Skip to main content

Back to work!

I hope this finds everyone doing well!  These past two weeks have been me getting used to the new units and being oriented to them.  I know I may have said it a few times, but, I am working the Ambulatory (which basically means "outpatient") Treatment Infusion Center and it's sister unit, the 23 hour observation surgical floor at Stanford.  The pace is very different from an inpatient oncology floor and presents unique challenges.  Each hospital, each unit, each specialty is challenging in different ways.  It can be refreshing but can also make you feel incompetent until you learn the system and flow of care.  I have enjoyed my coworkers very much so far!  They are very positive, encouraging and helpful.  I think I will enjoy the units and the patients, although I am missing oncology.  It feels great to be back to work and I was reminded this week of how much I really love nursing.  It can be a really fun and neat job!

We have had an interesting week, weather-wise!  It's been raining for a week, combined with snow on the mountain tops, and even a few tornado warnings and funnels!  The cliffs at Pacifica (about 25 miles NW of here) are falling into the sea from the rain and surf pounding on them, threatening some cliff-top apartments.  No flooding in the towns here, that I've heard, but many rainy commutes!  The rain is nice, but, I have discovered about 3 days is my limit!  We are on day 8.  The sun has been playing peak-a-boo some.  I almost drove under a full rainbow today, framing the Diablo Mountains, topped with snow, covered in lush, green grass and trees.  Although we are all a little bummed and blue from the rain (all my inn-mates and I are laughing about how pouty the rain makes us), the hills are so beautiful!  I've never seen such a rich green! My drive home from work is on the foothills of the coastal range (Santa Cruz mtns) and the views definitely make up for a long day at work!

There is no other news this week, so I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the drive home from LA when I went to visit Derrick (my brother) for an evening!  The drive back (with stops) took about 11 hours but it was worth every second!  I highly recommend making the drive within your lifetime at some point!  If you need a good reason, come visit me and we can do it! : )

Enjoy and God bless!















Hundreds of elephant seals hauled out (resting) on a beach,
here for mating/birthing season.  The males (the big guy there)
are up to 1,500 lbs!









Do you see the road way up there?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Half Dome: Did I mention? I'm afraid of heights . . .

I kept hearing about "Half Dome" when people would talk about Yosemite. I was always intrigued and thought I would see what the big deal was.  As I researched hiking Half Dome in Yosemite, I found many blogs, a few articles, and lists about the dangers of this climb.  Coworkers would talk about the stories of hikers witnessing people slide off the edge to their deaths and their own adventuresome tales of making to the top and back down again safely, getting lost and having to find their way back to camp in the dark with flashlights.  Not to mention, there are two large waterfalls and a rushing (raging in the spring) river to consider, which has claimed hundreds of lives of healthy people, just out for a day hike.  The warnings to proceed with caution and care are very present. The hike is a 14-16 mile round trip, normally, depending on which trails you take.  Jeff and I hiked up the Mist Trail and down the John Muir Trail, so, including our 1 mile each...
3 comments
Read more

Clarity

There are moments you just know things.  Like when you know something is right or when something is wrong.  There are moments you see things clearly and it all makes sense and you don't have to fight the blur of distraction of life. There are moments when you can see a bigger picture, unhindered by the tunnel-vision of the task-driven day-to-day routine.  There are moments, when the clouds break, you stop and see things, realize things and bask in a simple reality, even if ever so briefly. Today as the sun broke through several days of rain and gloom to shine some light on the beauty being born beneath the darkness of the clouds, today became a day of clarity, of stepping back and seeing a bigger picture, of seeing the beauty and renewal of the heavy rains and dark clouds.  And it was a beautiful and calmly serene day.  The hills are brilliantly emerald green, dotted with little orange poppies and yellow mustard flowers.  The trees are blooming their flow...
1 comment
Read more

Texas Men and Texas

There’s nothing like the smell of a cleaned up Texas man.  Those of  you, who have grown up in West Texas or small-town Texas or have roots there, know what I’m talking about.  These are the men who go out and work the pasture or land, whether be it farming, ranching, working out in the oil fields or in the oil or gas refineries, out on the feedlots, or any other trade.  These men go work hard all day and come home in their dirty shirts, oily, smelling like the tractor or truck and dirt, hair disheveled (if they have their hair under their sweaty hat--maybe they already have that hat-induced receding hairline), kick off their boots and take a deep breath and go, “Whew!”  There’s nothing like receiving a hug from a dirty Texas man.  Then, for public or special occasions, they “get cleaned up.”  They go wash off the dirt and grit from a long day of work, put on their best starched and pressed button up shirt, tuck it into their starched wranglers wi...
Post a Comment
Read more