Destruction at it's finest

Lately, Miss Ruby has taken to being a destructive little crap face. 

And I say crap face with the utmost love for her. 

But really. Dan sent me this picture last night while I was working at the hospital.

Yeah. She tore open the couch. 

To what end, I'll never know nor will I understand. 

She baffles me when she acts out.

She really never destroys anything. Not even when she was teething. 

And now, at almost 5 months old, she's taken to being destructive. 

Go team.

Thankfully 98% of the time, she's cute and snuggly like this.

Oh Ruby girl. 

You slay me sometimes. 

Here's to much more frequent and longer walks to get out this excess puppy energy. 

Night life

I did my first night shift on Friday. 

Holy cow it was exciting/nerve racking/interesting/fulfilling/exhausting.

Did you catch all that? 

I'm very proud to say that I survived and with only minimal caffeine. 

But we'll get to that part. 

I was supposed to work on Friday, but I had told Scott that I wouldn't be in because it was my first shift and all that jazz. I had planned to run a few errands in the morning, take half a benadryl around 11, sleep till 3, and then get ready to go. 

First shift and all, I wanted to be prepared and ready to go. 

As all well-laid plans go, it went straight to hell.

Not even kidding. 

I got guilted into coming into work, and what was supposed to be only an hour to help with charts turned into 2.5 hours and lunch to Masa (which if you've never been, GO!! Right now. Delicious.).

After finally getting home, I started getting ready and suddenly was completely dreading going to clinical. 

It's that awful pit feeling in your stomach.

I get it every semester before the first clinical. 

This was no different. 

Except no preassessment on my patient.

And it's night shift. 

NBD.

I stopped by Dan's work on the way to clinical, said hello, I love you, all that cute gushy stuff that married people say to each other. Reminded him of a few things I needed him to do when he got home, and I was off. 

Walking into the hospital, I had a minor moment of panic. You see there are 2 sets of elevators at UVRMC: the west elevators and the east elevators, the latter being the ones I needed to take. However, I didn't know the east elevators existed. 

I've only been on the west elevators to see a friend who had a baby.

Those elevators only go up to the 4th floor.

I needed to get up to the 6th floor. 

In my minor moment of panic, I decided to keep walking around the corner hoping and praying that another set of elevators would appear. 

Lo and behold, there they were. In all their shiny chrome glory. 

My preceptor is awesome. Hands down he's pretty legit. 

His name is Myles and I'd say we're in for a rocking semester. 

It's always nice when within 5 minutes of meeting someone you can joke around and be laughing. 

We had a great night. Fairly uneventful. New admit, and an adventure down to radiology. 

Did I mention I didn't get a nap at all on Friday? 

Well, I paid for that dearly between the hours of 1 and 3 am. 

Nodding off, my body practically begging for some sleep.

My preceptor even told me I could go take a quick nap. 

To which I definitely declined.

Seriously, never forgetting that again. The nap, I mean.  

I had a great and glorious plan to forego the caffeine. 

As I mentioned above, like most greatly laid plans, that went straight to hell. 

I finally caved around 245 and found the nearest vending machine. 

Surprisingly, I sipped it very slowly. Not really sure why, but it helped. 

I didn't get this huge jolt/rush of caffeine to my system. So, while I did wake up, I didn't crash 2 hours later, which was a huge blessing.

I just knew if I could make it to 4 am I would be totally fine. 

The rest of the evening whisked right on by, and before I knew it, we were giving report to the oncoming nurse. And when I say we, I mean Myles.

Let's be honest: first shift, the only thing I was super comfortable with besides head to toe assessments was hanging IVs. 

Got that in the bag. 

I learned a few great tips from Myles in the first shift: 

1. Chart as you go. That way it never gets put off and you don't have to remember what you did. 

2. Be a real human being with the patient's. 

I know that last one sounds pretty obvious, but it was really refreshing to see someone actually implement it. Sometimes, and I'm definitely guilty of it, nurses get too busy and too caught up in what they need to get done, that they don't take a minute to just sit with the family and talk to them. It was great to see that put into action and how well it works. 

And because we could all use a good duck face at 630 am after being awake for 23 hours....

One shift down, 17 to go. 

Oh brother. 

Meet Miss Ruby

We became a family of three on 6.14.14. 

We added this sweet girl to our family. 

Meet Miss Ruby. 

Since I have been absolutely horrendous about blogging, we're playing catch up. Fair warning: I take wayyy too many pictures of Ruby and I'm sure a fair amount will end up on this post.

 She's my fur child. Enough said. 

We always peruse ksl looking at the cute doggies and puppies that are for sale. Dan and I both grew up with dogs and we knew it was only a matter of time before we got a dog of our own. 

Obviously, we didn't plan on getting a dog before we bought a house or had a bigger yard, but we would look anyway. It's like looking at pictures of houses you know you can never buy, or afford at this point. But you look anyway. Dreaming makes all the struggles of being poor and newly married worth it. 

On this particular day, we came across a picture of a 6 week old "redbone pitbull." Disclaimer: Dan and I have talked about, on several occasions, getting a pitbull. All those rescue videos always bring me to tears and they are such sweet loyal dogs, and fantastic with kids. I had never heard of a redbone pitbull though. So we googled it and got results for both redbone hounds and pitbulls. After much deduction and deliberation *sarcasm* we realized she was a mix. 

Dan called the lady who was selling her to find out the info: why she was getting rid of her, etc. It boiled down to the simple fact that Ruby was 6 weeks old and just required a lot of attention that the lady did not have to give Ruby. 

Side note: we're not allowed to have pets at our apartment. Our awesome upstairs neighbors though encouraged us to call and ask anyway. We had lived here for a while, and not to brag, but we're pretty good tenants. Bottom line: it couldn't hurt to ask, right?

A very nerve wracking conversation (our landlords are fantastic, I just really didn't want the answer to be "no"), and an hour or so wait to hear back from them, they said we could get a dog!! I grinned from ear to ear, and jumped up and down while laughing and telling Dan to call the lady and tell her we would come get Ruby. It really was absolutely insane and completely impulsive.

On the drive out to get her, we stopped and got a little bed and a collar. We got a size small, and it was so stinking tiny that Dan and I both questioned whether or not it would be too small for her. We also quickly ran through everything to make sure we would be able to afford having a dog. We threw around some names as well. Dan came up with Ruby, because she has a red/brown coat and he wanted her to have a girly name. 

When we finally got to the house, Ruby came outside and ran across the side walk. My heart melted in that very instant and I'm pretty sure it was love. She was the cutest little puppy I had every seen in my entire life. We went straight over to PetsMart after to pick up some food and grab some puppy toys for her. I carried her on my forearm through the store. *This detail is important to me because now when I carry her anywhere it's extremely difficult. She's too heavy. 

That first night was super rough. We didn't have a kennel yet, but she slept in her bed. She cried a lot and we ended up leaving the light on for a while so she could see we were there. I didn't hardly sleep at all because I kept waking up each time she would move. I've never been a light sleeper, so this was a huge adjustment for me. Whenever we would leave the house, we had to barricade her in the kitchen and used one baby gate for each door. Within a month, she learned how to climb over that gate. 

Potty training took about a week to get down--a lot of repetition and potty breaks in the middle of the night. I was so excited when she finally was waking up only once to pee. She had been sleeping in her kennel, and then we moved her into a XL size kennel. All the advice books said to keep the kennels small  because it prevents them from peeing in their bed. Well, we didn't do that, and she didn't have problems with peeing. But she kept waking up and crying/barking in the middle of the night. 

Then she started sleeping in our bed. It didn't bother us at all, and she stopped waking up in the middle of the night to pee almost immediately. There she has stayed until very recently. For the last few days, she has started falling asleep in her kennel. I leave the door open and she stays there. Sometime in the middle of the night, she usually ends up in our bed, but I'm definitely okay with that. She's quite the little snuggle bug and I really love it. 

Right now she is teething. It's actually been fine except when we will randomly find blood on some of her toys. We've only found 1 tooth so far, and it was a really small one! 

She is almost 4 months old and weighs almost 40lbs. See what I mean, she's way too big to be carrying around, although we still do try. She is almost the size all my dogs were growing up. So from here on out, her size will be a totally new experience for me! We were told she would be about 50lbs full grown. Obviously that was wrong considering she is almost that big now. 75lbs is probably more accurate.  

At 11 weeks, she weight 22.4 lbs. Three weeks later, she was a little over 30lbs. We have already been to the vet because she threw up 5x in one night. Turns out puppies are not supposed to have bones to chew on unless they are really good and cooked. One expensive vet bill and obsessively waiting for her to poop and pass rocks, we came to the conclusion that her little tummy was just upset from the richness of the bone. 

She is learning and growing so fast and Dan and I have loved each and every minute of it. She loves going on walks and playing tug of war. We have fetch down fairly well, but releasing the object is something we're still working on. She points and loves to watch the birds. Dan can't wait to teach her to go hunting with him. She still has her moments, and tantrums. As I type, she's curled up in my lap. She still thinks she is that tiny little puppy who couldn't even jump up on the couch. 

I came home one day to find her walking on top of our table. I told Dan I would never have believed she could do it unless I saw it with my own eyes. The other day I actually caught her in the act and of course had to snap a picture. She also loves sleeping on top of the couch cushions. All the time. 

She has been such a blessing to us, and I don't know how we ever got along without her. She has taught me so much about being patient and reminded me how much love animals have. I love her fiercely wagging tail whenever either Dan or I get home. She is so genuinely excited to see us, I'm sure she'd lick our face off if we let her. We love you Ruby girl!!

LAST first day of school

Well ladies and gents, it actually happened. I have finally started my VERY LAST semester of nursing school EVER!!!!! <-- If you can't tell how I feel about it, take a look at all those exclamation points. I'm excited to say the least. 

As first days go, it was fine. Boring. Overwhelming. And almost a somber feeling. This is the last first day of school I will have until I get super crazy and go back for a masters degree. This is the last first day I will have with this amazing group of people I have been so privileged to embark on this journey with. But it was also a very happy feeling. We are nearly there. We did it. We survived MedSurg. And then we all survived ICU despite those awful quizzes. The homestretch is here...finally. 

I can honestly say though, I thoroughly enjoyed every last drop of summer. I did not do a single NCLEX prep question, or worry about any assignments. That was pure bliss. 

I will be doing my capstone rotation on the 6th floor at UVRMC. Night shift. It should be fun. I'm a little worried about staying awake at night, but I'm sure it will be fine. Just an adjustment. Dan is a little sad about having to sleep alone, but Ruby will totally snuggle up to him! He'll be just fine. 

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear." 

Capstone: prepare to be demolished. 

Xxo, me.