Mad week got sent on a study day I am sure Num only sends me cause she thinks i dont like them, which is true really I do like learning new things but 20 fire lectures gets a bit much. I thought it was obstetic emergencies but there was one on communication and one on something else. I wasnt down for the something else and it ran for 3 days, the communication one only went for 2 hours. There was only one girl from my ward there and she said she had a patient load and had to go back to the ward. I said did they say anything about me she said no so I just went to that lecture and went home. Nuts only rostered one day this week now so I dont know if she will dock my pay or not what a mess. I am not asking her cause i dont like talking to her, the communication lecture didnt stick.
I am feeling very restless. Would like to do contract nursing work but youngest still at school, she is talking about a year in England next year maybe I could go too, oh but those awful flights!
Feeling very upset and missing my mother a lot especially as its mothers day and people keep saying happy mothers day to me and I think I'm going to cry. So I've decided sleeping all the time and doing nothing wasnt working so I am going to stay busy instead, make lists and do things, that might be a better way through grief. We have to paint the house and I think I have finally decided on the colours. So that s my job of the week getting some sample pots and trying the colours. Lots of people our age are selling their houses and moving into units near the beach but our daughters are still home and 4 bedroom units are very expensive. Sometimes I think I would like to live at the beach and other times I like the peace and quiet of our house.
Did some gardening yesterday I have to do a lot of trimming like Japanese gardens, things are very overgrown and the days are short so its hard to get much done.
After another nutty shift busy as always. Trying to find staff for the morning because they are going to be over numbers again. The trouble is so many of the shifts are being filled by people from the casual pool that they are being asked to do more than they want, or they are already working or they have other commitments, jobs or children. One of the casuals this evening pointed out a couple of days ago the whole shift was casuals. She has been working there 18 months and asked twice about a permanent job but no reply. I rang 12 or so people but no one could do it couldnt even ring the usual 20 cause so many already working and we just dont have people. Told them I couldnt find anyone.
Between doing that trying to get a caesar baby to feed not very interested then the mum mentioned she had her nipples pierced before would that affect the feeding. I thought it wouldnt once her milk is in but the small amount of colostrum might be slowed esp if she'd had some scaring from infections. I noticed with other girls the problems some have with getting belly button rings to heal I wondered if nipple rings were as difficult. Wont know the end of that story as i only worked the one shift. Always something new to deal with I wish she had told me earlier in the shift I could have checked it out more. We once had a terrible time trying to get a labial ring out before an emergency caesar had to leave it in the end and hope the diathermy didnt fry her. Take the rings out before I wish!

Pre night duty downer yuck. I think I'm working tonight must check the roster done that before turned up to find I'm not on. Been so tired since holiday sleeping a lot, I thought jet lag was just a myth but now i think its real. Only ever want to go to New Zealand now.
Played 18 holes yesterday and 9 today was glad I could play, thought maybe I was going to sleep for a month or all winter. Still playing ASX sharemarket game but I wont be leaving the day job soon thru did make some money from CSL cause of the swine flu thing.
Ah night duty finished pretty boring and have a study day tuesday they say the same things over and over. I wish i could think of something else to do, retirement would be good. i am feeling at lot better not so sad all the time. Kind of decided I couldnt live like that all the time. It feels like a long dark journey the last 7 months.
Watched the movie show want to see Tenderness with Russell Crowe and Samson and Delilah made in Alice Springs about a love affair beween Aboriginal kids.
Want to do some little trips away in NSW like the hot srings at Cowra.
Was trying to imagine our hospital with a flu in full swing I cant imagine we would have the capacity to cope at all and so many nurses are old as well so I can see us all off sick. But we have a folder labeled swine flu so the paper is flying. We were over numbers again this week caesars everywhere. Our staffing based on mothers looking after their babies but of course new C/S cant look after their babies. They sent them home in three days poor things. All the focus and fuss goes on the normal deliveries but at least a 1/3 of woman have caesars and not in our unit cause they demand them. I hope I'm finished before the big flu arrives.
I do like winter for the food thru. i make leak and potato soup tonight and goulash the other day. Must get the crock pot out again, also love fish these days esp salmon.
Well thats my addled blog night duty effect.

Back from the Philipines. We had 7 days in Boracay and three days in Manilla. Boracay is a very pretty island an hours flight south of Manilla. There is a long white sand sheltered beach. We stayed at the red coconuts resort funny name, it was ok till they started renovating around us so it got like a bit of a building site through the whole island is madly building. Its a local and Asian destination, Japanese honeymooners in identical clothes, well I hope they were honeymooners. The electrcal wires in the streets were amazing totally jumbled up. I love the smell of Asia. I forgot that, havent been in asia since the 80's Penang that amazing smell of food and tropical gardens, and other things. Food fantastic every franchaise and type of food. The fruit drinks are so nice. I liked a lime drink made of a little lime kalamancie which was a lovely drink also a watermelon juice with ginger. It reminded me of the street scenes in blade runner. Filipino people or Pinoys as they call themselves are such nice people very kind and enthusiastic and fun. it is quite upsetting to come home to the doom and gloom in this country. I asked some Pinoys if they knew about the financial crises but they looked blank. We went out for a sail at sunset and one of the girls said no wonder the guys sailing are so chilled its lovely out on the water. I think Asia will drag us out of depression by shopping.
It was funny through i thought people would be used to us but we got stared at all over the place more Manilla than Boracay it was weird The Americans were there for a long time but you dont see many Australians prob lots of Filipino aussies.
It made me feel better thru i still cried in the plane (not about the leg room) but coming home and not being able to tell Mum about it all. Grief does ease a bit thru sometimes you think it will never get better. It was lovely to see Sydney and the clean streets. We are going to travel a bit more, it is nice to have a break from day to day things and we havent had time for years to go away.
We had an ambition to go to all the pacific island groups because we loved Vanuatu so we might revive that ambition.

Its cold and rainy which matches everyones mood, all cranky and upset. Everyones at work except me I am on night duty and have to have a sleep soon. Its the long night tonight daylight saving ending so we work an extra hour for no extra pay on the grounds that on the short night we dont get docked an hour, we are going to have a sleep through, mostly I never seem to be on the short night. That is if it isnt too busy.
We have a flexi bed thing going in our ward. Its staffed for 21 beds but then we open more beds and supposed to get more staff and then they open another two beds. This morning all the beds were full, then someone rang in sick and we couldnt find someone. So day shift were working one down and hoping to find someone, this happening shift after shift a patchworks of shifts, sometimes bits of shifts and short for part of a shift. I really hate going there because you never know if there will be any staff and what they will be, lots of ENs and you dont know what they know. I always get the supervisor to approve the mess because if anything happens I dont want to wear the trouble. Then you spend 1/2 the shift looking for someone for next shift. I think the system thought casual people was the answer to their staffing money problems. I dont think anyone cares at the top because its cheap if they just leave you to cope, so I have my private policy which is to look after the mums and babies ok and stuff the paperwork and extra duty crap. Anything I think is rubbish I dont do, I keep expecting to hear abou stuff I hadnt filled in etc but no one mentions it, they dont really care and everyone is in the same position. Patients have pages and pages of stuff to fill in but hardly any one fills it all in.
Better go have a sleep.

So busy no time to blog, the ASX share game of course and the Westpac share game. Away to the country for a wedding at the weekend and meeting our gorgeous great nephews, grandchild envy again. Town looking very prosperous since I was last there. Big uts everywhere, CUBS my daughter said, cashed up bogans. Coal mines have been paying well, unlike nursing but we come into our own in the bad times, so I dont worry thats how it goes, anyway they just seem to have piles of junk. I'm glad we cant afford all that.
Came 2nd at golf today and playing better need discipline and toughness at golf which does me good in life.
Obcessed with playing Mario Galaxy too takes me ages to get the levels but finally get there bit by bit.

Not a great week in my village. Local retired doc had a stroke, another local died, friends father in hospital with a stroke, and lady down the road suicided in the park next to the school, lucky a relation found her not children. Glad I dont have to tell my mother that news, she knew her well.
Funny I had a sort of obcessed with suicide week. I wonder if everyone remembers the first person they knew who commited (funny word for it) suicide. I was away from home for the first time failing nursing in another state, my mother wrote me that a classmate of my sisters had shot herself in her parents garage. I thought about what that must have been like for her family and everyone close, even at my distance and in this distant I still think about her and wonder why and how things were so bad. I told myself for years that it must have been an accident but my mother said it wasnt she put the gun together. It haunts me too because I go to the house she lived in friends live there. They dont know, as far as I know, not something you can ask about. Its hard to remember how bad you can feel after you feel better.

Golf yesterday and golf this morning. Before I went phone call from nursing unit manager we are frantic you have to come to work now (I am rostered for night duty) I said I cant come now I am playing golf. Well you are being redeployed from nights to PM shift. What I said with 6hrs notice I cant do that i am busy all day. Its an emergency she said i can make you work overtime in an emergency. I had a feeling if i went I would still be working the night as well. I said short staffed is not an emergency more like a normal day. I was getting very mad so got off the phone before something said. Rang back and left a msg that I would not be able to work afternoon but I would be there on my rostered shift. I will see what happens. I think she has designated me the next sucker on her long list of people she has preyed on. She uses their goodness and their guilt. One of the saints now escaped her told me she rang her to work and when she said she couldnt because she was minding her baby, the Num said to leave it with the Num's 60 yr old husband and come to work. There are so many problems in that place and they fake a few meetings but nothing changes. I think it is quite dangerous.
Well the quiet patches never last, always so rubbish going on so I will see what happens next.