Alene as Spongebob

This is what we nurses have to do every year to get our TB mask fit tests.

Thinking

I've been busy with more "stuff" I chose to do. Some is busy work, some is for fun. I've been working on projects around the house, trying to organize and clean out junk before winter.

Only a few days left of this gorgeous fall weather we've been having until the seasonal reality kicks in. Next week we might see our first snow this year. That's okay, I'm ready for it.

I have backed off on the bike, and running is steady but I'm not up to an hour yet. That could happen this weekend if all goes well.

I have things on my mind, other than running.

Last night I spoke at a cancer support group about the role of the nurse in care of the oncology patient. It was odd to be speaking about something other than running. It takes me out of my comfort zone. I spoke about what nurses do, how we are trained, and how oncology patients can get the most out of their time spent with the nurse. We have access to so much information and so many resources, but many patients don't know to ask about those things.

I think it went fairly well, though I felt somewhat nervous up there, talking about something I've only been doing for 5 years, and especially oncology nursing, which I've only been doing for 15 months.

The discussion at the end of the talk was lively. There is so much frustration among patients with certain aspects of healthcare in general. They are not frustrated with the nurses themselves, but with the flow of information and communication among providers, and not just physicians. There are so many gaps to fill, and nurses can do our part by being thorough in each interaction with a patient, but there are so many other interactions between patients and health care providers that we can't control.



As a result, nurses often end up picking up the pieces and filling in the cracks where we can. Our job is to make sure no one drops the ball when it comes to a patient's care, but we can only do that when we know something is missing- we have to discover it ourselves or hear it from the patient, and often we hear it from the patient too late. The health care system in this country has failed patients who have access to it in so many instances by providing inadequate and inconsistent information, that patients don't know where to turn.

What I didn't talk about last night was that the complaint I hear so often from nurses that the nursing profession itself is failing nurses. So many nurses are physically and emotionally unhealthy because of their working conditions and powerlessness to change them. They get frustrated and give up. How many obese nurses have you seen? I see a lot. Every day. Ever wonder why that is? Then look at the general public.

Nurses don't have a powerful organization lobbying for them. Physicians have the AMA. Nurses have the ANA, which is barely a whisper in comparison. It really isn't doing any justice to nurses who actually work in direct patient care. In nursing, to begin at the bottom, nurse education and nursing employment paradigms, need as much of an overhaul as health care in general does, along with our political system. What does that have to do with obese nurses?

Our country is failing- our leaders and our political system have failed us. They allow the powerful wealthy interests to dictate how things are run, not in the best interest of the people they are failing to serve. We have an oligarchy. And we are seeing the obesity that results from oligarchy. What do I mean by that?

Obesity is just one symptom of all of this. Keep the people in a fat and sedentary food and electronic gadget coma, keep them tired and busy and commuting and help them to be slaves to their objects so they won't have energy to stay sharp and fit, or to fight or even care. This helps to minimize their leisure time, and minimize their sleep. Minimize their energy and time to prepare, cook, and eat healthy food. A hamburger with french fries is much quicker to eat than a salad if you only have a 30 minute break in a 13+ hour day.



I wish nurses could be examples of healthy living for their patients. I wish people would change their lifestyles before they become patients in the healthcare system. I wish I wish I wish...and I feel powerless, even though I try on a daily basis to exemplify these things.

I've been watching the Occupy Wall Street movement from a skeptical distance but I can't help thinking that people are getting closer to the point where they are finally realizing that their apathy is costing them more than the risks of taking action do, and I believe that is precisely where we need to be going if we are ever going to save ourselves from destruction. Look at the puppets we supposedly send to Washington to represent us. Have they done anything for you lately? Keeping people divided and spreading misinformation is exactly how the powers-that-be, the oligarchs, want things to be in order to keep things going in their favor so they can retain power and wealth.

This isn't a blog about nursing or politics so I won't go any further here. I have so many thoughts on how nursing needs to change as a profession. And how health care needs to change. But it's just part of the bigger picture that has been eroding for a long time. Real people, every day, need to take responsibility for changing it. That's what I'm thinking about today.

A Real Run

I did my longest run yet in the 2 weeks I've been running again, 40 minutes. I feel like I took 10 years off my body, or I'm running in someone else's body.

I have started to drop a little weight, just 4 pounds so far but I can feel it in my clothes and I have a little less to pinch around my waist.

Running feels a lot easier than it did before. I feel like a runner again, my legs turn over so much more easily, I feel like my posture is better, and my form is better. I didn't realize how tired I was before. My pace is faster without even trying.

This weekend we had our first taste of real fall weather and it was refreshing- it rained and was cold yesterday. I didn't even force myself out to go run in it. I did yoga instead.

Then I spent the rest of the day cleaning out my junk, I have two closets that were full of stuff, unorganized chaos that was expanding by the day. I pulled everything out- running gear, art supplies, books, dust, dog hairballs, and I vacuumed and dusted and got rid of stuff, I can walk in my bedroom closet again, and it felt so good!

I was thinking on my run today, that I am learning a lot from this break, more than I thought. First, I am enjoying having a life again. I don't feel like I have to get out there and put the miles in or run at a certain effort.

But what is more important is that I am realizing how much better my body feels with the cross training and different activities. I am so much more flexible- I feel it when I get out of bed in the morning. I used to hobble around like an old lady, my calves, achilles, hamstrings and glutes would be so tight in the morning that I'd walk around stiff until I took a hot shower. Now I take that first step out of bed in the morning and I don't have to shuffle around, my ankles bend the way they are supposed to.

The other thing I'm finding is that the stress of training so many miles and so slowly was not so good for my weight- I think a combination of being so tired all the time and working at such low intensity made it hard to burn calories and eat the right amount. Now I'm not hungry all the time and I'm able to get through the day without having to eat every couple of hours.

I love doing long runs and there are more adventures I'd like to do. When I'm ready.

Thought for the Day

We all could use one.

Earlier this week I was in low spirits. Not sure if it's the shorter days, sometimes I hit a speed bump around this time of year. But the weather has been spectacular, and I'm enjoying a lot of things every day now. There's nothing particularly stressful going on, but whatever it was, it was hitting me hard. Wednesday I forced myself out on the bike when I didn't feel like going. I felt somewhat better afterwards, but it wasn't enough.

Thursday I felt better, and got out for a nice ride toward Greeley and back. When I got home, I talked on the phone to a long time friend who just found out her dad has metastatic cancer- it's everywhere, they're not even sure where it originated, but he won't be with us much longer. We talked for a long time, we have shared a lot over the years and one thing we have in common is that we both have a strong attachment to our fathers. We talked about quality of life and making the most of the time that's left.

Then I remembered it was the night that the cancer support group meets. There's been a lot of visibility for the topic of cancer, it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It also happens to be my sister's 5 year anniversary since her diagnosis. She is doing great. I went to the support group and being around everyone and listening to them always gives me a boost.

But this morning I was barely awake, sipping my coffee, and saw that our local paper was pink! I rolled my eyes. Oh please, spare us the pink frenzy. It's really hard to read the print against a pink background!

There was a great article about a local cancer survivor in today's paper and I think they more than redeemed themselves for the pink insult to our eyes by printing this article.

I'm very supportive of the efforts to support cancer survivors, to prevent, treat, and eliminate cancer as a life threatening disease, and all the great organizations out there working toward this common goal.

And I also support and believe in living life one day at a time and not getting caught up in the unimportant things. I do my best to live my life like that, and I'm nowhere near perfect, but I am getting better at it.

I am feeling so much better today.

Meet the Frackers

Dennis just got home from a work-related trip to Florida. I had a bad week while he was gone. For some reason this past week I was in a bad place, just super irritable and then feeling crabby and hormonal. I didn't sleep much while he was gone, and that never helps. Finally I got caught up on my sleep and felt much better this morning.

So now I feel energetic and a little snarky.

Today we went for a bike ride along the Windsor-Greeley section of the Poudre Trail. Dennis had never been on it before so I took him out there to see the scenic part, and we turned around before the ugly part.















Dennis was noticing all the oil tanks out there, and the number of huge homes sprouting up along the bike path near Greeley.











We were wondering, who would be living in and building such huge monstrosities, in this economy, and in Greeley of all places, and with poison ivy in their back yards.

Serendipitously, this morning there was an article in the Denver Post about the frackers.

Frackers refer to the people who are making a very comfortable living off of fracking- hydraulic fracturing of the land in order to get oil out. I don't mean the paycheck to paycheck living of the people who do the hard work. I'm talking about the people who are raking in big bucks.

Frackers pump water plus a special mixture of chemicals into a well to force more oil out.

The frackers don't want to disclose the contents of their fracking fluid.

So the fracking industry doesn't want to share it's secret recipe with the world. I liked Hickenlooper's comment about Coca-Cola. Cute.

It's a big deal here in Colorado. We don't know the effects on groundwater and whatever other toxic environmental effects might result from it. The industry is wanting to frack the area around Windsor. Windsor has a growing residential area, and it also happens to be scenic and has great potential for outdoor recreational pursuits. Look at this gorgeous scenery along the Poudre River Trail, where we rode today.

















Looking up at the huge homes overlooking the poison ivy corridor of the bike path, we decided that this must be where the frackers live. Who knows if they do, but it sounded plausible.











I tell you, some people will frack anything. Hey frackers, Frack this!












It's starting to cool down in the mornings and evenings, the days are still hot. Great cycling weather, but in another week it's going to change. I'm returning to running slowly and I'm going to tough it out and wear tights and more clothing to keep cycling as long as I can. No long runs for a while. I've been enjoying the days, having energy to do other things besides just working out.

I feel great when I run, instead of running on fatigued legs they feel strong and flexible, and I feel light, even though I haven't lost any weight. I've been doing a lot of cross training, not just cycling but weight training and other balance, flexibility, and strengthening work. I forgot what my body felt like before I started training for all these long ultras!

Our house is still a wildlife sanctuary for Einstein, but not for the squirrels. The squirrels are losing to Iris the squirrel hunter. I should see if she has a license. Sadly, she has eaten at least 3 more baby squirrels. I find carcasses in the yard when I get home from work. She stalks them. Even my neighbor told me he yelled at her over the fence because she had a squirrel.

As you can see, with 20 minutes of daily running, I don't have much to report right now, if I'm resorting to writing about fracking. I hate thinking about politics anymore, dreading the onslaught of the approaching ugly election, I find it all so depressing and overwhelming, and mostly it just brings out the snark in me.












Tomorrow is the annual running club picnic and 4K run, in which I am actually going to participate. And I'm off to Arizona in November for a visit with my dad and stepmom. And that's the extent of the news in my world for now.

Einstein 1, Squirrels -2

Another week has gone by and I'm coming up on week 8, as of October I'll be starting a super S-L-O-W rebuilding program with my running. I don't miss it yet! The weather has been so nice for bike rides, I'm perfectly happy to go out on the bike! Yesterday Connie and I went for a good bike ride around Windsor and she told me about some new places to ride.

I'm not planning any races until I know I'm running at 100%. That could be a while. Starting out will consist of five minute runs at first. It will take a few months before I do anything resembling a real run, but I'll get there.

I've been doing little domestic projects and staying incredibly busy, which makes me wonder where all these things go all those months where I have no time for anything but running. I guess they just don't get done.

Einstein is still winning the chase. This past week we only saw traces of him one morning. The traps in the house are all empty. One glue trap out in the shed caught a tiny mouse. Definitely not Einstein, and probably not anyone related to Einstein. He's a big dude.

One evening after I got home from work, I was in the shower, and as soon as I turned the water off all I could hear was Dennis saying, "No! Let go! Drop it!" I threw my robe and shoes on and ran outside. He was holding Iris in one arm, and trying to pull a squirrel out of her mouth with the other hand. It was a BIG squirrel, too. It had a thick bushy tail and was fat.

It took us a good 15 minutes to get it away from her, she would not let go. The squirrel was already dead. I had to distract Iris, I said, "Look over there!" and she finally dropped it. I got the honor of picking it up in a garbage bag and disposing of it. Ugh!

Iris got a bath after that, and got her mouth washed out, too. There was no way she was coming in the house or sleeping on the bed after chewing on a squirrel!

Today I caught Iris trying to climb a tree in the back yard. Later I found squirrel guts and hair in the yard. I think she got another one.











If at first you don't succeed, try the other side of the tree.

Chasing Einstein

I'm seven weeks into my running layoff now and I'm not missing a thing. I've been riding my bikes into the ground, though, I already broke my chain once on the Surly! The guy at the bike shop told me to go easy on the poor bike...

I finally made it up north Dam Hill at Horsetooth on the bike, faster than I can run it. That was an accomplishment for me, since I used to always seem to run faster than a lot of the cyclists on that hill. At the beginning even Bingham Hill was tough, but now I can do Bingham Hill with a lot less effort.

I am getting some opportunities to chase things for cross-training though. Like the newest member of our family, the one who wasn't invited but makes himself comfortable every night in our house, Einstein.

Einstein is a mouse.

This time of year in Fort Collins the mice like to come indoors looking for food, when it gets cold outside at night.

So far Einstein has outsmarted us even though he's come close to death several times. I could have done him in once, but I can't kill mice. Mice squeaking in a trap make me cry.

I have a hard enough time dealing with the inescapable crunch of running over gazillions of grasshoppers on the bike path this time of year, so killing a mouse is over the top for me.

I had the opportunity, and I thought my effort was enough, but I didn't do it and he ended up escaping. Now he's managed to evade all of our traps and foil all of our efforts. We've tried to bait him with dog food, peanut butter, oatmeal, and I don't know what else. Dennis deals with the traps, not me.













Iris and Isabelle hear him and try to chase him but he knows to get under the oven and in the cracks where they can't reach him. They sniff, but they never get close. They don't pay much attention most of the time. Does this look like a buffalo who is ready to chase a mouse?



One day I heard him stuck on the glue trap in the garage, near the doggie door. He was trying to get off of it and he was squeaking. I felt victorious, but his squeaking was making me feel guilty. I dropped him and the glue trap into the trash can in the garage, saying, "sorry little mouse!" and thinking once I closed the lid we would never hear from him again.

Later that day I went out to put a trash bag out in the can. I opened the lid, and something dark flew out! It went flying across the garage.

That mouse freed himself from the trap deep in the garbage can, got up near the lid and waited for the opportunity to get out! This mouse deserves a diploma of some sort. That's when I decided to name him Einstein. My sister has a cat named Einstein. Maybe we should borrow the cat for a while.

Most mice find little cracks or holes, or get under doorways. Einstein uses the doggie door.

A few days before we "caught" him I opened the little closet that we use as a pantry, and something dark and furry came flying off the shelf, brushed my hand as it flew across the room, and by the time I realized what it was, all I saw was the swinging flap of the doggie door. The girls were nowhere to be found. They were too busy looking for squirrels in the trees in the back yard, oblivious to the mouse.

After we set traps, Einstein chewed his way into a triple-wrapped bag of flour and an unopened bag of tortilla chips. There were chips all over the shelf. We cleaned everything and put all the chewable items up in the cabinets. Or so we thought.

I had a big cardboard container of oatmeal that I cook in the mornings, and I left it out on the counter one night, not thinking about the mouse. In the morning I found the oatmeal in the state below.




He tried gnawing through the cardboard at the bottom, but then must have given up and jumped on the top, where he chewed a hole in the plastic lid! I found shredded plastic all over the counter, and of course, another trail of mouse poop across the stove. We also found more little turds in the pantry again, on top of the cans. Ugh!

After cleaning up again, Dennis said that was it, he was getting some different mousetraps and wanted to keep him from getting up on the shelves in the pantry, so he placed a sheet of plastic wrap across the lower shelf all the way to the door, thinking Einstein might bounce off of it if he tried to leap up there.


That didn't work, we found mouse poop on the shelves again!

So far, no luck. We got a reprieve from cleaning up mouse poop the past 2 days but I have a feeling it won't last.

That's about it. Mostly these days I am working, painting, riding the bike, and hanging out with the girls at home. There's nothing as fun as an afternoon game of Stick in the back yard grass.


I thought about going off on a rant about people who talk on the cell phone while riding their bikes on the bike path, but I'll save that for another day.