55 and loving it

As I put fingers to the keyboard just let me open by saying that you're reading the post of a newly turned 55 year old woman. And if that doesn't impress you let me share some info from a radio program I was listening to this morning on my drive home from the clinical shifts I did this week. Gloria Steinham was being interviewed on being a 'game changer' and you can check out the interview with the link below:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/09/28/game-changer-gloria-steinem/#.ToPQI2OP8TQ.blogger

For those without the time or interest to invest in clicking the url let me just summarize by the overview she gave of 'women of a certain age' which is certainly relative this birthday girl. She explained the traditional feminine role as being from age 12 - 50 but when women reach the age of 50 they return to thinking like 10 year old girls (except they have their own apartment, can reach the light switch etc) and they dream of doing all the things they imagined when they were younger. In fact the older you get the more important it is to do things as you have less time remaining. Her thoughts were that men are younger they are more powerful and loose that power when they age. Women are conservative when younger and get radical and gain power as they get older. Ah what a feminist!

I have had a very nice birthday actually. Birthday wishes from all the daughters and "oops I forgot" from the males of the house. I made my way home from the city this morning and it was a beautiful day so I took advantage of the sunshine on the deck while catching up on the news. Made my way over to visit the remaining summer neighbour and her nurse friend who is visiting. They were out on the deck enjoying Templetons rye (it had been a favorite of her spouse) in the sunshine. I joined them for a visit and we polished off some wine, green onion hummus, pita chips and wonderful cheese while we compared healthcare in the US and Canada. I floated home, got the laundry in and took the dog for a walk. All in day a great day.

I've made several trips recently to the city to do the clinical shifts for the emergency nursing program and the extra mileage has likely contributed to the palliative condition of the car. It started making noises as I headed down on Sunday and they increased in volume. By the time I made it back to the local garage the mechanic diagnosed something major with the air conditioner, apparently the 'burny smell' wasn't a good sign and he spoke of it costing $1500 for a new one to be installed. This is more than the vehicle is worth so if this turns out to be the problem....decisions will have to be made. At least this trip home I wasn't stalled for almost 40 minutes on the approach to one of the city bridges as a motorcyclist lay in the middle of the road getting attention from the paramedics while traffic was diverted. He was scraped up but at least was conscious.

My clinical shifts went well but it is a bit grating to have to contribute four 12 hr. shifts to another facility on my days off. I had hoped to be able to escape with only three shifts and get prior learning credit for the other two but the instructor 'allowed me' to drop one 12 hr.shift as the new grads have to do five. So, let's see I have 35 yrs of RN experience, a good deal of it in Emerg and I manage to get one shift for credit - oh yeah, that sounds fair - NOT! I did manage to find my way around the department and get a few items of my skills checklist ticked off. I also learned (from a classmate who works there) that there had been several dropouts who fell too far behind to catch up so we are down to a group of eight of us now. The only equipment in the clinical which was the same from my facility was the IV pumps and the catheter tray so most of it was a huge learning curve of new processes and equipment. This is helpful if you're going to be working in the new spot at some point but a lot of that info just has to be deleted from the short term memory if not. This Monday was frantic in the way that I'm used to in my workplace as we are chronically short staffed and I have to say we handle it much better than those bigger hospital RNs - just sayin.

I was glad to have escaped the accreditation review of last week in my facility though - I still have flashbacks to my interrogation when I was the Infection Control Practitioner the last round. One of my coworkers emailed to say that just when it seemed safe to go back in the water one of the accreditors was wandering in the ER and she had approached him (as we do all wandering persons there) and he attempted to extract information from her. I almost felt sorry for him as I've seen her in action and divulging such info freely is not something she's known for. It does call for the statement about not speaking to strangers though.

The first set of clinical shifts I met up with a nursing colleague and we headed to the Garrison Grounds for an educational display by Medicin sans Frontier (Doctors without Borders) which was excellent. They were most interested in two old-nurses who are mission groupies and so we left smiling.

http://www.msf.ca/

We headed down the street and around the corner to grab some supper at Turkish Delight which is highly recommended:

http://www.turkishdelighthalifax.ca/

Great food, reasonably priced and lots of Turkish diners so you know it's authentic. I had a Groupon which was about to expire so it was put to good use as well.

Well, time to hit the hay as tomorrow is a girl's day as we head to see the gardens in Annapolis Royal. Got to charge my camera batteries as well as my own.

http://www.historicgardens.com/

Pictures to follow.