Show and Tell

So I'm a traveling nurse. I move sometimes fairly frequently. I need to be somewhat portable although I admit to not being very good at this. Traveling light isn't necessarily my forte'. So I have an air mattress that I sleep on. I spent the money to get a pretty decent one. It's one of the aer0bed ones and I think I paid a little under $300 a little over a year ago. It's been working great. So the other day I was in bed, asleep. All of the sudden there was this crazy loud noise that woke me. My first thought was that my bed had collapsed. The fact that I was sort of looking up at the right side of my bed reinforced that idea. Then I remembered that it was an air bed and it couldn't "collapse". So then I'm trying to figure out why the side of my bed is higher than the middle. I got up and after peeling back the sheet and mattress pad I figured it out. One of the creases in the bed (I have no idea what they are for) had popped up. Hence the noise and the lump. My bed. It has a hernia.


I ended up turning it around so the lump was on the other side since I get out of bed on the side it was on. It seems to be working ok. I also let some of the air out in case that was something that contributed to the problem. I'm hoping that this doesn't happen with more of the crease things as I really would rather not go buy a new bed.
If you would like to play along with show and tell or just see what others are showing this week head on over to Mel's place at Stirrup Queens and join the fun.

Where My Brain Gets Ahead Of Me

So I would like to acknowledge before you all read this post and think "holy shit, that girl's crazy" that I am fully aware that this is a bit (or a lot) putting the cart before the horse. However since it's stuff that's bouncing around my brain it's really much easier to let it out. I have several other posts bouncing around that I should let out later too.
Anyways. I ended up working mother baby again last night at a different hospital. Again I liked it a lot. The staff was easy to work with and helpful and would love to have me come back. The charge nurse even suggested I let the special care nursery know that I was qualified to work for them. Which I did and they said they'd be happy to have me too. So, as I was saying. Different hospital and older hospital. My first impression was "not bad, they make dinner look fancy with table cloths, nice glasses etc". Then I realized that most of their rooms were semi-private. And all I could think was "really????" and no way would I have a baby there because no way am I sharing a room with someone else I don't know after giving birth. See cart before horse, not even pregnant and I'm critiquing hospitals mother baby units. Whatever. I use the excuse that because I work in a hospital I frequently find myself wondering what it would be like to be a patient there. This one while nice to work at, wouldn't want to be a patient at. I didn't even know they did semi-private rooms any more for post-partum. The hospital I worked at last week, beautiful nice new rooms. And no NICU. So if your baby gets sick and needs a NICU they ship baby off to a different hospital while you are stuck there. No, not so much. This all makes me realize that it all comes down to the fact that should I ever manage to get and stay pregnant I can't imagine giving birth anywhere but in Washington. Preferably at the hospital I worked at for 4 years where I know many of the mother baby and NICU nurses. I don't know if this is because I know the people there or if it's just because it seems like it's so much nicer there. I would guess it's some of both. The rooms are bigger which is nice if you have visitors. I don't see the couch as being necessary since I don't have a significant other who would be staying the night although it's a nice touch. But maybe it's just the feeling of home in that I worked there for so long and truly felt at home there, especially when I worked lab and traveled all over the hospital and knew people all over the hospital. I know that when I did end up being a patient there for my appendix 2 years ago I felt like I was treated really well by people in all the departments since many of them knew me. So that's what bounces around my head at night when I catch myself thinking when and not if. I guess that means I'll be going home at some point. Do I sound like freaking Dorothy yet??

You've Got To Be Kidding

Ok so I was looking at the newspaper back home and came across this article on ice cream made from breast milk. 0http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=16865

And while I think breast feeding your child is fantastic something about the idea of eating ice cream made from a strangers breast milk is a bit ewwww. Not to mention the idea that ok so you're being "kinder" to cows by not milking them all the time for their milk but is it really kinder for women to have to pump constantly to provide enough milk for all the worlds ice cream needs??

Oh How I Love Bread

Yeah, the giving up of the bread isn't going so well. Lets just say that thanks to Costco it won't happen completely this week. I went to Costco yesterday and they had muffins. Now I know they always have muffins but usually you can buy a package of just one kind of muffins and have 12 of them which I get tired of that kind of muffin before I run out of them. Or you can buy a combo package and usually I don't like both of the different muffins. Like blueberry and poppy seed. Love blueberry, can live without the poppy seed. So yesterday they had something new. You could mix your own combination of muffins. They had shelves of them and you told them what you wanted. So I ended up with a dozen muffins. Breakfast for a while longer. Oh well. Still haven't had any Dr. Pepper though so that's something.
I'm going to try to work a lot in the next month. Trying to save up for this so I can pay cash for as much of it as possible. We'll see how it goes though. I know I can do 4 nights a week, not so sure I can pull off 5. I guess I'll find out though.
I'm excited and nervous about the IVF. Part of me still wishes I could manage to do this in October. And I know that a month is not that big of a difference. But I look at the calender and see that possible retrieval is the week before thanksgiving. Then I worry what if my ER is close to the end of the week and ET doesn't happen until after Thanksgiving. I want to buy my plane ticket home soon but worry about what day to buy it for. I know I'm better to wait for November but still. I'm anxious to get started. Then part of me starts to worry, what if it doesn't work. I know that's a possibility. I don't want to think of it. I want to think positive. Still the thoughts are there.
Anyways, not much of interest happening in my life. Oh except that all my TV shows are coming back on again. Yippee!!!! Yes, I have no life.

Long Weekend

What a long weekend this last one was. I worked 4 nights in a row although last night was only a 4 hour shift. Something I was torn between being relieved about and annoyed about since I should have worked the full 12. I was so tired though. Sunday morning when I got off work I could hardly drive home as my knee was so sore I was having a hard time working my clutch. Next car will definitely be an automatic. Of course I also decided to throw some fun into the mix by deciding to quit caffeine. Cold turkey. So I also had a headache for the last 4 days. I woke up today feeling pretty good and then went to have more of my favorite salad and promptly forgot and ordered an iced tea. Oops. Oh well, it still wasn't soda which I haven't had since last Wednesday night and which I am still craving so bad it's not even funny. I want a freaking Dr. Pepper.
I figured that since I'm doing another IVF I should put as much effort as possible into being as healthy as possible. Not so easy to do either. My doctor has an eating plan that is supposed to be helpful in being healthy and possibly aiding in conception. Basically for the first month no bread, no sugar, no potatoes, very limited rice and pasta and all the fruits and veggies I want except bananas. Meats and dairy are ok too. Kind of like At*kins although not as restrictive. So like I said, I gave up soda which is my preferred source of caffeine. That is difficult. As is giving up sugar which is my favorite thing. I'm still working on the sugar (as I sit and eat a couple of frozen miniature snickers bars) . Bread (and cereal) are going to be probably the hardest for me. I not only love bread but I quickly run out of ideas of quick fix things to eat on the days I work. On the days I work cooking pretty much isn't going to happen. So I need something that requires minimal effort to put together. Often that ends up being a sandwich for me. But with no bread that makes it more difficult. Plus breakfast which for me is often toast and cereal. So I'm working on it. I guess I'll figure something out. And it's a gradual process sort of. If I tried to give it all up at once I would likely have to kill somebody as my inner bitch would take over and couldn't be controlled. Granted lately she's been a bit more obvious anyways. Just wait until I'm hopped up on hormones again. Oooh, that'll be fun.
So the other night I got to pick up hours in mother baby again. And again I really liked it. Also they liked me. It's looking like it might be a possibility for me to pick up hours there on a regular basis which will be helpful in getting me more experience and maybe leading into more positions doing this on a regular basis. I ended up having something interesting that night though. I had a baby who was a 35 weeker and was sort of showing it. She was sort of slow with the feeding which is common for a baby that's a little early. The interesting part was that on the report information mom (who was my age) had been pregnant via IVF with donor eggs. Later looking through the chart I came across the donor eggs thing several times. In one sense this sort of made her feel like a kindred spirit. I felt like I had the issue of IF in common with her although I didn't bring it up. However another part of me felt like her chart/medical information made to much of the donor egg thing. Not that I think that using donor eggs is anything to be ashamed of because I don't. That doesn't bother me at all. It just felt like maybe that wasn't necessarily information that every single individual who came in contact with her during her hospital stay needed to know. In health care it's a matter of what information do I need to know to care for this patient and I don't know that the donor egg thing was a need to know. I do understand the theory that maybe it can affect bonding but I also know there are many other things that can affect bonding too. It just seemed like the way it was stated in so many different places gave it sort of a negative connotation. I know that there are those who do view using a donor or even anything ART related as being negative which to me I just don't understand. I see all paths leading to family and I don't necessarily see any of those paths as being wrong. In caring for this patient I saw a nervous pair of first time parents who were excited and happy. What difference does it truly make if those eggs started out in someone else's ovaries.

Working Again

I actually worked last night. It was sort of nice in a tiring sort of way. It was a mostly good night so it was a pretty good first night back. I did get out of work late this morning which was a bother since I'm tired, then I got on the wrong exit to go home. Oops. Going 2 miles in stop and go traffic to turn around and go back the other way. Not much else going on. I'm tired and ready to go to sleep. So just hoping to work again the next 2 nights and it looks like it's going to be a nice cool day. Great for sleeping.

A Plan

So I went and met with Dr this morning. I needed to discuss what was next and when. So now I have a plan. One I like and hopefully will be able to fully carry out. It may be tricky but I think it will work. I'm doing another IVF cycle. In November. He had originally given me information for October also which would be nice but I really don't think I can manage to get all the money together by then. So it's looking like ER around the week before Thanksgiving. I'm excited. And nervous. But more excited. At least so far.
In the meantime, I'm now set up to pick up per diem hours at 3 different hospitals in the area. I'm going tomorrow to talk to another staffing agency to see about adding several more hospitals to the area. I've talked to current recruiter about just staying put and doing per diem for the next couple of months and I think this could work. I figure I've got at least a couple of weeks to decide for sure but this is feeling like for now it could work. It's not quite as good as a new contract but it would still allow me to be working and it would also allow me with a flexible enough schedule to arrange to have Thanksgiving off and possibly Christmas and to stay in the Sac area long enough to do my next IVF. In the mean time I'm going to be trying to work as many hours as I can possibly stand to do. I need to pick up over time as much as possible for the next 2 months. Plus the more I'm working the less time I will have to go out and spend money. Who needs a life, I can live without one for a while.

Monday Again

Just another Monday and still no job. Sort of. I'm going to start picking up hours on a per diem basis here in Sac until a contract comes through so I will still be getting a paycheck but the limbo is bugging me. I had hoped to have a contract to start by the 15th so that I would be done by Dec 15th and therefore get Christmas off too. Now I have to hope for the 22nd and if not, I won't be getting Christmas off. And I'm still putting off switching to a different recruiter because I hate to lose the little bit of fertility coverage. And I can't just use the whole amount on meds and then go since only $1500 is for meds and the other $2000 is for the actual IVF. I may end up having to give up the $2000 though if they don't come up with something soon. Also I was really hoping to manage this IVF before the end of the year as I would like to add this to this years taxes. Plus I just want to be doing something. I'm tired of waiting. Of sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing. I'm back to feeling like this is all so damn far away and like it won't ever happen which then just depresses me. I think I'm just frustrated that as usual nothing is going the way I had planned for it to go. For now I sit here in an apartment that I started packing up but stopped because I would hate to have to unpack again in the same apartment. Plus I'm trying to balance the not buying many groceries etc so I won't have much to move with keeping good food options on hand. I did go buy another watermelon today from cute guy selling watermelons out of his truck. Now if I just knew what was going on next.

Show And Tell

So for my show and tell today I'm showing a pendant I bought for myself earlier this week. I had seen this about a month ago in a little store I had went to that has many fantastic things and I loved it. I didn't buy it because I don't wear necklaces often but I then went home and spent the next month thinking about it and wanting it. So I finally went back and got it. I think instead of putting it on a chain (I usually dislike necklaces since the chain pulls at my hair on my neck) I am going to put this on a black velvet or silk ribbon at least at first to see if that works, I may have to adjust later. Anyways the stone is a ruby which is one of my favorite stones although I've never seen one like this before.

Also I wanted some earrings to go with it and the pair on the right match even though you can't tell very well from this picture. These were actually pendants also but the guy at the shop converted them into earrings for me that matched my necklace. The others were just pretty and so I got them too.

Help

Help, I can't stop taking pictures of my cats. They are so cute that I just can't resist. Will it be like this when I have kids too?? So they both found a nice comfy spot in one of the boxes I had packed and then had to reopen since I needed something out of the box. It looks like they're all ready to go. Now if we only knew where to.

This one of course is sideways and I can't figure out how the hell to turn it. Oops.
Still no contract but they are asking if I want to pick up some per diem hours until a contract does come through. I said yes so maybe I will work some shifts in the next few days coming up. I did get a call from another recruiter the other day that sounded promising for another hospital here in this area but I don't think it will work out. The hospital does 8 hour shifts and I really don't want to change to 8's at this time. If I work 8 hour shifts I have to work 5 days a week. Then if I want to pick up any overtime I can't unless I want to work 6 days a week. At least with 12 hour shifts if I decide to pick up some overtime I will still have like 3 days a week off. Since I had planned to try to pick up more overtime to help finance the next IVF I really don't want to do 8 hour shifts. I'm also not sure about switching recruiters. Right now I have fertility coverage with my insurance. Not a lot, only $3500 but it's better than nothing and it's like 2 months worth of savings. I don't really want to give that up unless I was going to be getting better coverage. So I'm still kind of in a wait and see mode.
Sleeping has gotten better as long as I resign myself to the fact that it's pretty much not going to happen during night time hours. I can sleep all day long but if I try to sleep at night I just lay there. Hopefully I haven't permanently screwed up my clock and someday I will be able to go back to being a normal person who sleeps at night. At least now I'm not spending as much money since I leave my house a lot less.

Oops

It has come to my attention that I need to upgrade my phone plan to one with more minutes. Last month for the first time ever I went over my anytime minutes on my phone plan leaving me with an extra $50 dollars in phone charges. Since this was the first time since 2002 that this has occurred I figured it was an anomaly and paid the bill and moved on. So I just got the e-mail for my phone bill for this month. I went over again to the tune of $97 dollars. Oops. I have several expensive phone calls on that bill including one $32 bill for a call to my friend D. So, I need to figure out which plan to switch to. I can increase to the one that has an additional 450 minutes for another 20 or for another 35 I can switch to the one that's unlimited. I haven't decided yet.
Still no word from the recruiters. I think tomorrow I will start looking at other recruiters. Preferably one of the big companies that have more options maybe? If I don't get something soon I may have to start looking for an 8 week contract as I don't want a contract that goes all the way through December since I want Christmas off.
I went and got my CD3 labs drawn today thanks to Bleu reminding me. I had woke up late in the afternoon and almost forgot to go get them drawn. All done now though. And the acne on my chin is finally starting to go away. I will sometimes get one zit around the time AF shows up but something was up with that this month. I had like 5 good sized ones which of course I can't just leave alone so they looked even worse.
Not much else going on. I went to Chi*li's for dinner tonight. They have a salad called the quesadilla explosion that is to die for. I had tried it a couple weeks ago when I went to Marin county looking at housing and have been craving one ever since. I used some of what was left on my rent dot com gift card. Each time I rent an apartment with them (hello every time I move) I get a hundred dollar gift card. I think I've got enough on there for one more salad.

Next

Actually I still don't know what next. I still don't have a contract which isn't horribly worrisome except that I am supposed to technically move out of this apartment by the 15th. I did already give them a heads up that I might be here longer. Right now I have enough money to be fine so I'm not hugely worried. I've also been working on making myself relax. The last 2 nights I've went over to the fitness room (late when no one can see me, or at least so I tell myself) and walk on the treadmill a bit. Then I've changed into my swimsuit and went swimming. Tonight feels a bit too cool for the swimming though as the water isn't super warm. The first night though it was still pretty hot out and the cool water felt fantastic. I would so love to have a pool of my own so I could go out and skinny dip. Or as the joke goes chunky dunk.
Sunday was CD1. Yippee. Tomorrow I'll go get my CD3 labs drawn. I still don't know if I can or should cycle this month. I have no idea if I will even still be in Sac in 2 weeks. So that sort of makes it difficult and I'm starting to get really frustrated with this. I have been on hold almost the entire freaking year which I'm sick of. First it was the IVF and the miscarriage. Then it was the cyst from hell. Then trying to get somewhere that I had a doctor. Then neck injury, not working, now possibly moving again. This was not how I wanted to spend my year. Part of me wants to do one more IUI and see but then all the faith I had developed in my body remembering what the fuck it was supposed to be doing has vanished again. For the first few months after the m/c I felt like my body was doing something. I could feel ovulation, my CM was great. Now it's back to the before of not feeling much of anything other than cramps when AF shows. The other part of me doesn't want to spend more money on an IUI when I can put that money towards an IVF especially since I have no faith at this point that an IUI will work. I'm not really sure where this leaves me. Other than frustrated that 8 months are gone and I'm still no closer to my dream. In the meantime I'm trying to eat better. That's going so-so. I've eaten half a freaking watermelon in 24 hours in hopes that will make me forget that all I really want is cookies and creme brule. So far not really working but constipation is definitely not an issue. Not that it ever really was but still. Half a watermelon. I still haven't managed to give up bread and cereal but I have mostly given up potatoes for various vegetables and remembered how much I love baked beans. I'm not sure that is an improvement over potatoes though since I'm sure they have sugar. I figure that even though I'm not doing fantastic I'm still doing better than I was. Now I just need to forget the damn cookies.

Show And Tell

So my show and tell pictures this week are of two unrelated things but I got a kick of one and the other has a story with it. The first is a picture of my goofy cat Sara and the reason I can't leave plastic bags around as the girls think it's great fun to play in them. Of course I had to stop and take a picture of her before I took the bag away.

The other picture is of the wonderful watermelon I bought today. I had got one at the grocery store and it was awful. There was no water in it, the texture was all wrong and it wasn't sweet. So I got this one from the cute guy on the side of the road selling watermelons and it's much better. So sweet and juicy. And it has seeds! Which I like since I'm weird. Actually I eat the seeds and have since I was a little girl. My aunt when I was little told my cousin and I that we should eat the seeds because they were good for our kidneys. Looking back on it I'm pretty sure that she was just trying to come up with a way to get us to quit spitting them at each other in the house. Whatever though, it stuck and many years later I still eat the seeds.

Just to fully emphasize how gullible I was as a child I also believed that chocolate milk came from brown cows until I was oh maybe 12.

Can't Sleep

I can't sleep and it's annoying the crap out of me. I've been up all night. I can't tell how much of it is my body trying to revert back to night shift habits and how much of it is other stuff. My brain has just been "going" non stop. I can't turn it off. I want to fall asleep but am worried to sleep all day and miss potential phone calls from maybe employers. I think about where my next contract will be, how I will find another apartment with a short term lease, how I will get my stuff all moved again, how much I'll pay for rent deposits etc. I worry about money. Right now I have plenty to pay my bills but possibly more difficult to pay bills and deposits etc on a new apartment. I think about my friend D and stuff he has going on right now and how worried I am and how I hate the whole limbo thing of not knowing what's coming with his situation. I worry about the IF stuff. When can I try again, are my eggs crap, will I ever get pregnant, does my doctor think I'm not serious about this (get upset at me) because I haven't been able to do anything the last couple of months because of money and the neck injury. I feel like it's urgent I get pregnant or at least try again soon because of the whole egg quality worry and because if I could just hurry up and get pregnant I could take a more permanent job somewhere and not do this moving every 3 months. To some extent I have done this worry fest at the end of the last couple of contracts. Factor in stuff from home and the biological clock that is getting more and more insistent and it's all constantly on my mind. The only time I can quiet my head is if I'm reading a book. I can shut it all down and focus on another life that isn't mine. This has always been my method of self calming and sometimes I need it more than others. All I know is that right now I'm tired and I can't sleep because my head will not turn off. Is that what anxiety feels like?? Maybe I just need some fucking Xa*nax.
Oh and I just posted this on the wrong blog at first. See how tired I am? Or maybe it's something to do with keeping 3 blogs going.

I Don't Get It

Ok so I finally joined facebook last night. And I don't get it. Ok so I have been chatting a bit with a nurse I used to work with in Chic0 but I don't get it. What are the little sea creature and flower things. I mean they're cute but what is the purpose behind them? Seriously. I'm really curious. Of course it looked through like my highschool graduating class to see who was on facebook. I saw a couple names I recognized but I hardly felt like saying "hey add me as your friend even though I hated your snobby ass in highschool" Sort of seems hypocritical. Enjoying my free time from work and not really stressing too much yet about the lack of contract. I have 2 different recruiters currently working on possible contracts so I guess I'll see what comes up. If I don't have any possibilities by say Monday I may sign up with another recruiter, preferably one of the big ones this time.
I figure at this point that AF is due to arrive any day and I'm ready to get started again. I've gotten almost all of my labs done except for the CD 3 FSH and Estradiol. Oh and I forgot to talk about the 24 hour urine for Cortisol that I had to do. So here's where I sound like either a freak or a total lab geek. I had always wanted to do a 24 hour urine. No, not because I'm gross and live to save my pee in a bucket of ice in the tub. But because I've always wondered exactly how much I pee in one day. Turns out the the whole process was much more difficult and gross than I had anticipated and that I don't pee nearly as much as I would have thought. The times when I feel like I'm going to die if I don't pee, turns out there is only about 400 mL of urine in that bladder. Lord help me when (if?) I'm pregnant and I have a baby dancing on my bladder. Yes, as always I know I'm weird and I'm pretty much ok with that. Anyways, I'm anxious to get started again but of course now money is back to being a bit of an issue since I've got at least 2 weeks off work unpaid. Ugg. I think I'm getting sick of this. I need a contract where I like the job well enough to stay put for a while without picking up and moving every 3 months. And I really want/need to figure out how to do my next IVF preferably by the end of the year. One I want it on this years taxes since I should have a buttload of medical expenses this year. Two I have a feeling that I may end up needing to go home soon. There's some stuff going on at home that is sort of stressing me out and making me feel like I need to head that way. Right now though I'm trying to keep a brave face and positive attitude about it all until there is more for sure information. So, I need to go back to work. Maybe even pick up some per diem hours somewhere for a few days. I should ask my recruiter about that.

WhoooHooo

I am all done with awful contract. I did my last night on Saturday and it wasn't too bad. Sunday I slept half the day and all night. I still have no idea where I'm going next but I'm not that worried about it at this point. I have no intention of going to Mar*in C0unty since it's just not worth it to me to pay that much for a job that just might suck. I figure if I have to switch recruiters it's not the end of the world either since there are hundreds of them out there. For now I'm going to enjoy having the week off work.
Right about the time I got here to Sac I had gotten a bill for close to $1700 for my hospital stay back in Feb. At first I was trying to figure out how I would pay it but I did call the insurance company to ask why they hadn't paid more since I had already met my $1000 maximum out of pocket. I was told that it was probably because it was an out of network provider (the person I spoke with didn't know for sure why it wasn't paid) and that if I wanted to I could appeal it. I did. I sent them a letter saying that I didn't understand why it wasn't paid since I had already met my out of pocket maximum and it was an in network provider not to mention the closest hospital to my house at the time. I got a notice the other day stating that the bill had been paid in full. That's a relief.
Not much else going on in my life. I have some serious cleaning that needs to be done. No Bleu I haven't started it yet, I went to the Mall instead. I suppose if I could just get the watermelon juice off the kitchen floor it would be a good start.