Back in early December, I birthed a kitten. And by "birthed," I mean adopted from Town Lake Animal Shelter. Ever since then I've lost my mind. I made Lora come by my apartment the first day I had to leave her at home for work to make sure she was alive. I almost cried the night one of my patients (expectedly) died at 7:05pm because the extra paperwork meant I would be an hour late getting home. I almost cried when I dropped her off to board at the vet's office while I was in Tahoe. I called the vet while I was in Tahoe. I did cry when I came home from work the other week to discover she was stuck under my dresser, and, according to her full dish of food, she had been there all day. I lovingly towel her little kitty feet after I lovingly yank her from out of my just-used shower, and I lovingly ask her why she isn't one of those cats that hates water.

Juno thinks she's people, and clearly so do I.

Hi there darling. I like your face. Even when it is relentlessly smushed against my own face at 4 in the morning.

Ever slept with a kitten scarf? It's toasty.

I'm okay with being the cat lady.

Poquito Espanol.

Yesterday one of my Spanish-speaking-only patients told me I was a good nurse because:

1. I am very nice.

2. I have very nice hands.

3. I speak Spanish.

....I speak Spanish? What beautiful, beautiful words. Poor lady had no idea that, had she not been a pain patient, I would have had nothing to say.

Do you have pain? Where is the pain? Is the pain better or worse? Does it hurt when I press here? Do you need medicine for the pain? I have your pain medicine.

Aside from that, my Spanish is limited to a few other key phrases.

I'm a nurse, I speak little Spanish. I don't understand. Do you need anything? Water. Nausea. Food. Bathroom. Pee-pee.

As we stray farther and farther from the pain assessment, my Spanish vocabulary becomes increasingly caveman-esque. Language is rough when you don't know any verbs. Or nouns, really... adjectives... etc...

Yesterday I had 5 patients all day, and only one of them spoke English. 3 of them only spoke Spanish. One of them only spoke Vietnamese. We have this phone number we can call that reaches some language-translation hot-line. After you wait on hold, tell the operator your language/name/hospital/unit/patient's name, and put your phone on speaker, you can have an awkward conversation in which you yell into the phone, the translator yells what you said while the patient strains to hear them, the patient yells back, the translator asks them to repeat it a few times, then the translator tells us what the patient said.

This is not ideal.

We used to have a live Spanish translator that would come up when we called her Monday through Friday 9-5 type hours, but her hours have since been cut back to part-time. I think she now is in the hospital 3 days a week for a shorter amount of time. She's really helpful, she helps us consent our patients for procedures, she translates our discharge instructions into Spanish, and she'll go over the discharge with our patients.

But there is one of her. For the whole hospital. Part time.

So what the crap do we do when she isn't there? Use the translator phone line? Yes. But what do we do when we need things explained in writing? The ER has their own Spanish translator 24/7, understandably so. The ER is incredibly busy, the Spanish-speaking population at Brackenridge is huge, and they often need information quickly. Fair enough. But on the weekends/days of the week that the rest of the hospital has no live translator, we have to ask the ER translator to write out our discharge instructions (etc) for us. We don't dare ask them to come help us discharge or consent our patients - we know they're busy - and sometimes it has taken hours for them to send back the translated short instruction forms. Our patients don't like this, we don't like this, and the busy ER translator really doesn't like this. Sometimes when I call them, they are understanding and accommodating, and other times my head is bitten off as soon as I say "this is Kristin up on 9..."

I think my favorite part about all of this is - after some complaints were thrown out from the ER translators - we were recently told that the ER translator can and will refuse to translate our forms for us when we don't have a live translator. Instead, we have to call the language hotline, ask them what the Spanish translation is and how to spell it, and write our own Spanish translations.

Did you laugh? Because I certainly did when I got this news. I cannot, cannot, cannot imagine how long it would take to write even the easiest of discharges. I'm picturing dictating an essay to a first-grader where full words can't even be dictated; each one has to be spelled. As if we don't have other patients that might need us during that hour we'd be spending on the phone writing out discharge instructions for a basic lap appy. As if even thirty minutes of uninterrupted time is something that we can count on when we need it. On a busy day, even the fifteen to twenty minutes of uninterrupted time necessary to hang a new unit of blood on a patient is somewhat of big request.

Bottom line is that I need to learn Spanish. I wish the bottom line was that we ought to have better resources in this department. Actually I guess that is the very bottom line, but apparently not the realistic one.

It's more acceptable to spend the day like this when it's done in pairs.

Bless you!

So yesterday I spent a good portion of the day in an airport/on an airplane - first in Tahoe to fly to Dallas, then in Dallas to fly to Austin. It's crazy how even flights that are on time end up consuming an entire day. I guess losing 2 hours coming back east didn't help that either.

I'm sure I'm not alone here when I say that, when looking for a place to sit at the gate, I try to find a seat away from everybody else. Typically the scene you walk up to (if you're obsessively punctual like I am) is a row of seats connected together with one person in each row. If, God forbid, someone has to sit in a row facing another, that someone will sit on the end furthest away from the person they're facing. Once all the "four corners," so to speak, are filled up, people start sitting at least 2 seats away from each other until it's so full that you either (choke!) sit right next to another person, or you stand. Or, if you're my sister, you can take measures to prevent this from happening by setting your carry-on bag on the seat next to you. Problem solved.

I mean really, how intruded-upon would you feel if someone sat down in the seat right next to you if there were seats available farther away? I already feel like someone's getting a little too cozy when he/she sits next to me (you know, in his/her assigned seat) on the airplane. If the seat next to you happens to be empty for the flight it always feels like an unexpected little victory. Whip up that armrest baby! Cuz I'm gonna put my feet on this chair ALL. FLIGHT. LONG!

Anyway, with the great lengths we all go to to keep to ourselves and give each other enough space, you can imagine my surprise when, after sneezing mid-way through my Austin flight, three different people in different rows turned to say "bless you."

And really, the most surprising part is that it isn't that surprising at all. Isn't silence awkward after a sneeze? Last time I flew to Colorado most people walked right on by the old lady that fell at the end of the escalator, but dammit, we will all be blessed after we sneeze.

Hi there sweet baby.

Remember when you were a kid and you wore your [ballet tutu/soccer uniform/whatever] for a week straight? I'm doing that now with my new riding boots.

Except I'll be taking them off shortly because leather is painful before it's broken in.

The lady at the tack shop gave me an earful about caring for my boots and half-chaps and tack I don't even own yet. "When you start riding every day you'll need to do this and this before that and after this." Wait, what? I walked out of the store with a business card for the Central Texas Hunter Jumper Association feeling a little bit dazed and stressed about all of the work I had ahead of me.

No no. Nevermind. I'm taking lessons once or twice a week. I don't even have a leading rope or a brush to call my own. Stress: gone.

Why do people always expect all or nothing? In spring semester of 8th grade I asked my private lesson teacher for clarinet if I could switch my lesson day from Wednesdays to Tuesdays because I was going to be riding Monday/Wednesday/Friday. The next day during band class I had a letter sitting on my chair from her. She "really enjoyed teaching me" and "saw such potential in me," but she "could not continue our lessons if clarinet was not my top priority."

In retrospect, WHAT?!

I quit band after that year literally just to spite her.

I guess obsession loves company. Like when you are looking past the stomach ache to conquer that second round of cake/pie of the day, and your sister says "I'll do it if you do."

Something like that.

Happy trails. Don't fence me in. Snake in my boots. (Or something)

If any of you have talked to me in the past 6 months you know that I've been in serious need of a hobby/something-besides-work to do.

Idle hands are the devil's tools.

...But I guess that doesn't really apply here considering all I've done with a large majority of my idle time is watch TV and create random errands to waste time. Although sometimes I think those errands are from the devil, and I think my bank account would agree.

Errands. That word really puts a responsible spin on "shopping," doesn't it?

Anyway, the point is, I was always busy in school. If it wasn't with class/school itself, it was with clubs and friends and parties and who knows what. There was always something going on, and there was never enough time to do all of it. Then in the blink of an eye UT gave me the farewell boot, I went to the Seton administrative offices for orientation, had my hands blessed by a chaplain, stuck my purple thumbprint on a welcome posterboard, and the rest is history. On the days I work, that's all I do. Work, eat, shower, sleep. It's a long day - so much can happen in 12+ hours.

On the other hand, 3 days of nothing-but-work still leaves me with 4 days completely off of work. They usually aren't in a row, and they don't always include the weekends, but they're there somewhere.

And I've been bored. Really bored. What should I do when I'm at home and the rest of the world is at work? Join a gym? Find some volunteer work? Try a new sport? Try to jump back on the running bandwagon? Learn to freakin knit? Shop like I need more things?

Last night Emily told me her friend started taking tennis lessons for a while and enjoyed doing that, and something about that conversation brought up an obvious solution that I should have thought of sooner.

And, with that, I did some google searching, made some phone calls, and I'm officially going to start getting back into horseback riding lessons. I used to ride hunter/jumper in middle school and part of high school until I just got too busy to keep up with it. I wasn't big into competition and showing like some of the other people I rode with, nor was I some equestrian prodigy by any means, but I really loved it. I'm really excited to do it again. I'll have to start back with the basics, I'll probably even need help remembering how to tack up a horse, and this will probably make for some sore legs - (slash) arms, back, entire body - you'd be surprised - for a few weeks.

But man, I'm so excited.

To seal the deal after I spoke with the trainer I went out and got a general lesson helmet (for fear that my old one has a shelf life and would crumble into dust or something) and some boots and riding tights, and I've got some half-chaps and gloves at Mom's that should still fit. Word.

Dare I say I'm even excited to pick a horse's hooves?

(I'm sure that part won't last long)

So here we go people. I was bitten by the puppy bug a year or so ago, and I have a feeling this is going to be much, much worse.