Thursday, November 17, 2011

My life is a drama and everything that follows

I have two children - a boy who JUST turned 10 last week and a girl who is now 2 1/2 years.

I had my son with my previous marriage and the man was abusive - physically, psychologically, and emotionally - but I was naive to think that just because I was pregnant I had to stay. When kiddo was 4 months old, he hit me and choked me while I was holding him in my arms - that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I left him and haven't looked back.

I have since gotten married to a wonderful man - one whom I met and married within 4 months - I just KNEW that he was the one. We have the little girl together - little tyke.

My husband and I moved from my hometown (hubby was there for studies), as we didn't really have a future in my hometown so we moved south... unfortunately, I was stupid enough to think that my ex husband had grown up and could be trusted - boy was I STUPID!!!! Now I'm paying the price with the relationship b/n kiddo and myself.

I was stupid and tried to arrange things outside the courts - and it seriously backfired on my ass, I COMPLETELY got fu**ed over. We had to go to court afterall and STILL I got fu**ed by the courts.... even though I provided documentation that he was abusive and controlling and manipulative. Other people even provided affidavits and STILL the court gave kiddo to live with him, because they didn't want him to move from his hometown. The Office for the Children's Lawyer (OCL) even interviewed everyone to make a decision on what's "best" for the kiddo... you know what they asked kiddo???

OCL - "kiddo who do you want to live with"
kiddo - "my mom"
OCL - "If the court decided that you have to live with your dad, would you be alright with that"
kiddo - "yeah"

Well what child who isn't being sexually or physically abused is going to go against that other parent, but it should tell you a LOT if a child says who they "prefer" to live with. And STILL the OCL guys decided that it would be best for my son to live with that man.

I have fought for TWO years - having to go back to my hometown for court - for naught.... and even now, with a court order in place - that a-hole has the gall to keep my son from me - AND manipulate him so that he wants to leave early.

My son thinks that I am the bad person, he thinks that I have abandoned him - but he doesn't know what's happened - to his father getting me criminally charged as pay back for when he was charged with assault. He doesn't know that I didn't feel safe in my own hometown city. He doesn't know that his father is STILL verbally abusive to me and STILL tries to control and manipulate me.

Last week was his birthday - our court papers indicate that I was supposed to get him that weekend - from thurs to sunday - and I also am supposed to get him every other long weekend during the school year, and this coming weekend it was supposed to be our weekend with kiddo. The week before his birthday, the A-hole asks my mom to convince me to switch my weekends for his birthday to THIS coming weekend. And I agreed, but more for the sake of my mom because she wanted to take my son to a hypnotist show that was going on in my hometown last friday.

But where it gets really crappy is that when I explained that I should be getting him from thurs to mon (the extra day on the monday is considered the long weekend part) and the thurs & fri are due to his birthday weekend - he refuses to let me have him that period of time and tells me that unless I go to my hometown (9 HRS AWAY!!), I cannot have him.

My mom intervened on my behalf and said that she would bring my son half way so that we could see each other - but my son informed me last night via telephone that he wants to cut it short because he has a hockey game on monday... which in my opinion, I feel that family is more important than a hockey game. I get that he's 10 and hockey is really important to him but I think that his controlling and manipulative father is the one whose really behind my son's verbalizations.

Sometimes I feel so down and low that I wonder if I can continue to have my relationship with my son this way - that it just may be easier to cut all connections and tell him to get a hold of me when he's old enough to make his own decisions and at that point I'll tell him the REAL truth....

I don't know, who knows what is best!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

For those who maintain our freedom, we remember

Tomorrow is rememberance day and I want to pay tribute to those who have served and still do....




Although you serve with every part of your being, you are so often not recognized and today I want to make sure that you are.

Thank you for our freedom!


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

My own bucket list

I saw this on a fellow blogger's site and figured that I would write one myself...


#1 - Become an RN

#2 - move to Texas

#3 - get a RN job at a children's hospital and work in a NICU

#4 - Become a neonatologist/neonatal nurse practitioner


# 5 - Visit Pakistan and see where my husband grew up


# 6 - Be solely responsible for saving a life & making a difference

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Hospital addiction syndrome - who would have thought!!!!

At work we've had the "pleasure" of taking care of a particular lady.... I'll try to paint you a picture....

Age - over 18 - so an adult
Diagnosis - Sepsis secondary to abdominal absesses & NARCOTIC ABUSE
Additional information - VRE positive and thus in isolation

Now note that our unit is NEUROLOGY... not Gen. Med! But we had an open iso room and thus this patient became "ours"..... shitty luck for us!!!!

This patient became the BANE of our existance!!! He was DEMANDING and insistive.... to the point that he would have a BM on a commode (which he is COMPLETELY capable of going onto a toilet - but refuses to) and expect us nurses to empty it!!!!

Also, EVERY TWO HOURS, ON THE HOUR would this patient ring his damn bell and expect us nurses to come running with his PRN narcotic med. And then indicate that we're causing him physical AND emotional pain when we get busy (or just ignore him) when we don't have his narcotic available.

What would rightly irritate me would be when this patient would complain to me that we were causing him anguish and that "no one knows how it feels to break a bone and have pain from it".... UMMM YES I DO!!!! When I was 23 I was in a 4 wheeler (ATV) accident and had soft tissue damage and a hairline fracture of my femur.... to be in the hospital for 3 days for IV pain relief.... so YES I know how you feel!!! But I assure you, I wasn't on the buzzer paging my nurses when I was due for my pain reliever and then questioning whether they're giving me the "FULL" maximum amount - HELLO NARCOTIC ABUSER!!!!!!

Now, this is the type of patient that no matter WHAT you do for him, he is going to complain, complain and complain some more.... which causes nursing burn out..... ever heard of such a thing?! Yep, sure have... in literature, not in real life and boy was he creating it for MANY a nurses on my unit! So much so that the UNIT AS A WHOLE indicated that whoever was doing the schedule would only allow nurses to have this patient for ONE shift a week - unless they wanted him (there was ONE nurse who could stand this patient) - because anything more would cause one to think about quitting or switching units, or just calling in sick.

And an interesting thing started to happen.... based on our documentation, the doctors and administration started taking notice. And I kid you not, one of the doctor's orders is as follows:

If patient does not take prescribed antibiotic, he does not get ANY narcotic medication until he does &
If patient pulls out PICC line, he is to be immediately discharged from hospital.

OMG did this order MAKE OUR DAYS!!!! No more could he try to manipulate us nurses with his crap! We held the upper hand.

More information also started to come to head as administration got involved.... obviously we knew that this person was a narcotic abuser, but he's also a hospital hopper (we figured as much) but from the hospital that he was at last, we found out that he was diagnosed with: HOSPITAL ADDICTION SYNDROME!!!!!!

Boy did THAT one explain a few things!!! Now for those who have never heard of such a thing (I never had), it's along the same line as munchausen syndrome - which I googled and found out that it's sort of like hypochondria - the difference between the two....

munchausen syndrome people KNOW they are lying about the condition that they "say" they have..... whereas
hypochondria people BELIEVE that they actually HAVE the condition

The possibility is that this patient probably created the absesess by injecting narcotics into his abdomen to create this so that he could be admitted to a hospital and have people wait on their every need and demand!!!!! So guess what our doctors and administrators did?! GET him discharged.... now that he was MEDICALLY stable and could be managed as an outpatient, there was no reason to be in the hospital anymore.

The day that he was discharged was of course the day it was my "turn" to have him again..... I could have called in sick (seriously) then found out that he had JUST been discharged.... what a freeing feeling!!!!!!!! I could have had a party!!!!!!!!!