Meet Racer

Nile is in dog camp this week, and he is working with a dog from the pound (or a "rescue dog" in more politically-correct terms). His dog is named Racer (an inside joke, more on that later) and is a 3 year old black Labrador retriever. Here he is.

We went to the camp location Sunday, for them to talk to Nile and try to match him to a dog. But when we walked in, they already (apparently) had decided that he would take Racer's foster-brother (I know, funny, huh?), another black lab named Cyrus. Now Cyrus is a pretty big, powerful-sounding moniker, isn't it? Yes, Cyrus was a really big, wild boy. Nile tried to be a sport about it, but Cyrus was dragging him all over that room. I could see that he wasn't digging it. And Racer (who is smaller and much, much calmer) was just watching. Pretty soon the camp staff offered Nile to have Racer as his dog instead. We took him outside and in my very non-dog-expert opinion, Racer was a good dog. Easy-going. His only character flaw seems to be that he likes to slobber. But he doesn't jump on you or bark a lot, and doesn't yank you around by the leash.

Well, it's day 4 of camp and I would call it a success. Here's a picture of Nile with Racer. He looks pretty OK with it all, huh? (I mean Nile, ha.)

Today they were supposed to bathe the dogs and tomorrow they have a little showcase where the dogs do tricks that the kids have taught them all week. My mom will go to that, because since it's Friday I'll be at work. That's a bummer, but Fridays I work with Bethany and Curtis, so we'll be having an enormously good time. It's wonderful to have co-workers that you not only respect and learn from, but also enjoy and laugh with. And they are both that.

It remains to be seen if Racer will join our family. Nile has another week of dog camp, so we are delaying the decision until then. Nile is worried about how Racer will affect Gary, our cat. So we'll have to talk about it and figure out what to do. And the assumption of responsibility is significant.

Dani is loving NYC. Got a text from her -- guess what? She needs cash. And she went to see Spiderman on Broadway -- loved it. Oh, and the class at Columbia is hard. What? Classes are hard there? Gee.

Diagnosis, Families (Sigh) and Stuff

Interesting things are always happening at work. When I take report from the night nurses in the morning, we usually have a few things to chuckle about, but Tuesday absolutely took the cake on this. I had three patients with different delusions that were, shall we say, unusual. The first had the delusion that a Doritos truck is following her. Yes, it was that specific. I can see why that would upset someone, especially if you are interested in keeping your slim figure. The second patient believed that a vibrator was stuck in her vagina, in spite of the fact that she was thoroughly examined in the ER by a doctor and there was no contraband in there. This delusion was part of a complicated set of beliefs she had about an ex-boyfriend; he was stalking her, he had put the vibrator in her, and he was living in her attic. The last patient thought that there was a little (very little) two-year-old child in his pocket. Isn't psych interesting? Really, it truly is. Most delusions involve some degree of paranoia (you can see that in the first two), and the most common focuses are religiosity, sex, and persecution (often by the government).

Most people think delusions only occur with schizophrenia, but nothing in psych is that clear-cut. The brain is so stunningly complex, most disorders are actually pretty unique to that single person. Disorders often overlap in symptoms. The field of psychiatry is fairly new so it's evolving (there was an article in Newsweek this week about the explosion of bipolar diagnosis in children -- the author thinks it's being overused). And since you can't diagnose with a blood test, communication with the patient is key. If that's limited, your diagostic task is going to be pretty tough.

At the end of my shift Tuesday, one of the techs told me that a family member wants to talk to me about one of my PICU patients (incidentally, she was one of the three patients I mentioned above). Now, it's 15 minutes before I go into report and I could have handed off this task to the next shift. But I know that I would not want that done to me, so I talk to the family member when we finish report. I have seen the patient all day, so I am in a better spot to respond to questions with knowledge. Unfortunately, I can tell right off the bat that this family member is very pissed off. She states that she thinks the patient hasn't made enough progress -- which is amusing, since she was admitted less than 24 hours ago. Does she think we give them one pill and they're cured? She asks numerous questions about things outside my scope of practice -- things that only the psychiatrist can answer. But I know that if I curtly refuse to answer, it won't go well so I shift the focus to what I can talk about -- how the patient coped that day, what activities she did, what medications she is on, how she responded to staff. That goes pretty well.

But her last question is when it falls apart -- she wants to know what's the diagnosis. (By the way, all of this is discussed with the patient standing there, listening. Which is actually better, as being open and direct is my preferred way to do this.) I tell her that the diagnosis is bipolar with psychotic features. Her nostrils flare. "Oh, that can't be right," she exclaims. "She has delusions! She is imaging things! That's not bipolar. That's schizophrenia." So I have someone who read an article once about mental illness and is now an expert, I think to myself. Oh boy. How to encapsulate a complete course in mental health in five minutes to educate her? I try, but I can tell that I've failed when she says "Well, that's all interesting, but I want to talk to the doctor." Unspoken, of course, is that I'm just a stupid pill-pushing nurse. Oh well, I tried. And all that effort just made me 30 minutes late getting home.

Dani is loving New Jersey, and I can see why from the pictures she's posted on Facebook. It's so green and lush there now, compared to Austin. Jersey has beautiful summers, I miss that. She also got good news on her SAT -- can I brag? She got a 2010. Exactly what she predicted, by the way. The airlines have found a way to extract more cash from parents of spoiled little princesses, by the way. When we put her on the plane to Newark, the bag was 8 lbs overweight and we had to pay $100 for that. And guess what....she'll have to pay another $100 on the way home. I'm sure it will be much more than 8 lbs overweight then.

One last thought. Dani and I went to Victoria's Secret right before she left, and they had a specially-trained bra-fitter there. So we both got fitted and boy....we were wearing the totally wrong size (especially her). We bought new ones in the correct size and WOW, huge difference in both comfort and appearance. Every woman should do this! And VS must be really happy, because I have five new bras now. Ha.

Pool Party

We had a great pool party with our friends, Jeff & Therese DeMouy and Robert, Laura, and Thomas.

The weather was perfect for it, and we had barbecue from County Line to enjoy. The splash attack was in full swing with six kids to take part (I guess the teenagers still count as "kids").

The night before, Nile and I joined them at Dart Bowl for a little bowling party. This is a great Austin place, it's got a serious 1970's bowling alley atmosphere going on. We'll definitely be going back, especially since Nile really enjoyed it. It helped that they had sour skittles in the vending machine.

Ken came down from Houston for the party and was able to seamlessly work from home on Friday. Hopefully he'll be able to start doing this once a week and have a regular 4-day week in Houston. Things are looking good for that.

Nile has his "dog camp" interview next week. They will try to pair him with a dog where their personalities mesh well. And today, Dani and Idil left for New Jersey and for their summer program at Columbia University. It feels a little strange to send your child off for 5 weeks but we did it without tears. I'm working every day this week, so that'll keep my mind off her. (She's fine this week, she's back in Clinton with Idil. It's next week when I'll start to worry, as that's when they'll be at Columbia.)

I'm down to just working on my personal statement for graduate school. Oh, it's so much fun. I think I'd rather have my toenails ripped out with pliers, and that would truly bug me because - wow - talk about ruining a pedicure. Ha.

Couple of Things...

Couple of things that I forgot to post. Nile turned 15 yesterday and Dani and her friend Idil are going to Columbia University this summer for a high-school science program. It's a great opportunity for her and she is terribly excited to be going back to the northeast, especially to the city.

We had a little party for Nile at my parents' house yesterday. Here he is by the cake. He starts dog camp in a couple of weeks, and he finished sculpture camp last week. Dog camp will be interesting -- he will train a dog from the pound. Learn about how to do that, learn about dogs in general. We've never had a dog, only Gary the cat. So lots of new things there. My brother Colin gave Nile a dog toy for his birthday - ha. Colin has always had a dog. Sculpture camp was interesting, but it turned out it was in far East Austin. It took 45 minutes to get there, on a good day. The last day with the ROT Rally going on, it took even longer. Not sure I want to repeat that. He has ceramics camp in August & that's at Laguna Gloria, a much better drive.

We picked Idil up at the airport on Friday. She and Dani are experiencing Austin intensely. Saturday they went to the Co-op to buy Keep Austin Weird shirts and then they went to the Matt & Kim concert at Stubb's. We will visit Fonda San Miguel, Barton Springs (or maybe Deep Eddy) and the Salt Lick sometime this week. They leave for New York on Sunday.

I wish it would rain. The weather report is amazingly, boringly the same, every single day. High of 99 or 100, low of about 75. Not a cloud in the sky. No rain. Everything is starting to get a terrible brown.

The DeMouys are visiting from Baton Rouge this week & we'll have them over for a big pool party on Thursday. Ken is able to come home early for that.

Settling In

It's been six months since an update -- too long, but indicative of how settled in we are in Austin. We've been here almost a year. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will ever leave here, it just feels like me. I'm as funky and freaky as Austin (yes, you can't tell when you first meet me, but it's there).

I bought a new car, it was past time when I needed the mom-mobile and time to return to my sports car roots. I got an Infiniti G37S with a stick shift. It is so much fun to drive, it's genuinely mood-altering, especially with the sunroof open and the new Cars CD playing. After a long 12 hour shift, I so enjoy driving that baby home along Bee Caves Road into the sunset.

Dani and I went to Houston and stayed with Ken. We went to the butterfly exhibit at the museum and it reminded me so much of the rain forest exhibit at the New Orleans aquarium. Of course, everything there died during Katrina (terrible). I've never seen so many butterflies in one place, and of so many different types too. I'm going back to Houston this summer for a "grown-up" trip. And Ken and I are going to see both Better Than Ezra (in Tulsa) and Death Cab (in Dallas). We have serious fun planned for this summer.

Some big things are coming up/happening now. My sister Holly has moved back to Austin. We're so happy she's here. She's a serious Austin-fun maven and I am so looking forward to getting the 411 from her and going out with her. We are 20 years apart and I never lived in the same house with her -- and we're the most alike of the kids (go figure). So this is a great opportunity. Here's a picture of us on the bat cruise on Town Lake (yes, I know the correct term is Lady Bird Lake). We look like mother & daughter, don't we? But we're the oldest and youngest of five.

The other thing is that I'm applying to graduate school at UT to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Normally I would've had to wait until December to apply to get in the following fall but they extended the deadline. The school received some special funding for psychiatric training (there's a crying need for it in Texas) and they also needed more applicants. So I'm going to go for it. No idea what my chances are, but I am going to take the plunge. I took the GRE a few weeks ago & did good enough. Now I'm collecting materials to send it (writing an essay, getting recommendations, transcripts). If I get in, I'll start school in late August.

Oh, and I lasted exactly 3 days at my new PRN job at (ahem) a competing private psych hospital. My god, those fools were so disorganized and they were pressuring me to work like a fricking dog. I'm sorry, but I am NOT willing to work 6 days a week! And they are (in my opinion) over-controlling and don't trust professional nurses to behave as such. Every single order a nurse takes off has to be checked and counter-signed by another nurse -- is that ridiculous or what? I would spend all my time running down a nurse to sign my damn papers. OK, guess it shows how exasperated I was with them -- enough said. I completely appreciate my present job now. I got to take a full load of PICU patients Tuesday because Kathy was on vacation and it was challenging and interesting. Too many wild young guys (as usual, think it's because ASH is on diversion), but we cracked the nursing whip and handled them. As Gilbert used to say, I'm not a nurse sometimes, I'm a zookeeper. It was like that. But in a good way (ha).

So life in Austin rolls along. Oh, did I mention the pool? Sigh......99 degrees....I'm in love. That's all I need to say.