Nurse Sean (dot) com

So, last Friday at 7:00am I had my first code blue. It’s a moment I have been fearing…but it really wasn’t too bad. Around 6:00am, my patient started going down hill. I kept increasing her oxygen rate, changing her to a more powerful oxygen delivery device…nothing worked. Her vital signs became increasingly difficult to get as the blood flow to her extremeties became worse by the second. She was in some kind of shock, but as they rolled her (intubated and being pumped full of blood) to the ICU, they still hadn’t really figured out why. Hemoglobin was fine, lungs/heart looked good, temperature was fine etc.

I learned a lot from this experience, including a few warning signs that I could have grasped onto earlier. But this is how nurses learn…by reflecting on what they did, how they did it, and what they would do differently in the future. I have already done this to death over the several nights following that night, so I won’t go through it here. I will just say that although I could have done things better, I still did things well, and correctly. I may have saved this woman’s life. I am very proud of myself.

******

On to happier things! Over the long weekend, Richard and I decided to drive down to visit our neighbors to the south. We went to Great Falls, Montana!

I used to go to Great Falls all the time as a child. My parents honeymooned there, so it was almost exclusively our first stopping point on our family road trips. Great Falls would be followed by Spokane, then Vernon, then home.

Being a know-it-all, I thought I knew exactly how to get there. Drive south to Fort McLeod, then continue south to Sweetgrass where the border crossing is (has anyone detected the flaw in my thinking yet?). In Fort Mcleod, we took a wrong turn. Actually, we reached a fork in the road and chose the wrong fork. As a result, we ended up in Lethbridge, desperate for a map. So, map in hand, I saw our flaw and we drove back to Fort McLeod. We were now an hour over our expected time of 5.5 hours of driving (this time was well memorized by me from my childhood road trips).

We drove south from Fort McLeod on a very dark, windy road past Cardston (the Mormon temple is beautiful at night), and to the boarder crossing. Something seemed “off.” I remembered the road being a very big highway all the way from Calgary to Great Falls. This was a very tiny road in the middle of nowhere. Also, there was no town of Sweetgrass to be seen.

I chalked it up to my Dad occassionally taking different boarder crossings. Sometimes we would skip Great Falls and go Straight to Spokane etc. So, I’m wasn’t worried. However, the crossing guard told us that it would be about four hours until we got to Great falls. I thought this was very strange since I remembered it being only two hours.

After the boarder we were literally in what felt like the middle of nowhere. We were on a very tiny, ice, windy road that seemed to climb up and down mountains. I kept saying, “I could have sworn this was supposed to be a major highway!”

You know those movies where a stranger walks into a bar where they are VERY out of place, the music scratches to a stop, and everyone is silently staring at you. We had one of those moments as we bought gas in Browning. It was obviously an all Native American town, and while we were never made to feel unwelcomed, it was obvious that they weren’t used to seeing caucasians stop and get gas…there was a lot of strange stares going in our direction.

Back on the road, I finally decided to check the map Richard picked up at the Boarder. You should have seen the look on my face when I realized we had taken the wrong road! We were most definitely on a road that would end up in Great Falls; however, it was a long winding road that went way out of the way through the Blackfeet Indian reserve.

Even more astounding was that the road I DID want to take was straight down from Lethbridge. ACK! We were in Lethbridge but turned back because we thought it was the WRONG way! *CRIES*

We just looked at each other and decided that eventually it would be hilarious…

So, ten hours later (this includes, going the right way by accident, lunches, going the wrong way etc. etc.) we checked into the hotel. I was exhausted since I only had 2 hours of sleep (hard to sleep after a code blue). We still managed to order pizza and go to bed at 1:00am

The next day we drove around, shopped. I love buying all the products that haven’t hit Canada yet, and I love buying drugs that are prescription here, but over-the-counter in the US.

This was some kind of plant near the military base in Great Falls. I loved the mountains hanging out in the background. In this area, mountains stick up here and there, rather than all together like the rockies.

This is a similar mountain that I saw on the way home.

Here’s a nice picture of the nice big highway that we took back. Yes, this is the one we were supposed to be taking there. The trip back was only 5 hours long…now that we knew the right way! And yes, there was such a place as Sweetgrass!

Great Falls reminded us A LOT of Moose Jaw. It was about the same size, had the same lonely and run down “feel,” and was surrounded by similar prairies. We did notice that the customer service in this town was over-the-top incredible! I was left wondering if it is just really good, or if Calgary’s has become so bad that it was just relatively amazing. People were so friendly and were always going out of their way to help us.

There was even an awesome woman in the Albertson’s grocery store who had an awesome southern accent. She spent a good half an hour looking for Richard’s favorite snack food for us. She was so apologetic when she couldn’t find it. I loved the way she called us “honey.”

Ugh…and now I have to go back to work tomorrow after six days of freedom.

*sigh*

OK! I figured out the issue with my pictures from Moose Jaw. They aren’t really anything special (most were taken spontaneously from the inside of a moving car…so not great quality), but I thought I would share.

This first picture is from the morning we left Moose Jaw to come home. This is the Motel 8 we stayed in. In the background is the sign for the Humpty’s where we ate. One of the best meals I’ve had in a long time!

This is the view of the pending sunrise. This was almost 9:00am! The sun comes up later in Moose Jaw

These next two pictures are from downtown Moose Jaw. The first shows Main Street with their Christmas decorations. The second picture is an example of the beautiful architecture available there.

These next two pictures are examples of buildings that gave me that “apocalyptic” feeling. Buildings like these were everywhere, and seemed too big for the town they existed in.

And of course…here’s my picture of Mac the Moose!

My weekend began with a call at about 9:30am on Friday. I was having a horrible day. I’m sure you know the type of day I was having–I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and the day just conspired to keep me in a cranky mood. Every word, gesture, or action by any human being just served to make me angry. The mere existence of humanity and the world itself was enough to make want to scream in rage. Yes, it was one of “those” days.

The phone call went out to R. that I needed to get the hell of the city. We had been hinting of driving somewhere on the weekend, and I knew that I needed to reinforce that idea. The comfort of R.’s voice and the knowledge of an upcoming mini road trip kept me sane for the rest of the day.

We woke up at 7:00am Saturday with absolutely no knowledge of where we would be going. I finally decided that we were just going to start driving east with absolutely no plans as to where we were going to end up, or what we would do when we got there.

I secretly hoped we would get all the way to Saskatchewan. You see, while I have been all over the world, I’ve only been to two provinces in Canada–Alberta and BC (as long as you don’t count airport visits). So, I thought it would be nice to add Saskatchewan to my short list. But, I knew it was a long way to Saskatchewan and we only had the weekend.

We hit the road with the requisite bag full of McDonalds crap. I received the Garth Brooks collection from Wal-Mart for Christmas, so I slapped in one of those CDs and away we went. I bet a lot of you didn’t know about my secret Garth Brooks obsession. It’s the only country I ever have (or will) listen too. I’ve never been a country music fan, but somewhere along the way I became obsessed with Mr. Brooks, and never let go.

The first of many Tim Hortons stops was in Strathmore. By then, R. was sick of Garth Brooks, so I put all 3298 songs on my iPod on shuffle. Strathmore was a symbolic spot for me. It’s the farthest east on the Trans Canada highway that I have ever gone. As soon as we drove east of Strathmore, the trip was officially an adventure.

Our next stop was Brooks for more Tim Hortons. OK, seriously, what is that smell? I’ve heard that Brooks, Alberta had a “smell” to it, but it still took me by surprise. So, I ask all those that may know…what the heck is that smell?

(by the way…as I type…I’m eating vegetable barley soup from Planet Organic. It’s delicious! Go get some!)

After Brooks, I started to realize that this is a really dull chunk of the Trans Canada Highway. It’s nothing like heading west into the mountains, and R. states that after Saskatchewan there’s trees and lakes etc. All I could see was farm after farm after farm. I really started wondering what the heck was the goal of this road trip. I knew that I wanted adventure and fun. I wanted to explore and to experience new places, but at this point, all I had done was eat fatty foods, drink coffee, and watch run-down farm buildings fly by.

Medicine Hat was all about stopping and eating Arby’s. I expected Medicine Hat to be bigger. Perhaps it just looked small from the Highway, but I was sure it would have some office towers, malls, and suburbs. Instead, it just looked like another small prairie town. It’s amazing how you tend to build up pictures in your mind of cities that you have heard about all your life, but have never been to. I guess one of the fun parts of road trips is seeing just how these pictures differ from reality.

A few more minutes out of Medicine Hat and *poof* we were in Saskatchewan. I can add it to my list of Canadian provinces I have been to. I expected the moment to be more exciting, but really, it was all about going from prairie to…more prairie. Saskatchewan stretched into the distance in every distance but behind and I couldn’t wait to see what this trip would bring me.

Saskatchewan immediately invoked a feeling of loneliness for me. There was a huge feeling of emptiness that surrounded me as I looked out the window. The best word I was able to use for what I was seeing was “apocalyptic.” Every building we saw looked completely abandoned. Farm houses seemed rare. There were no little tiny towns. It was as though we were the only people in the entire world.

The weather started getting bad. Clouds drifted in and created almost no visibility. Now, in every direction were dense clouds. Snow blew across the road in gusts of wind. This all added to the empty feeling as we ploughed though Saskatchewan. I had no idea what was keeping us going. Every kilometer we drove, the farther we came from home, the greater our drive back was becoming.

Swift Current was a welcome sight. We parked the van and walked through the powerful winds into an old small town mall. Swift Current was also so much smaller than I always imagined. I started to wonder why I see towns as bigger than reality.

The mall was filled with numerous old people sitting in the food court, gossiping about life. I definitely felt like an outsider as the occasional crowd of old people stopped their conversations midstream and looked at us, wondering who the hell we were. We quickly used the bathroom and got out of there.

R. finally asked the questions we were both thinking. Do we stop? Go back? Keep going? Up until that point I was thinking, “we need to stop in Swift Current. The weather’s getting worse, and we’re getting FAR from home.” but I couldn’t believe when out of my mouth spilled, “We have to go to Moose Jaw…and I’m driving.”

The weather was horrible for about an hour, but it cleared up as the sun started to sink. I couldn’t believe that we had been driving so long that we had left Calgary just after sunrise, and we would be arriving at our destination just after sunset. Not to mention, I still hadn’t discovered the purpose of our trip. While we were traversing new territory, we weren’t really exploring, discovering, or experiencing anything. Really, all we had done was sit in a car and listen to a couple hundred random songs that in some way represented my life.

Moose Jaw! I don’t know why, but I have always wanted to see Moose Jaw. So, as I drove into town, I couldn’t help but feel excited. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Moose Jaw was WAY bigger than I had expected. There were tones of houses, malls, tall office/apartment buildings. And Main Street was so cool! It was filled with old, historic buildings with big personalities. It was dark, so there wasn’t much opportunity to look around, and we were tired and numb from driving for seven hours. We found a dirt-cheap hotel, went to Boston Pizza for dinner, and went to bed.

Boston Pizza was fun. There really was a community feeling in that place. Everybody seemed to know each other, mingling at different tables. Some people seemed as though they just hung out there a lot, others seemed as though they came from their kid’s hockey game. Either way, there was a quirkiness and charm to the people and the environment.

In the morning, we were faced with a six or seven hour trip home, so we decided not to stick around too long. However, we did go for a drive around town before leaving. Once again, I was struck by the apocalyptic, empty, lonely feeling that arose in me while looking out at Moose Jaw. The buildings all seemed too big for the town. They were run down and seemingly uncared for (at least visually). However, there was an extreme beauty to these buildings at the same time. Moose Jaw was completely unique to me in a way that I just can’t put my finger on. It had the feel of a large city that had been mostly abandoned. As I mentioned earlier, the buildings just seemed too big for the city.

I realized at this point that there was no purpose, and never would be a purpose to the road trip. I hadn’t thought about work for about 24 hours and that’s what really counts. I removed television, computers, and many other stimuli that keep my brain jumping all the time. Instead, I just listened to soft music and stared out at near nothingness. This lack of stimuli relaxed and refreshed me. The lack of purpose WAS the purpose. I’m tired of always having a purpose to what I do!

The idea of small town living gained another point in my big city books. In fact, I have decided to write a book called “In search of Cicely.” I doubt it will ever happen, but I like the idea of this book. I am obsessed with the show Northern Exposure. Since I was a kid, I have wanted to live in a little teeny quirky town such as the fictional Cicely, Alaska in which the show takes place. I would love to travel Canada in search of a town that lives up to the standards that Cicely has set. It would be a fun Canadian travel book, similar to the stuff that Will Ferguson does. But, I would have to magically become a great comedic writer. If that happens, I’ll give it a try!

This trip back was fun, and pretty much exactly the same as the trip in reverse. We were a little depressed that our weekend was done, and we had nothing to show for it but a very brief memory of Moose Jaw.

All I know is that I would like to go back to Saskatchewan when I can explore a little further. Maybe next time I can see Saskatoon and Regina too!

Or perhaps we’ll go south next time…

Sean

P.S. I had many beautiful pictures of the trip but (insert long boring story here) so I don’t have them. Sorry!

I credit Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston for solidifying my love of literature. It
sits on my shelf, like a trophy, and is pulled down every few years for
another read. I remember reading it clearly for the first
time. My English professor at the time wanted to introduce us to
feminist literature. So, we spent the semester reading books
written by women, and about women.

This particular novel was odd because it was written in southern black
dialect. By the end of the book, I loved the way the words rolled
of my tongue, flowing from my mouth, making me feel as though I were
there. I immersed myself in a culture I knew nothing about. But by the end of the book, I felt I carried a piece
of that culture in my soul.

I also took away just a little piece of every women’s soul. I’m
sure that professor…whatever her name was…would be proud.

Tonight, I watched the movie version starring Halle Barre. I will
just say, the movie did the book justice…but read the book…it’s
more fun to read aloud the words.

I finished reading Volkwagen Blues.
I still haven’t figured out what I think of it. It’s what I call
an “Onion book.” Upon first read it’s just the sweet adventure of
a man and a women. They drive from Quebec City to San
Fransisco. But, I think I need to dive into the book a couple
more times at least. Peel of the surface layers, and discover
what’s underneath. I love “Onion Books.”

As for life, It’s been busy. Friday night, I went to R’s
house. He fed me Chinese food and tea. His hugs were like
therapy. I couldn’t sleep that night though (no..not for the
reason’s you’re thinking), so while he snored gently in the background,
I stayed up reading. I only got one hour of sleep, so I called in
sick.

We spent the day driving to Bragg creak and Cochrane…me in the passenger’s seat…half asleep and dreamy.

That night was ritual…short, sweet, powerful as always.

Today I worked at the psych unit. Nothing new to report…no
interesting stories to tell. All the weirdness is becoming “same
old…same old”