A bittersweet day at work

Bitter....one family grieves the death of a 4 year old after a drowning accident.

Sweet....another family rejoices in the baby steps their 4 year old makes today while battling back from a traumatic brain injury.

Bitter...my boss finds out that she is now the Director of 5 departments instead of 3. She also found out she is loosing her assistant. The position has been eliminated. More work/less help.

Sweet...I became a part of an elite group at work today. I am officially a member of the 20+ club. As of July 18, I have been at CGCMC for 20 years. I am now eligible for the 50% discount in the cafeteria! wow

I have seen many bittersweet days during my 20 years at Glennon but this has probably been one of the hardest. About the same time I had my ID badge changed to the 20+ club badge and I was feeling very proud, my boss and her assistant were receiving the news of the "restructoring".
Its been a tough, bittersweet day. The hardest part of all was thinking about the family that lost their kiddo today. Nothing can be worse than that.

My Michael

Yesterday I went to work and spent about 4 hours playing Wii games and looking at I Spy books with my favorite patient. I've blogged about him before. He has Cystic Fibrosis and comes in one week or so every 3-4 months for what is called "a tuneup". He is allergic to the antibiotics he receives so we have to desensitize him to his antibiotic by giving him increasing doses every 15 minutes for about 4 hours. We watch for an allergic reaction while giving him the meds.
We are really just there to play with him. At least thats what he thinks. It was going pretty well until I started winning the Wii games. he wasn't too happy.
He is doing pretty well. His mother still smokes. UUUGGGHHH. When she comes back into his room it is hard for me to breathe. I can't imagine what that is doing to him. My smoking lectures go in one ear and out the other. I hope one day she realizes what this is doing to him.
It sure is fun to go to work and play. He has invited me to come watch a movie with him when I work on Thursday. I'm not sure I will be able to do that. I won't have antibiotics to be giving as my cover for playing. I will be sure to spend some time with him though. He reminds me why I went into pediatric nursing. Thanks Micheal...love ya buddy.

Memorial Garden

BEFORE

This is the weed garden. It actually looked much worse. It was full of weeds and grass. It looked awful. We have never really landscaped this area. When my Mother-in-Law passed away we were given money to purchase a tree in her memory. Instead of the tree we decided to finally landscape this area in her honor. We finished it on July 4th.

AFTER

We love you Nonnie. I think you would be pleased that we finally did this. I promise to pull the weeds before they take over.

Exploring South Dakota

We had a wonderful vacation to South Dakota. Here are some pictures from Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Spearfish canyon (waterfalls) and the Badlands (they made me feel like I was visiting Mars). It is a beautiful State with a lot of interesting things to see. We also went to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD., Wall Drug, a huge gift shop/diner/icecream shop/drug store/play ground and we spent a day in Custer State Park driving the Wildlife loop looking for buffalo (we only saw one). We did a lot of driving and a lot of exploring. We even tried to pan for gold. That was not successful. It was a great week.