delusions, he tends to get out of the bed no matter how we repositioned and staged his hospital gurney to prevent him of getting out and fall (he has history of falling due to his shakes). As I get to know him more during the day, it's not delusion. It's just his way of communicating is very difficult because of his Parkinson's. He has a hard time trying to blurt out words to express himself to the point he gets really frustrated. I felt really bad for him.

Meanwhile, my friend from Case Management took the time, out of her busy list of patients, to work on a new placement for this gentleman. She literally spent 1/2 of the day trying to get this man a new place. I owe her a beer, or two.

At one point during the day, the brother had to step out to make a phone call, so I decided to act as a sitter for Mr. Patient. As I try to reorient him and get him comfortable, the chitchatter in me decided to be friendly nosy. I started asking about his martial status (unmarried), his siblings (his brother & deceased sister), his ethnical background (South America), teasing about how his birthday is just 1 month away from mine ("But I am 30 years older than you, mija" he says) and where he used to live prior to being in California... You know, just trying to be personal with him. All the meantime, feeding him and giving him some Apple Juice and working our way together with our communication skills with his Parkinson's. I was being a ProActive listener.

So my Case Manager friend was able to find him a new place to stay and boy his brother was very delightful. They got him in right away as a direct admission. They were happy, we were happy, everyone was happy. The brother gave me a hug of joy.

After finishing their paperwork and discharging him out, I wheeled the patient to his car with his brother. Then Mr. Patient, with his shaky body, stood up & turned around slowly... And insisting to give me a hug, a big hug. With his Parkinson's talk, he said "Thank You for all of your help".

And that made me feel great for being a nurse.

Sometimes, you just have to stop and listen. Some of my coworkers who weren't in my area that day asked, "What's wrong with your patient? Is he drunk? Is he on drugs? Why does he shake a lot?" Us nurses, especially Emergency/ICU RNs, we have to desensitize ourselves from many difficult situation, so it's pretty common to see nurses being subjective with our own thinking, especially when it's based on a quick glance on a situation (we, nurses, are on the go). Sometimes, because of busy load of work, we tend to "forget" that we are dealing with humans who have emotions. AND, sometimes, patients & family members also FORGET that they too are dealing with humans. We are humans too, us nurses & doctors. We have emotions and feelings too.

Just like Ellen DeGeneres says all the time, "Be Kind to One Another"... If we only take some time to just listen wholeheartedly, not only you changed that other person's life, it changes yours too.

I hope Mr. Patient is doing okay today.

- Rima

linking up with Treasure Tromp :)

Food Time: Chocolate Carrot Beet Pulp Bread (and Playing Nurse)

And I know you guys are thinking... JUICE PULP? You're not the only one. Mother thought the same thing... like, "Rima... Seriously?"

As you may know, I've been juicing lately... For the past 2 months, even though it's off and on. I love the way the juices (esp the Green Juice) make me feel. I feel rejuvenated and there's that boost of energy. What sucks is that I waste all the pulps, you know, where all the fibers are.

A couple of days ago, I took care of a Cancer patient. She had stage 4 Colon Cancer. What amazed me was her energy. She had this ball of vibrant energy that you rarely see in a stage 4 cancer patient. She had a percutaneous nephrostomy tube that we had to exchange because of the low output (it's a tube that is placed in the kidneys to drain urine because of obstructions that blocks the urine to your bladder). Her energy was contagious. As we were finishing up her procedure, my doctor gave her some good news... the output to her tube is low because her tumor is shrinking, thanks to her treatment. The look on her face was awe-ing. She was full smile and was so thankful to us and to God. 

Then I dropped her off to her room and we chit-chatted on the way. She said she juices. I told her the same. Homegirl said she juices and bakes the pulp because she doesn't like to see food go to waste. I've heard about this before but never attempted to do so. 

When I got home, I did some research and came up with this recipe. I made it this past Saturday with the thought of that patient I took care off. I drank the juice (it was Beet, Carrot, Apple and Cucumber) and saved the pulp to make this bread. 

Ms. Super Energy, this one is for you. Girl, the bread turned out super moist and yummy. Awesome for breakfast.

You don't need a mixer for this. Just a whisk, a spatula and some muscles. 

Chocolate Carrot Beet Pulp Bread

makes 1 bread. Yum.

What you need:

• 1/4 cup of Cocoa Powder
• 1 3/4 cups of All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp powdered Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
• 1 3/4 cups packed Brown Sugar
• 1/4 cup Apple Sauce
• 1 Ripe Banana, mashed
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 Eggs
• 1 cup of Juice Pulp
• 1 cup of toasted nuts (I love Almonds) - optional

Heat Yo Oven @ 350F. Spray a 9x5x3 loaf pan with Baking Pam or do the old fashion way by greasing it with butter/margarine and dust with flour. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk cocoa powder, flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg until combined, set aside. If your nuts are raw, toast them in the oven for 10 minutes and let it cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar and oil. Add apple sauce and mashed banana and mix to combine. Then mix in the Juice Pulp until combined evenly.

Fold in the dry ingredients in to the wet one, do not overmix. Fold in 1/2 cup of the nuts (if using)

Pour in batter in to loaf pan and sprinkle the top with the rest of the 1/2 cup of nuts, if using.

Bake for at least 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Meanwhile take pictures of your dog posing, waiting to play with you.

Once out, let the bread cool in the pan on top of a cooling rack for 10 - 15 minutes. Reverse to let the bread out, cut and enjoy.

Definitely the texture is dense, let's say comparing with Banana Bread. The cool thing is that you can't taste the beet, carrots nor cucumber. They make the bread moist. Mm, gosh I love moist breads. 

Thanks to Ms. Super Energy for inspiring me to make this bread.

If you decide to give it a try, let me know. I'm curious how this bread would go if the pulps had like kale or spinach. Gah. Sounds gory though.

Playing Nurse

So today I would like to share with y'all my experience with this patient of mine that I dealt with today.

Let's call her Ms. Awesome (why awesome? It was her attitude. You'll see why). She was my 2nd patient of the day and the procedure that we had to do for her was an axilla biopsy. When I saw her this morning, I totally remembered her because I was her nurse when we did her breast biopsy. Prior to seeing her again, I looked up her medical records and read the results of the breast biopsy. I frowned. Not good. She's positive for breast cancer. A pretty invasive and aggressive one too :(

Anyways, when I walked in and saw her face, I totally remembered her and said, "Hey, I remember you!" She was like, "Yeah you were my nurse last time!" I go on and explained the procedure to her and did some Q & As for her. She had this really upbeat and this I-am-Not-Scared-of-this-Shit attitude regarding her recent diagnosis. She was very positive and is ON it regarding her care and appointments.  She told me, "Girl, I'm ready for this. I'm 50 years old, I'm still young. I can fight this."

Then I was just being a big mouth (I like to talk to my patients... In a way, it's my version of stress control for them aka distraction) and told her that I'm doing a Susan G Komen Race for the Cure 5K, and her response really got me. Made me more proud of what I do as a nurse. 

She said (even though it's pretty simple), "Rima, thank you. Thanks for doing that. What you're doing is pretty awesome. Thank You."

I was stunned. Her simple answer made my day. 

For a moment, I was so grateful for the profession that I'm doing. This is why I'm a nurse. To make a difference in a person's life... even though, in her case, I'm doing it indirectly to her... More for her disease process.

After the whole biopsy, after giving her discharge instructions and signing papers, I walked her out to the lobby. She said, "Thanks for making that whole process as painless as possible and making me feel very comfortable. And girl, even though you're gonna walk that race, I really appreciate what you're doing for the cancer!"  

Right there... is the reason why I'm a nurse. 

So Ms. Awesome, I'm dedicating my 5K race for you too. You and that Ms. Big Brave Heart.

Let's fight this evil disease.

If you like to donate for this cause (It's tax deductible) click here. I'm doing the 5K with the Pillow (yay) and his work company. 

Nursing Link - Up

Browsing around after finishing my Church Bulletin (love doing it but it's a drag), I found 2 bloggers, who are both Nurses (YAY!) and they have a link up specifically for us nurses (and student nurses too). This is rad. Super rad. I love Nursing. I love finding Nursing Bloggers. Holla. You know it. 
So for this entry, the topic of the link-up is the Dress Code. Oh dear. First off, my dress code is BOH-RING. Since the mandatory switch-a-roo (which rumor has it, it's gonna be eliminated) for my department (Inteventional Radiology), I have to use the OR scrubs. It's not like the fun green ones above, it's the nasty PJ like, ugly dead sky blue. It's so boring. I look really weird in it. The size are never true to the label (an S can be an M, vice versa), and I always look like I'm drowning in scrubs. The only way to spice it up is with fun shoes and a surgical cap. And my big glasses. Hah.

Most of my other regular scrubs are from a variety of brands, Koi to Dickies to UA. For shoes, I prefer my Crocs clogs or this fine hot pink ones that I got from Goodwill. 

Other accessories are my Badge holder (currently a blinged-up Green Bay Packers) and my Baby-G watch in Teal. Oh and some fun hair ties. Haha. Oh and can't forget pens. Lots of them. Especially since my IR docs like to jack up my pens. I even had one of them swear to me to bring me some cute Korean pens while he's over there. 

I would love to see other nurses on what they wear. Gotta love nursing.

For non-nurse readers, sorry. haha... gotta spread the love.

moonbeamers,