Herbed Zucchini Rice

So good and so simple!  A perfect use for a prolific garden zucchini crop.

Dice 3-4 cups of zucchini with skin on.

Dice 1/2 Walla Walla Sweet Onion

Mince 1-2 garlic cloves

Add 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil to rice cooker.

Add zucchini, onion and garlic

Add 2 cups of dry rice

Add 3-4 cups of water

Sprinkle with sea salt and about a teaspoon of dried rosemary.

Cook as you normally cook plain rice and enjoy!

 

A Fine Tuning

I grew up writing every day.  Not until a thought travels down a neuropathic network into the fingertips and out does it truly find fruition.  It's my catch and release.  If I don't get thoughts or ideas out; they ruminate, grow, expand and take over until there is gridlock.  Wine is pretty good at erasing most of them but too much wine is rarely a good thing.  (Take note:  I said RARELY.  Not never.)

I cut back my hours at work to invest in the things that matter most to me last year - my family, my dogs, my friends, my home and even myself.  Don't get me wrong.  I love what I do.  I find great peace and joy in being a nurse, especially an emergency room nurse.  I love helping patients.  It's important we all recognize our strengths and nursing is mine.  It keeps me thinking; it connects all the dots for me.  It gives me strength and reminds me of all the little things we tend to overlook -- like what a miracle life is in the first place and how everything can change so quickly that we don't even see it coming.  I enjoy making people feel better and if we can't get them better, at least we can bring them comfort. 

BUT...

It's a demanding job.  I don't half-ass things.  When I am at work, I am giving 100%.  There is no autopilot.  There is no "taking it easy" for the day.  I work with amazing people and we all care about our patients.  We may beat our head against the wall after caring for a few but it's because we care that we are so frustrated.  If we didn't care, they wouldn't matter.  They do.  A strong team is self-supportive.  We feed off of each other's energy and we give it back.  It's a reciprocal collaboration.

When the team is broken and there is no energy left to give, it's time to seek another source for replenishment.  We lost a significant part of our team and we lost them all at once.  We lost the cornerstones and cheerleaders.  We lost the people we count on most to hold us up when we are too tired to stand on our own.  We lost our strongest leaders.  With each exit, the void grew.  It's not that the replacements aren't good nurses themselves, it's that it takes a little bit of time to build a connection like that and we were pummeled.

So I cut back.  I rebalanced my equation.  I invested in the parts of my life that have a guaranteed return.  It was an odd transition and not always joyful.  Letting go of something that has always been such a giant part of me was a little bit alienating.  I realized that I didn't really know how to be myself without it and there were moments of, "Oh my God.  Who AM I?"  (Thank goodness I still work often enough to circumvent most of those moments.)

It's also come with moments so full of pure joy and happiness that I can't believe I didn't do this a very long time ago.  The other side of my brain is waking up.  I want to create.  I want to write.  I want to grow things.  I want to be alive.  I want to taste new foods and see new places.  I remember why I married that cute boy I met 20 years ago.  I want to gaze at the stars and watch every beautiful sunset from beginning to end.  I want to wonder about things and then go explore them.  I want to feel connected to that energy we all call by different names.  And it's happening.  Each day has new purpose.  I'm waking up.  I'm remembering how to be me.  I feel present for conversations that were taking place all around me that I never noticed before.  I watched my mostly non-verbal 3 year old nephew with Down's Syndrome communicate all day with a dog that would usually rather hang out with other dogs than humans.  They have their own language and it was amazing to watch.  It gave me goosebumps and I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

So I'm tuning up my blog in hopes to stretch a little more of that goodness out of myself.  The more I write, the less stagnated my mind feels and the more alive I feel.  It takes practice to sustain a good flow of thoughts and I am not a bestselling author to be sure.  I am rusty.  So bear with me while I practice, practice and practice.  I think there are some pretty amazing ideas stuck in this head.  It's just a matter of bringing them to life.

The Revolving Herb Tower

I saw a few different things on Pinterest that I thought I could combine to make something that would work for me.  These were the inspiration pieces:

 

 

So I gathered my supplies:  canning jars, paint, lazy susan, wood scraps, wood glue and duct clamps then went to work. 

 

 

 

I added a tray for rocks to help weight it down due to our wind gusts and detailed it with a monogram to personalize it a bit more.

Then I filled the jars with a gravel base, potting soil and seeded them with herbs.  I added chalkboard tags that can be marked with which herb is growing where and then altered if I replant with something different.  When the temps drop, I will bring it in for the winter.  I have 8 jars of tiny green sprouts!  It will be interesting to see how they grow.

This was project took more time than most due to the drying time of glue and paint between steps.  In hindsight, I wouldn't have used the scrap wood I had on hand.  It wasn't all straight or the quality I would want to use on a project that turned out this neat.  I'd opt for the quality stuff.  I think the hardest part was sanding off the fresh paint to give it the "shabby" look I was going for.  To a perfectionist, doing things intentionally haphazardly is not easy.

Ahhh... There you are.

I have a confession to make.  I lost the Little Dipper.  I can't explain it.  I have known how to find Polaris since I was about 10.  It doesn't move.  It's impossible to lose, and yet...  I couldn't be certain which star, exactly, was the infamous North Star.  I can't tell you how many times I searched the night sky from the comforts of the hot tub only to let curiosity get the better of me.  I walked barefoot through doggy grenades on the lawn in the darkness, precariously stepped around the house through the sharp gravel, just knowing it had to be behind the big juniper tree or on other side of the roofline.  I knew where it was suppose to be.  It makes it's home between the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia. But - WHERE WAS IT?

And then tonight, while I was watering my flower baskets before bed, I glanced up into the darkness and like an old friend, just as clear as could be - as if it had never been lost - there it was.  The Little Dipper.  I walked out into the darkness, as if called by the stars and let the moment absorb me.

It's a warm, beautiful night.  There is no wind and the air smells like sweet alfalfa as it blooms.  There is just a touch of humidity but not nearly enough to call muggy.  This is the desert.  It doesn't take much to feel the moisture in the air.  I can sense the presence of cows more than I can see or hear them.  The calmness of the herd is peaceful reassurance that all is well with the world.  The crickets and frogs are harmonizing with an occasional hush, just long enough to hear the trickling of nearby water.  This side of the planet is tucked tightly into bed, dreaming their dreams, and I feel like I have this moment, of this night, in this spot, all to myself.  It's a perfect summer night and I want to etch every tiny detail into my memory.

This is the good life and today was a good day.  It may have started way too early but it ended on a perfect note.  Though never really lost in the first place, an old friend has been found and all is once again right in the night sky.  I can't help but think of it as a sign for stability and happiness to come.   

Too Much Truth, Not Enough Fiction

(This event occurred a significant time ago and has been waiting in the "draft" folder until details of the event have become obsolete in context to protect the privacy of those involved.)

A paramedic may have saved my life.  I wasn't sick.   I didn't call 911.  I'm a nurse in a rural hospital who was working an ER shift in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A voluntary psych patient walked into our doors with police escort.  The patient wasn't under arrest and didn't want to be seen. Legally, that patient has a right to walk out that door.  A quick assessment of the situation told me that the patient was both a threat to self and others.  Threatening statements, aggressive stance, diaphoresis, verbalizing ideas incongruent with reality; I needed to get this patient out of our packed lobby and away from the other patients.  So I did my job.  I used my limited psych nursing skills to lure and coax the patient back into our pseudo psych room.

I say pseudo because I work in a tiny emergency room and we don't have the space for an official psychiatric ER room.  This room is our back up gyno room for pelvic exams, sutures and general emergency department patients as well.  There are scalpels, stitch cutters, razors, wires, tubing, monitors, metal tray tables, IV and oxygen supplies, suction tubing, IV poles and other supplies that can all be used as weapons against us.  Even the wire shelving can be ripped from the wall and used to hurt us.  But like I said, the patient arrived in the waiting room without warning, so the room wasn't emptied prior to arrival.
 
The officer had no back up.  He was a friend of the patient's family and really just wanted to get this patient some help.  Let no good deed go unpunished.  The situation escalated quickly to the point of out of control.  An ambulance, by chance, had just dropped off a different patient.  In 3 seconds time, all of the cording in the wall had been ripped out, an ER stretcher thrown, a cop and RN locked behind a glass door with the unstable patient loose in the middle of the ER.  That fast.  In a millisecond, I realized this psychotic patient was in control and the gravity of the situation took hold.

I'm not going to lie.  It was the most terrifying moment of my nursing career.  I never saw it coming, I thought I was following all of the safety guidelines.  I was keeping the officer between me and the patient, I was aware of my space and exits, I was thinking ahead of what needed to be removed from the room.  But it was THAT fast.  The patient could have killed me.  That patient could have killed everyone in that ER.  All of the could haves, would haves and should haves went through my mind in an instant.  I don't know who unlocked the door.  I don't remember getting out.  I remember calling the front desk and asking for police backup "NOW" and the paramedic grabbing his radio and saying, "I've got it," some arguing, a taser sound and the same paramedic lunging across the ER to help the officer take this patient down.  Police back up walked through the door and it took 6 strong men to hold this patient down until the medications began to take effect 40 minutes later.

Yes, people.  That is your mental healthcare system.  FYI:  there really isn't one.  The system is overloaded.  When we called facilities for a psych bed, we got put on a waiting list 48 hours out - which means this patient was going to be staying in the ER for 2 more days with 1:1 nursing at the bedside.  It means the 7 bed ER is now down to 1 nurse and 6 beds with a very valid threat looming near.  It means that the patient experiencing the first real psychotic break in their lifetime isn't receiving the ideal psych care or medical treatment.  It means that everyone who walks into that ER is walking into harms way; patients, nurses, doctors, lab, radiology techs, respiratory therapists, visitors, housekeeping, kitchen staff, paramedics, etc.

This wasn't a drug induced psychosis that would wear off like with the "bath salts" being laced into meth.  This was a real, textbook, schizophrenic psychotic break.  Alert and oriented to some extent with grandiosity, delusions and violent threats escalating to violent behavior.  There is no reasoning, bargaining or placating.  This person is the most dangerous patient we see in the ER because they are unpredictable and have no limitations to the acts they are willing to commit for unknown reasons. Bargaining and rationalizing go out the window quickly when attempted with someone with limited comprehension of reality.  They can be easy going and cracking jokes while strangling you with electrical cords.

But it's the ER.  There's no time to stop.  There's not time to think.  We all stuff it into that bottomless pit of a place that allows us to keep going and we move on.  There's no time to think about anything but your next patient, your next order.  We were busy resetting a hip, orthoglassing a fracture, oxygenating an overdose, transferring a hemorrhage, ruling out a pulmonary embolism and triaging every patient that walked through our doors in 3-5 minutes or less while attending our psych patient and doing our best because each of us can imagine ourselves in the place of our patients, or their families, and we just want to do our best for them.

I'm writing this knowing very well that I won't be able to share it until the specifics of the event are blurred to protect the privacy of the patients.  We aren't allowed to discuss events like this, even with fellow coworkers that weren't involved in the case.  We can't tell our spouses.  We can't discuss particulars or specifics.  The patient that threatened to kill me, attacked a cop he knew on a friendly basis and destroyed an ER room has more rights than I do and I can't share any information about anything without a subpoena and even then, a lawyer needs to review with me what I can and can't say. So I mixed a few facts up here just to keep it legal.

I feel for the psych patient.  I feel for the family.  I can't even imagine how frightening an event like this must be.  But mostly, I am grateful.  I am grateful for the paramedic that literally jumped across the ER to save my ass before a cop could even unholster his weapon.  I know how much worse it could have been.  I can't tell you how many times the scene has played out in my mind with different endings and bigger headlines.

I'm hoping our psych patient gets the appropriate care.  I'm hoping our administration understands the need for more security and a better intake system for these patients.  I'm hoping that law enforcement takes a closer look at their "voluntary" transport and drop off protocols.  I'm hoping to educate the general public about how messed up our system is and that some of you will get involved and make changes.  Just because we aren't allowed to discuss these issues doesn't mean it isn't a huge problem. It is.  HIPPA and privacy protection laws just prevent anyone from knowing about it.

I'm so thankful for our EMS crews that keep us safe.  It could have been so much worse.  If you want shorter wait times and an ER that has room to actually care for people with REAL emergencies, help us reform the mental health care system.  Help us get drug users, dealers and meth heads out of our ER.  Help us educate the public that an ER is not a place to get free bandaids, Tylenol, Sierra Mist or a note to get out of work.  Help keep us healthcare workers safe so we can do our jobs because you or a loved one might just need us someday.