ten topic teasers...details to follow

1. If you don't miss a man in the first year after he moves out, chances are you never will.

2. Visiting Egypt in September 2010 was a much better time to go than, say, February 2011.

3.  Beware of middle aged men who tell you flat out that they'd "just like to find a hot 21 year old with low self-esteem and father issues." This same man may bring said 21 year old to his ex-wife's ER and stand there helplessly while she is innocently asked - by two different people who don't know him - if she'd like her father back in the exam room with her.

4.  Yes, Virginia, six years in, you can start to burn out on critical care nursing.

5. You can blog virtually every day for close to three years, and still not remember one darn thing about setting up a blog. Don't hold your breath for pictures or anything "fancy". It's all I can do to find the "Publish Post" button.

6. If you're totally hung up on a guy and all your friends who know him tell you that you're way too good for him...believe them.  

7. In the contest between Redemption and Closure, I'll take Redemption. Nine times out of ten anyway.

8. Angry kids can become reasonable, reasonable kids can become angst ridden, and angst ridden kids can bring tears to their Mama's eye with how gracefully they handle themselves under pressure.

9. It sucks ass to finally be brave enough to get back into "the game" and then, in your first real foray out, get dumped for a manipulative control freak who seriously looks like a cross between Olive Oyl and Mr. Ed the talking horse. 

10.  Life ain't perfect, but is sure is darned good. And unless I'm mistaken, it just keeps on getting better...

I'm baaaaaaack...

When I applied for my job in the ER, I wanted it with an intensity that you can only get from fantasizing about something so hard and for so long. And as I sat for my interview, I thought it was going really well, and had (finally) started to think this could actually happen, when my future boss asked me the question I was dreading.



"So, how are your IV skills?" she asked.


Lots of things went through my head. The fact that we almost never started IVs in the ICU, since virtually everyone had a central line. The fact that this woman was a riot and I adored her instantly and wanted desperately to work for her. The fact that any IV I had ever hit in my life thus far had been a matter of sheer luck, done with shaking hands. And that there hadn't been many of those. The fact that I was petrified of IVs and that no matter how hard I chanted my little "face your fears" mantra, I still ran the other way when anyone mentioned them. The fact that I really am a pretty honest person, which led me to admit,


"Not so hot, to tell the truth."


My heart sank. I could feel my dream sliding away. We talked about other things for quite a while and when she offered me the job (on the spot), she said


"Don't worry. We'll teach you IVs. You'll get plenty of practice."


And I have. After a learning curve full of fear and frustrated anger and more than my fair share of anxiety, I've looked the beast in the mouth and realized it isn't so scary after all. Even crazier, I've started to really like doing them, to the point that I sometimes run around at work volunteering to start other people's lines for them. And when my mentor, the nurse whom I followed around like a puppy coveting her IV skills, asked me to try recently when she had missed twice on someone, and I sauntered into the room and nailed it, I had a feeling that was really hard to pin down.


It was an incredible rush. I had faced down something that terrified me and realized it wasn't so bad. I had taken something that in my opinion was one of the worst things I could have to do and seen that it wasn't such a big deal after all. And I had come out of it confident and proud and excited about what might lie ahead. The beast only looked like it roared. All it took was the right mindset to realize that if you never give up, good things will happen.


Not a bad lesson for life in general.