So i currently work in a 90 bed health and rehabilitation facility. I am one of only 2 full-time nurses to cover all 90 patients. I work from eleven at night to seven in the morning, give or take an hour after handoff reports. I rarely get a third nurse in the building during the graveyard shift so that means i am responsible for 48 patients by myself with only two CNAs at best. The thing that most people do not realize is that just because all youre patients are elderly, does not mean they actually sleep all the time. Sleep is one of the most troublesome issues in the aging population. Add issues like Sundowners Syndrome and dementia to the mix and you get an overly active and stressed out group of patients who rarely sleep. Patients such as this who struggle to sleep at night, also tend to try and get out of bed or walk and risk falling every night. With only 3 people on the unit available to tend to all the needs of these people, you spend much of your shift chasing call lights and bed alarms. The day shift often has aggressive tendencies towards third shift staff because they assume that everyone is in bed and there is little to do, implying our shift has it much easier than the other shifts. The facility where i work gave me one week training before sending me off on my own to work. Not much more than a week into my new role as night shift nurse i was assigned the entire unit of 48 patients on my own. It was a nightmare. I did not get all my medications administered by the time the morning crew arrived and they all just avoided me and made it obvious they had no interest in helping me. Regardless of being brand new to the facility. I kept working hard and night after night i gave it my all. I walked out of there an hour after my shift was over with a limp. I still walk out limping four months into my job there. What i notice most about this job is that the other 3rd shift nurses that i work with all remain committed to the job and I am beginning to really bond with the crew i work with. The rest of the staff at my facility may try hard to see the value in us 3rd shifters but i have found my place finally. I am falling hard in love with all my patients. Working on my 5th month i have not once dreaded coming into work. Im growing more accustomed to being assigned the enitre unit to myself and even though it is alot of work and hard on the body, i am finding the advantage of working third shift with less drama and more quiet. I would rather work this shift and miss out on lunch breaks than work with many of the negative attitudes that overrun the dayshift. I do feel that often times the management tries to resolve their staffing issues by pressuring the few of us that work third shift to give up our days off which are few and far in between. I love this facility especially because they allow patients to have IV’s and tube feedings, we do all our own blood draws on night shift and with all of this, having a specialty in gerontology allows us to keep these skills that you may lose if going into labor and delivery or mental health for example. I love the idea of working with people that bond together, work as a team together and laugh together. We have that even if there are only a handful of us present every night. I have accepted that there are issues in every nurse setting that must be endured or overcome. But I have also accepted that the issues in this new job are well worth the effort. I will never work twelve plus hours shifts again, i will never deal with a crowd of nurses who spend more time gossiping and complaining and at this job, when i clock out i can leave it all behind me and go home to my real life. It is hard on the body to stay awake each night when the natural design of humans is to sleep after the sun goes down. However, this too is feasable for me when avoiding all the drama that has overtaken most nursing environments. I only hope i i will continue blogging new and interesting things with this job a year later. lol. I can feel myself getting stronger to execute my job properly. I can tell this is a good place for me to learn more strength as a leader and to better supervise my crew. I hear myself thinking of all the new things i can try to bring a connection to the team and uplift others that i work with. I look forward to all i can learn and gain from this job and all the good things i have to bring to the table.
Tag Archives: women
Graveyard shift.
This is my 4th job as a registered nurse in last than 2 years. Thats a tough thing to swallow when your entire motto in life is to ‘never ‘give up’. The hospital was post Covid and the remaining nurses left after a mass exodus of experienced nurses were nothing short of a nightmare crew. One thing was obvious was that too many of my colleagues were entitled and got through school with so many advantages not afforded to the general working class population. Here in Tennessee it became the norm for nurses to show up for their shift with scary bed hair knots piled haphazardly atop their heads, wrinkles scrubs and old makeup that told me they were either “hungover” or simply gave up caring how they appeared each day at work. There was no more morning “huddle” and noone said “good morning” or greeted anyone at the start of each day. The hardest part for me was not just the lack of support or teamwork in my unit but the negative banter that pervaded my every day on every 12 hour shift. These were not nurses who cared about the world and wanted to help others in times of great need. It was alot more talk about how disgusting a patient was or other nurses searching patients family members to find dirt on them in order to put security tags on them and prevent them from entering our unit. We had an elderly women with advanced dementia basically living on our Oncology unit. She was abandoned by family and until the hospital could go to court and get her a court appointed POA, she had been living up there on the 8th floor for about a year. Never getting taken outside to see the light of day other than what shown in her room window, never smelling fresh air or hearing the natural sounds of the world outside the buzzing of call lights and bed alarms and constant fluorescent lighting . It was apparent the rest of the unit staff were beyond fatigued by the demands of an ambulatory dementia patient constantly triggering alarms by the way they yelled at her every time she moved. I would watch the other nurses and they did not even bother to check and see if family members of other patients were around to hear how they talked to this poor women. It was a common reaction by all of them to yell at her to “sit down!” and “get back to your chair or you will fall!” Or “you are driving me bleep bleep crazy damn it!” It made no sense why she was still up on our unit and NOT a cancer patient. It came down to money more than anything. At her age she had enough comorbidities that they justified her need for care in a health facility and i am sure they made alot of money off Medicare for her. When a bed alarm or a chair alarm goes off, the requirement is to get there as fast as you can because it means a patient who is a major fall risk has left the bed or chair and is about to fall. Falls hurt the hospital and are a major liablity. Working short staffed as the nation has been accustomed to by now and being expected to stop what you are doing every 5 minutes to chase an alarm really makes it impossible to give good care much less complete your daily work requirements. What made it even more difficult for me was listening to the way they all talked to this patient (or yelled at her). On that same hall we had a young patient in his mid 20s who was in a horrific car accident and paralyzed from the chest down with limited use of his hands. He was nearly 7 feet tall. He also did not have cancer but had been living there for 9 months because he basically refused to leave until his insurance would pay for a bed for him to return home…. one that supported him better. It took 4 people to move him up in bed and he slid down every hour. He was on his light alot and im sure higher needs than his medical conditions simply due to his size and his unattended mental health issues related to the auto accident that left him a quad. We would consider a day of great luck to have one CNA for the entire unit show up. CNAs were paid pittence because hospitals did not require them to be certified so the pay was too low to gather any interest for the public. In some ways, it made sense why all my nurse colleagues had acquired such bad attitudes considering all this nonsense we endured on the daily. But as a brand new nurse who struggled through the uphill battle of Covid nursing school, i really needed to see just one nurse who acted like they cared about their patients. I really needed to see just one nurse offer support and guidance without throwing so much shade at the new hires. My nurse educator on that floor lived with good money and her one child went to the most prestigious high school in our region. As an educator she was hardly ever there. She vacationed more than she worked. She was in a bad mood one day and began spouting about how her boss is “sick and tired of all these new hires taking 4-6 months to orient into the job and how it has GOT TO STOP!” That was her level of support for all of us trying to work our 12 hour (really 14 hour) shifts while studying for our national boards and only getting grief from our teammates in our new jobs. Our manager would only pop around to take job interviews and to tell us all that we needed to put in more hours “on the floor”. This hospital signed me into multiple training or inservice classes a week and instead of recognizing that is a key issue in losing floor time, she only demanded more time from us “new hires”. I was already putting in 60 hours a week while living in a shed trying to rebuild my homestead after a fire on top of studying for my NCLEX. When i did get time off my body was in so much pain from the long hours running up and down those hallways , i was literally good for nothing else.This work environment was so toxic, they could not keep workers. I also believe that being positive and cheerful made others uneasy on the daily. All the other nurses seemed to want to do was talk smack about everyone from the staff to the patients on our unit. I dreaded going into work every single day. These werent “my people” , this was completely opposite to why i became a nurse. I contemplated quitting for weeks but struggled of the idea of being a quitter 3 months in to my first nursing job. I realized though that the only way to survive this place was to join my colleagues in their bitterness and bad attitudes in order to even come close to “fitting in” and so i made the tough decision to resign in order to say yes to myself and preserve my hopeful attitude as a new nurse even while recognising this is nothing like what we expected it would be. I was going to choose professionalism over “ratchet” even if it meant walking away from any job I had to in order to find a place that valued my presence and my positive approach to being a nurse. Ironically, only after i resigned was anyone at that hospital willing to talk to me. I learned so much valuable skills and information at that job despite the horrors. It gave me a reslience i did not know was needed until i went to other jobs that had their own issues. I agonized and cried but ultimately i walked away with my head held high in hopes of a better path forward. I do not expect nursing in any position will be easy or without great need for positive change. I will keep pressing forward with hope of finding a decent fit for me and a place i can effect that change i wish to see. The world of healthcare desperately needs it.
Becoming RN.
I applied to be readmitted into the RN to BSN program. It feels good because it means that my house rebuild is coming along. I was already registered for classes when the fire broke out, taking everything with it. I was determined to keep going straight through college until my Masters. All the upheaval caused by the fire made it a straight uphill battle to put much focus on my studies. Being entirely online, there was no class discussion or connection to other students to help remain motivated. And all the “build my life back” took center stage and pushed my homework to the back burner. When i finished my last semester at ETSU i did not sign up for more classes. I could not even bear to look at my final grades because i knew that my personal circumstances were the only thing standing in the way of my studies and so i had to remind myself that those grades did not define me. I know i can do this and i know that i can choose to look only at the destination sometimes in order to keep pressing forward with my goals. So I did let the semester end without ever even knowing whether i passed my classes or not. Im used to failure. Im used to getting chosen last and coming into last place. But through it all i have learned a great deal about the hidden gifts inside failure. I have gained extra appreciation for every opportunity that comes my way and for how i arrived at every mile stone. I tell everyone that ive always wanted to be a nurse. That is true but not entirely. I also dreamt often of becoming a police officer. I had a major fan crush on Sharon Gless (and Tyne Daly if im being entirely honest lol) from the series “Cagney and Lacey” two badass cops who bring realness to the job and show the tough resilient side of women. I rarely saw anyone around me in my community really amount to anything. Most people in Michigan were proud to work at General Motors. Anyone who did not get the prestigious job of working any role at GM was retired from GM or on disability from GM and NONE of these people were related to me or associated with the people that were technically considered “my people”. To dream of becoming a nurse or a cop were things so far above my caste that anyone who learned of me having such goals would awkwardly praise me or laugh in disbelief. Another moment of truth is that i may not have been able to handle the demands and sacrifices required back in my 20s. I new my brain worked pretty good most of the time because i loved to read and could really place myself in any story. I fully comprehended the amazing stories i read. I also became a master of observation. Being capable of fully observing any situation or surrounding and being an avid reader told me that my brain did work in spite of the fact that i had ADHD and unless off by myself in a quiet place to concentrate on reading, it took me several attempts to fully finish reading long sentences in textbooks because my mind would not hold concentration long enough to finish. My love for reading kept me from giving up. Time is a beautiful thing like that though and as i got older, i slowly leveled up in my self confidence on what i could convince myself of achieving. By the time i began my prereqs in my 40s , my youngest daughter was in high school. So to many, becoming a college student in my 40s with alot of life experience to help me get by , this was a great advantage. But at the same time, Being in my 20s and 30s were painful and took much energy to work through alot of personal stuff to be able to step outside of myself and actively seek to achieve bigger goals. I still can hardly believe i made it into nursing school and i have been a licensed registered nurse for over a year now. I may finish last alot , but i do finish and that to me is as amazing at coming in first place. I may have faced many more setbacks but here i am today back in the game of obtaining my BSN and it feels soooo good. First up, History lol.
Becoming RN…
I called this post “Becoming RN” because i had hoped to start it way back when i was beginning my prerequesites for nursing school, then i had truly hoped to start it as i was on summer break and preparing for fall classes and studying , and then again when i had graduated and became a licensed registered nurse. That was just over one year ago and here i am only now making real effort. So much has changed in my mind from the beginning of nursing school until now. I am still amazed that i actually graduated school and was going to be able to sit for the national boards, that still feels amazing to me. I often find myself thinking about how stressful it was just a year ago to remember all the medications for all the things that ail people and now i can look at any patient medication profile and tell you what is going on with them simply by looking at what things they are taking. I think about how i tortured myself to remember soo much and here i am carrying so much more knowledge and experience my mind could not comprehend just a year ago. Everything seemed like it was an emergency as a nursing student. A year later, you calm down naturally once you learn that people can have all sorts of crazy vital sign readings or lab results and still be alive lol.Not everything is an emergency once you realize this as a new nurse, you become much more calm, I did anyway.The truth is, you often hear that you really only begin to learn to how to become a nurse once you pass NCLEX and get a job working as a nurse, THAT’S where it begins. In nursing school, the pressure of only being able to fail out once adds enormous stress to the challenge of being a nursing student. This is one of those gazillion times when you need your mother. I knew i was not going to have that option and i was determined to become a nurse, but i felt it worthy to put place that comment in here because its how life runs through my head. Instead of saying to myself ” I want my mother” its more like “I wish i had a mother to turn to in times like these.” Like a program constantly running and updating in the background of your phone, not having a mother in your life…that absence is everpresent and profound, even at my age.
Within one year of becoming an RN, i went through multiple jobs and I see from so many sides this national (and international) seachange of what bedside nursing looks like in todays world. There is much you do not get to see or understand about nursing and healthcare in general until you are swimming in it up to your eyeballs. I let it get to me quickly and even though i knew from school and the constant headlines in the news, the shock of the nursing field is more than anyone can truly prepare you for, i still felt like the reality of it all hit me like a curveball i did not see coming. The first 3 months of nursing where a whirlwind of long hours on your feet learning a computer system and all the protocols for the unit you are working on in a hospital. I was on 8 in Oncology. Only it wasnt exactly Oncology. And what i learned most in those 3 months were that you never see them or talk to them but corporate is always in charge over actual nursing care. In 12 short weeks i was carrying a nursing assignment too large for any one nurse, especially a brand new nurse. There were never enough supplies to actually DO your job , You are just another RN to fill in a slot and you will work with a broken system and very small number in your team and there is nooone person you can turn to solve the problems driving countless nurses out of the field altogether. There is not enought time and therefore as a nurse you will only set yourself back if you attempt to slow down enough to actually care or show any caring towards the patient. One of the most eye opening experiences was how quickly and how often you put your nursing license on the line just to get through your day. What i learned also is that someone or something literally sucked all the spirit out of human health and healthcare in general. You can tell that nursing is in a major shift at this time and it does not appear that all this “change” is letting up anytime soon. It is not about caring for the individual. It is definately not about a holistic approach to promote healing in the individual either. I find myself trying to hold on for the ride. But unless i turn a blind eye to all the madness , i know i am NOT gonna make it as a nurse, or at least find it difficult to stay in any one place.
My first official day on the floor, being supervised by my preceptor, I was told to go get the 9a.m. meds for the patient i was in charge of that day. The main medroom did not have any methadone so i went to the back medroom and used my biometrics to access the system. In a sudden frenzy, the other nurse bursts into the medroom and is loud and pushy asking what is taking me so long to get the meds? Before i can even respond, he pushes himself in front of me and grabs the meds out of the tray, counts them, closes the drawer, wastes half a pill and hands me the methodone tablets then proceeds to log me out of the system so that he can access it for HIS patient, He was rude and dismissive but i just left and gave meds to my patient. The next morning, there was a slip from the pharmacy with a descrepency related to my nurse login. My preceptor said its no big deal and we can fix it easily. We walk into the breakroom where the nurse manager was and when she read the note , she simply said in her loud matter of fact voice, “Now thats a quick way to lose your license!” She did NOT even bother to ask me about the incident, she gave no opportunity for discussion, she just blurted out her comment and dismissed me. I wasnt expecting a welcome party when i came onboard that unit as a nurse, but mere days into the experience i was already getting threatened.
And the patients. The high acuity of sick Americans at this time in the world is astounding. What is worse though is trying to care for 8-10 or them after they have sat in an ER department for 12 plus hours before being placed into your care and then they realize they were sent to the Oncology unit and really freak out thinking they have cancer. When i entered the workflow of this hospital it was just after the worst of Covid and we were the very first graduates of COVID nursing school since the pandemic began and after the mass exodus of nurses from every hospital in America. Having one CNA (not certified though because then you would have to pay them more for being certified) to work any unit in the hospital was a lucky break. And if you have only one then you really have none because they are so busy answering call lights they cannot really help you with nursing care. There is no cohesiveness between the ER sending patients to the units and the units themselves. And donot get me started on the poor quality of food being served in hospitals. Sick or injured people should not being eating slop while they are being treated for severe health conditions or injuries. Its insulting to see what American hospitals serve their patients to eat. The entire medical system as they are being run today are setup to fail. If that is the case, then it is no surprise why so many nurses are leaving the industry altogether. I just got here and i am being run out as well. 12 hour days are NEVER 12 hour days unless the hospital suddenly needs to stop overtime then they are like dictators when it comes to the time clock, otherwise, they work you beyond what your body should be expected, like a slave dog. I left the hospital 4 months in and i have no regrets. I am still a nurse though and shall keep pressing forward until i find my spot. This is my journey.
58 Days ago(True Story)
Has it ever happened to you? You are walking along the street in the busy part of town and from around the corner someone enters your view and as they approach you, you feel a zap of electricity just by the sight of them? They turn a corner in their life that day and its as if they enter your life. It feels just like that. My first class of the semester and of the day. 9:10 a.m. and I am sitting in the chair waiting. From the left side of my peripheral view as if walking around a corner, this tiny woman enters the room and enters my world in that first glimpse and i am captivated. At first sight. I understand that the mind can play tricks on us but i have no explanation for the illuminated aura i saw around her. By looking at her, Even with a gloriously wild pile of black curls atop her head and nearly an inch of heel on her boots, she couldn’t possibly be five feet tall. I must admit i was completely attracted to her perfect face and skin and everything…but it really was something beyond aesthetics that enchanted me. Like the gears in me and my life were moving around as usual, then i encounter the mere presence of some woman I have never seen or met before and this unlocking inside of me occurs. The click clack clicking of an activation of a “something” perhaps dormant inside me …. nearly audible. I wondered if the same thing happened inside her? A crazy thought but at the same time how could such an impressive force act upon me and NOT be noticeable by her..by anyone nearby for that matter? Surely someone else felt that? I was sitting near the door and from where she taught the class i was some distance in the back of the class. It was distracting really because the rest of my classes were ahead of me and I could not stop thinking of her. Why? How could such an uneventful first day back at school suddenly take such a profound turn? There is no obvious explanation for it. I do not remember really anything she said that first day. I could not help but plant myself in the first and closest seat to her two days later when the class met again. Mostly i pick the closest seat in all my classes because i cannot handle the distraction of whispering classmates. Also, my vision is not the best so i prefer sitting up nearest the projector screen for the clearest view of Power Point presentations and such. This has become my set seat. After class had met three or four times It dawned on me that she would be on social media. Turns out we have several friends in common. Being my Art History professor in college i didn’t think she would add me but she did. I feel like I must exercise serious self control to not be myself around her as if i have known her for half my life. Another week or so passes and so I sent her the message ” We must be friends. It is meant to be. But i realize that you are the teacher and i am the grasshopper and so for now i shall remain your biggest fan(did i tell you what a big fan i am?)huge fan.” I did not expect a response and of course i did not get one. But it was as if she was suddenly in my everyday. This image of her remained inside my head from the moment i saw her and was replaced only when I was in her presence. I love history. It is amazing how much more interesting learning about something can be when you find yourself captivated by one teaching the material. I knew i had to not only pace myself but maintain some self control over my impulses to send her messages or emails or anything. At least until after the semester was over. It felt like i had known her and so my mind wanted to interact with her as if i had known her forever. She was interesting to listen to and usually added a little about herself each time she gave lecture. She had a great sense of humor. I so looked forward to this class every Tuesday and Thursday. I waited another week or so and sent her another message just so that she might allow my name to stand out in her mind more so than others. It was meant to be funny. How strange it was on another level that suddenly this educator -student dynamic had turned around in my mind, what might be otherwise an awesome meeting of new friends, now making me feel like some weird stalker. I have never been taken by someone like her. I had no reason to make myself feel like a stalker so i know it was not my doing. If i wasn’t trying to maintain this professional relationship, I would have already asked her to dinner, or a hike or to come see her.Anything. This was dangerously close to fucking with my mind if i spent too much time thinking about it so i just decided that this barrier between us til December was meant to be and enjoy the path i was on none the less.
The powers of observation are vastly underestimated in today’s world. Most people are so glued to their phones they have given up the act of taking notice of the rest of the world around them. Millenial’s are already losing the ability to read typical social cues. Being able to truly pay attention can allow for anyone to gain an upper hand in any given situation. I am a part of the “old school” generation before the days of smartphones and internet. It comes more naturally to me and so I have gained much by simply allowing my mind to recognize more detail around me in the world. It doesn’t take much effort for me to notice her though. I notice everything about her. Since first meeting her I have learned that she has several jobs and doesn’t seem to sleep. We have both things in common. She likes to wear mismatch earrings at times. Her middle initial is J and what it stands for I sure wish i knew. Janelle? Jane? Jean? The first woman i fell in love with had a middle name of Jean. Lisa Jean. The mind tries to create something when nothing is there to feed off. For the past two months I have spent two mornings a week with this exquisite woman and by not interacting with her beyond my student role, my thoughts have taken on a life of their own. Goddess help me. (to be continued)
Adventures in the land of the muggles…..
Against my personal convictions, I recently enrolled my two youngest daughters in public school. They had been homeschooled by me the previous school year. I think i need to start back a little before this to better paint the picture. I used to live in a county an hour east of where i live now. But a new marriage brought my new home here to the city. My girls had been attending a school system since elementary school in this county. I was their momma and felt that they should come live with me fulltime (though we had equal custody..a whole other story)and go to school near my home. I had all girls and it had been a battle dealing with my ex in regards to the needs of three girls. Especially needs he saw of no importance. He is a highly critical and pessimistic individual. This made it hard for my girls to talk to him and get things they needed. Deodorant is a need in this culture we live in but it is heavily laden with chemicals(the big culprit of alzheimers disease is Alum, aluminum) and he and i both had strong opinions against that stuff for the girls. The all natural aluminum free kind is much more expensive and with three daughters and myself using (Bobo wasn’t old enough yet but soon would be)the product its outrageous to keep in stock let alone sanitary napkins and such. He wouldn’t get them any for a long time so i was left to buy extra to send with them. Stocking two homes takes nearly an extra income to just keep up with girly needs if you can only imagine. We go the all natural route as much as possible but the cost is enormous. I digress. With constant little battles about this stuff continuously going on its understandable why Bobo and Lala wanted to live with me. His intense efforts to avoid any child support costs kept him fervently antagonistic about them moving schools. Our eldest daughter was already graduated high school and working towards college. Where she lived was her choice. Lala was in high school and it was understood that a court would recognize her as old enough to decide where she wanted to live. She felt in the middle. I didn’t want her to feel like that so i tried my best to let her make the choice on her own feeling no anxiety about me regarding her decision. But being an hour away , i would not be able to see her very often. She hated that school and begged me to take her out but she felt like she was choosing between parents who she had spent equal time with most her life. She has a big heart and though she hated being around him most of the time also, she loved him and didn’t want him to be alone. Amelia being much younger was the final factor. Ultimately, we settled out of court in order to keep the courts from seperating me from my children (judge was giving ex favor for keeping kids in same county school system as they had been there for so long regardless of what my girls wanted)and i agreed that Bella could stay there fulltime and go to school there and Amelia would come with me and we would get them time to spend together when we could. The ex would not allow me to put them in public schools if i wanted to settle because he had his mind set that the school system was much more violent and badly managed because we lived in the city. Well the school system we were moving from made more teen moms and alcoholics than they made college students and its still booming epidemic. He knew the school had let us down where our daughter had been but he would stop at nothing to set up a lifestyle of total convenience for himself rather than hear the heart of our middle child and how unhappy she was in this school. So Lala stayed in the high school she started in and little bit was put in an overpriced Montessori school halfway between both our homes. I was far more emotional about it than anyone and i felt more unheard and misunderstood than i had in a long time. But i put my best foot forward and tried to approach it with strength and optimism. As time went by Lala realized she should have chosen to come with us. Daily her father would make rude inappropriate remarks about her substandard fitness level(in his eyes) or he would hurl harsh criticism at her when she tried to vent about her tough day. He lived much closer and had a better chance to go to the school and speak on Lala’s behalf but he continuously told her to take it like a man and buckup. The Montessori school was a good school but it was not without its faults as well. Very very expensives with constant fees for fieldtrips out of state and camping with the whole school etc etc. as well as a breeding ground for wealthier spoiled rotten kids who couldn’t be made to mind because their parents were paying customers. Bobo was hitting puberty full on and suddenly encountered acne and needed deodorant now also. Using the natural variety can require you reapply it once more in the middle of your day. Being little and new to this puberty thing Bobo didn’t always remember to reapply at lunch. One of the kids starting taunting her about it and making fun of her acne. Other kids had their issues also but again it seemed that the school would go to great lengths to massage everyone so as not to lose business. Ultimately, Bobo was made to just put up with it. I found out later their was this huge rumor by all the students that two of the teachers were having an affair together and using school fieldtrips to have their rendezvous time together. They were even caught by students alone together late at night in a hotel pool on one particular weeklong travel adventure. The female teacher was supposed to be the adult guardian in my daughters room and when she disappeared my daughter and her friends went looking for her. blah blah blah. The total bill for one years tuition minus fieldtrips and camp and stuff came to $13,000.00 and between both schools who were by law given the right to keep my children for 8 hours everyday yet doing a crappy job at truly educating them(other than the cruel and unjust side of things or people) I knew i could do at least a job good as or better than these schools and it wouldn’t cost me 13 grand to accomplish it. I had to think of something that would work so that i could advocate for Lala’s behalf regarding the issues with that rotten school as well as make it feasable for my ex to be open to it. He was easy to anger and once furled up i knew he wouldn’t be eager to work at a change at all. Bobo was up til midnight doing homework every single night and grew quickly disenchanted with such a heavy workload all year and wanted a change. She liked some aspects about the school and loved the unique things this private school offered but she wanted out. My new husband and I had been footing the entire bill on this school and with two daughters entering college the next fall , even with his decent income we didn’t know where the money would come from. Still sharing custody(lawyers fees became the deciding factor in our settling out of court though i wish i had been able to get primary with child support straight from the beginning) the best option i saw was homeschooling them(many new programs for online school and now TN has an online public school program) where we could split the time , the commute, everything right down the middle. Lala would be happy and Bobo could have a less aggressive approach to the homework load. I cannot remember how I managed to get this accomplished but somehow my ex felt it was a good idea too and agreed that we pull the girls and homeschool. Often, depending on his mood that day, he spoke of his disdain for much of the crazy priorities of this society as well as the poor morale and the poor examples of professionalism in the school my daughter did go to. HOWEVER, soon after we began teaching the girls at home he changed his mind and began tormenting them about how they will not amount to anything and will learn anything…..He was especially hard on Lala. She is built thick and voluptuous unlike my other two girls and myself who are petite and thin. She is absolutely beautiful. Her face, her eyes, her incredible spirit and sense of humor…even her name. She is highly artisistic and driven. Being a music man his whole life ,one would expect her Father to appreciate all her artistic qualities.she was in band and had a fantastic ability to draw, create nearly anything. She had a perfect 4.0 and perfect 100 percent track record until her last school (her art teacher bullied her and gave her a grade to ruin her perfect grades though we felt it was completely undeserved.) Nothing she could do would please her daddy because appearance were everything in his family and they also had issues with her regarding her solid physique and if they wouldnt completely accept her than he surely could not. He was still trying to gain their approval himself. she was more of a reason why he felt he couldn’t get the approval he desired from them. That is my guess anyway. I would try to talk to her as often as i could over the phone. What seemed to bother her most is missing her momma and being in our positive fun atmosphere. It was hard for her to hear that we would get snowed in and go tromping off on long hikes through our woods in the snow with boda bags filled with hot chocolate and returning half frozen to a toasty fire in the woodstove and homemade food and movies…or we would go out to dinner every now and then. Her little sister Bobo would get to go out with my friends for pizza and such or the friends of ours that Lala adored would visit regularly and she was never here to enjoy their company. His house had no life in it. He kept it cold and it was quiet and empty most of the time and he rarely had friends over. She LOVED homeschool and was excited about possibly getting snowed in and all the fun things we would do that fall. Even though he began a long school year of scathing remarks and negative comments , Lala was happy. Bobo was as well. The truth is noone supported us except a few of my friends who didnt come around the house real often. My new husband nor my exhusband could be bothered to help with homework . They both had math skills that soared above mine but never offered any assistance once. My husband would come home and ask me how much homeschool we did. My inlaws would visit and question me as if they were also concerned if my girls were getting a proper education. My life was so busy and i was burning the candle at both ends and tired of all the hurt feelings Lala had to work through (i was the only one that would listen to her) and just completely exhausted with the rest of the demands of my life so i relented. I devised a plan with Lala that if noone would help us or support us and everyone wanted to be this way then we would talk of public school only if Lala was given an awesome graduation party by her Daddy. She knew i would give her one. What she wanted more than anything was to travel the world. She wanted out. She was sick of her Daddy always saying how he may never get to see any of his children walk down the graduation aisle. He laid it on thick of his disappointment( our eldest got pregnant as a teen and graduated a semester early so they would let her walk the graduation ceremony) as if it didn’t hold as much value if she were to go through the exact same ceremony only through her homeschool based out of Chattanooga. He was there and saw the elaborate event our eldest daughter experienced when she graduated kindergarten through homeschool. The ceremony was held at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. I have never seen a high school graduation ceremony that glamorous. Anyway, the only way to quiet his mouth was to talk Lala into trying public school for her final year and graduation. Bobo had an increasingly hard time getting up during the day when homeschooled from staying up too late at night. Her studies were suffering and she made the choice to return to school as well because she felt if she were made to sit in a desk all day she would have no choice but to focus on her studies. She had deduced on her own that self motivation and a more lax school atmsophere were beyond her at that time. I told Lala that though she was going to a new school system in a new city that there was still good things waiting inside every challenge. With a positive attitude she could be anywhere and still be joyful. It was up to her. I let her know if she decided she could not take it any longer and wanted out that we would let her leave school. If everyone wanted to give us a hard time for this we would make them pay by throwing her a big party and by playing their game , Lala would be able to take her graduation money and go to Latvia or Sweden or where she wanted . Even if for a few weeks or the summer she could get out of the country . Enter: Lala /Senior Year/ public high school. omfg. What a headache. This is the part of my story where the adventure really begins. (in the next post though cause i have a client in an hour :)) (I swear though the way Lala tells her tales of each day would win contests if she were to blog about it. Hilarious.) til next time
Dearest Cath……
It seems strange as it always has writing letters to you because there has been an ongoing connection so strong since we first me that this letter seems far more for me and my simple understandings than a missive for you. 🙂 I last spoke with you via text message when Osa died. I still miss him. Strange things jog my memory of him. I was driving past a waffle house(we like to dub it the awful house)we visited the morning after he got hurt. We had to drive to Maryville to get him from the Emergency Care because they closed at 6a.m. and Osa was in too rough of shape and they didnt allow patients to stay. We had to take him from there to our vet in Seymour. I had not slept so this was quite an exhausting journey. We didnt know what to do after we left him and G and i were so emotional and in shock that we didnt want to go home just yet. So we went to the awful house. I am spoiled on organic range free eggs from our friends D and K (though i am vegan and rarely eat them anymore)that the eggs at the awful house taste truly awful. I drove past this new branch the other day and it made me miss him so bad as it reminded me of that morning. G took me home after we ate at the awful house then he left for work. I made a fire in the North all day for Osa( i guess for me too)I prayed hard that he would go so that i didnt have to make the choice to end his suffering. I guess that was his gift to me. To help me let go. The interesting turn of things had it set forth to bring upon a new dog soldier to our home. Neo. He is an Australian Shepard /huskey mix. Black with tan and white stockings on all four legs and tan and white cheeks. He has blue eyes with his lower right eye splashed with dark brown over half of it. I will have to tell you how he came to us another time. He is quite afraid of men. He is of strangers but he doesnt panic around females or kids like he does men. Isabella moved her toe on the footrest the other day and his whole body flinched. I keep coming up with these different stories in my mind as to who he was as a pup and where he may have come from. Everything about Neo is a mystery to me except that i know in less than one months time we have grown to love each other. G takes it personally at times that Neo is frightened of him but he’s patient with him. Neo teaches patience. Noone would dare lose their patience with him because you can tell it would make your own heart hurt worse than any mini panic Neo might experience. G and i had a fight recently after Neo had only been with us a few days. he ran and hid under our bed and when we yelled at each other he even growled for a second. I felt like a total failure of a human for feeding and ugly argumentative vibe and risking very fragile trust with my new dog soldier. There was a break in the rain this morning and so i decided to take Neo out on a walk as it was late and i usually walk him before eight in the morning. I let him off the leash last nite to enjoy being on our property. I had created a routine with Neo right away of taking him on a walk three times a day. We built up the distance so we could meander through the valley and wooded edge before heading back up the drive and around the small loop here on top of the hill where our house is. You could tell he was excited that i let him off his leash last nite. I was nervous to let him stay outside because in my selfishness i didnt want him to run off. I wanted him for my dog soldier/my friend…my pet. In the middle of the night the rainstorm welled up so loud that it woke me from a hard sleep. I yelled for Neo as if i was thinking of him even as i slept. I jumped out of bed and ran outside to call for him. In a few seconds he came bouncing out of the darkness towards the light i had just flipped on the porch. It took a few minutes of coaxing and a piece of turkey meat but i got him inside. He immediately ran under the kitchen table for safety but i was relieved to have him inside from the wild rain outside. That was somewhere around 4a.m. Pushing towards ten the next morning I was eager to get my body in that walk mode and to get Neo outside and one more day closer to being more comfortable around me and his new home. He loves to dart towards my bedroom and hide under the bed for twelve hours at a time …so though i felt like a bully keeping him from his hidingspot I thought it would help him avoid getting a big comfort zone noone could penetrate. I had the collar in my hand and of course he ran under the table again. Something inside of me spoke so audibly clear and knowingly that it was almost as if a message had been sent from my brain to my body and it obeyed even before i realized my idea. I put the leash on the table and propped open the door , stepped back to the edge of the porch and called for Neo. As i backed away he poked his head out to look for me as i called him. I decided that we had taken enough walks in this first month together that he has a good idea of where he is. Just as i had hoped he followed out of the house and off the porch. Our first walk side by side with NO LEASH! I was so happy that i bounced on our walk together and i even giggled out loud halfway through our route. he he . On our way back up from walking the front portion of our property we stopped in my garden and he hung out with me while i spent nearly an hour weeding the crops! We are building this connection and i think he trusts me better because i have learned to look straight into his eyes. This is hard to do with huskeys having two different color eyes. G has blue eyes and i have brown so i thought this to be especially sweet. I talk to him when we walk together. It helps me get out of my own head. I had to board him at our vets just two weeks after getting him and it was quite a challenge. I couldnt expect much support regarding my crazy feelings about it from G because he felt we should wait to get a new dog soldier until after a few of our festivals. I couldnt bear to have him put back in that disgusting cage(though a fabulous facility and program the animal shelter had) so i brought him home almost as if i had been hypnotized to do so. thats my story and im sticking to it. Seriously, he chose us just as much as we chose him. I am so excited to have him hang with me though. Of course he is at the moment back UNDER our bed fast asleep. 🙂 I have been thinking alot about you. When i feel overwhelmed as if the world is gonna swallow me whole i think how you may handle such a feeling. I wish i were near you because you make everything feel as if its gonna be ok when i am around you. Some things never change. I feel as if i am climbing an uphill battle of mindfulness in a world where mosts people are clueless to mindful awareness. I spend more time fending off the reactions and attitudes and behavior of others who do not reach beyond the banalities of this typical world we roam around in on a daily basis. its exhausting. I am not saying that i think i am better. We are all the same. Most do not realize this though. I am tired. If i were closer in proximity to you then perhaps i could bear this world a bit better with your sense of humor to keep me going.
I know i may seem self centered at times by not asking the typical questions most people ask in such correspondences like” how is the husband and grandchildren yada yada” , but my heart is stuck to what we have connected on. I do care how your life is going. I care that you are at peace and that you are joyful. I care mostly about what you have to teach me and how i can be better as a result of my exposure to you. I miss you. How perfectly suitable that the song” Waiting on a world to change ” just came on the satellite radio. Of all the mysteries in this world i am most baffled that i managed to survive to this ripe old age of 40 without totally losing track of all my basic senses and awareness. Thank you for all them prayers …haha. they are working so far. (many may dispute this statement but i prefer to selectively overlook such narrow minded individuals. 😉 Do you hear me? Can you feel the strong vibes i am sending you? I love you by the way . Beyond this galaxy.
saka chetan 