Author Archives: electricnurse

Death

Posted on by
1

Usually I love practicing in a rural community. Being a nurse practitioner, I get to do amazing things. Things that NPs in cities likely do not get the opportunity to do. I deliver babies. This in itself is awesome as <8% of all deliveries in the United States are even done by family practice providers. The rest are by obstetricians. On the flip side…in a rural community everyone knows everyone.

It has been a tough ten days or so. It is times like these that I wish I didn’t practice medicine. I have felt helpless much of the time the past week. Useless and frustrated. Why did we lose a man in his 60’s to cancer? A wonderful man…he and his wife should be just starting to enjoy their amazing retirement. Why did the woman last Sunday have to die so suddenly…I second guess myself. Her family is wonderful.

Why did a young man, a wonderful husband and father have to die yesterday for no reason? I don’t get it. I mean, I do…I know it was their time and I know they are better off but it isn’t fair.

How can their families be so amazing. How can they come to me and hug me and thank me for being me and doing what I do when their loved one just died. How can they say they hope I never leave this community. How are they not angry. I know they must be…just not at me. How can they give me vegetables from their garden just days after they lost their loved one? I just do not know if I can ever be as strong as they are.

So, here I sit in my own selfish way crying. I HAVE my husband tonite. I CAN call my mom…she is still alive. Tonite there is a young woman across town by herself and her children without their daddy. Their is a woman without the love of her life. There is a family without their mother, wife, grandmother. It isn’t fair.

I wonder what will happen next? Another funeral, I know and one that I am sure will be perhaps the hardest yet. One where the whole town will be present I am sure and where there will be a final call to honor the volunteer fireman that was lost. This, in itself will be painful to hear over the pagers. I hope next week is better. Our office needs it. All of us.

What would you do?

Posted on by
Reply

I just completed a questionaire for the Medical Reserve Corps/FEMA. We all remember Hurricane Katrina and what a mess it was afterwords. FEMA had such a difficult time dealing with such a large catastrophe. At any rate, since then the government has pumped a bunch of effort (and probably moula too) into FEMA. Subsequently regional Medical Reserve Corps units were beefed up.

I joined the Corps a few years ago…right after Katrina. It is very interesting to say the least. The drills we have to do annually are awesome…real actors with the blood, guts and such..the last one I went to there was a huge plane crash with people literally lying on a hillside, etc…and then we found out during the drill that it was nuclear related so we had to deal with the exposure too.

To my whole point: are you ready if something were to happen in your area? I just had to complete this questionnaire and felt like an idiot at the end. Here I am, trained and prepared to be deployed if needed within in 90 minutes, but I haven’t ever thought through the process of what would happen to me and my family (Adam in particular). So, just something to think about. What if you and your husband work in different towns and something happens during the day (a catastrophe of sorts) and you have no means of communicating and are not allowed to go to your home? Have you ever discussed where your “meeting place” will be? Here are the things I had to answer:

Have you done any of the following in the last year?

Prepared a Disaster Supply Kit with emergency supplies like water, food and medicine that is kept in a designated place in your home?

Made a specific plan for how you and your family would communicate in an emergency situation if you were separated?

Established a specific meeting place to reunite in the event you and your family cannot return home or are evacuated?

Food for thought….

Cleola Mae (Coe) Betten~My Nana

Posted on by
1

I have blogged about my Nana’s cancer battle in the past months. Well, she lost her valiant battle on the 5th. There are a few things I want to share…

My mom

My amazing mother. Wow. She was by my Nana’s side for five months straight. From the week she was diagnosed until the end. She came home to Nebraska for six days ONCE only and it was for a doctors appointment of her own. She was my Nana’s primary care giver and lived, ate, breathed for Nana. I can say with definite certainty that Nana would not have lived as long as she did had my mother not been there. Some may wonder if Nana sufferred longer than necessary because of this but NO..she did not. She was strong, did not hurt or suffer until the very last 10 days. She lived for another mother’s day…which in itself is awesome as she was a mother of nine! My mom watched her mom die. Wow~can you imagine how painful this must be. Nana was only really uncomfortable for less than a week and hospice was there to help. It is amazing how when it was time..it really did go quick. For those there by my Nana’s side day in and day out that week, I know it seemed tortuously slow.

Most definitely the most important thing my mother accomplished during her time in Florida was helping to lead my Nana back to Christ. I can’t wait to see her again one day in that awesome Kingdom of God.

My brother

My baby brother. A pillar of strength. Jesse just happened to be down in Florida for a job interview the day after they put Nana on hospice…exactly one week before she passed. He decided to stay to be with my mom. He was amazing. He was a rock for her to lean on and also I am told was a key player in caring for Nana, especially in the last couple of days. He prayed over her with the family. Just minutes before she died he sang a song to her that she taught all of us kids. He sang this to her for “us”-the four of us. He held her hand while she took her last breath, literally. He said he held it to keep it warm for “us”-the four of us. Having 9 children, you can bet the dynamics surrounding her passing were difficult to boot. My brother was a neutral “advisor” per se to my mother through these times as well.

“Being together” at the right time

Although we were not all in Florida when she actually passed we were together spiritually. Jesse kept us VERY up to date on Nana’s status. He spoke to us the night before she passed and said he thought it would be soon. He actually text messaged my siblings and I exactly one hour prior to her passing saying it will be soon now…pray for Nana (this was shortly after 7am for my sister and I here in Nebraska, 6am for my brother in Montana). I am sure we all did what Adam and I did-thinking of Nana, my mom, my brother and prayed, cried, etc..until we got the call from him exactly one hour later that she was gone.

Celebrating as a family

As mentioned Nana and Pepe had nine children, TONS of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. With all of these people, our family has been immensely blessed. Nana is the first one to pass in our family. Funerals are a foreign thing to us-but hers was beautiful. Her eulogy was amazing. Perhaps one of the most important things in life to my Nana was Christmas. She lived for it. She spoiled each and every one of us EVERY year. Her funeral ended with the priest asking the entire family to come up and place a hand on her casket and then a song began to play….a Christmas carol none the less. Her funeral ended with all of us singing Silent Night in her honor. This had to be a beautiful sight to see (I wish I had a picture!) as we were ALL there except for only 4 grandchildren. Otherwise, her entire family was present and accounted for~many hands resting on her casket.

My husband

Adam is crazy awesome with computers and has developed this site in honor of my Nana, check it out! http://nanasgang.net/

 

Dinty-Moore Stew, Sex & Pepto Bismol (not necessarily in this order)

Posted on by
Reply

Interesting info: in this current economy the sale of certain items is increasing dramatically. Of course we all know that larger items like cars, houses, etc are not selling as well. But macaroni and cheese, wine, chocolate and dinty-moore stew are selling more than ever. Spam is too.

The sale of condoms went up by 5% when last checked. Read this guy’s quote (too funny): “If people don’t have the money to go out to a fancy dinner or are looking to cut back, Trojan gives them some real affordable ways to stay in and make some great memories together,” says Jim Daniels, vice president of marketing for Trojan, the nation’s No. 1 condom maker.

I guess items like Pepcid and Pepto Bismol are selling more too.

So, what does all of this mean:

Maybe we are having more sex because we are poorer (is that even a word!), maybe we don’t want babies because we cannot afford them or maybe like the guy above mentioned we just are having more sex instead of going out on dates. I’m glad there are more condoms being bought since apparently people drinking more too…less “accidents” this way.

Hawaii is finally “in the trend” with their popular use of Spam. When we were there to visit you could get Spam at McDonalds. Spam to them is like sausage to us. So, they are now finally fitting in.

spam

And, last but not least…all of the sex, wine, chocolate and processed foods are eating away at our guts so we need pepcid.

I knew there was a reason I do not like sushi!

Posted on by
Reply

Wow! So, I am listening to the news this morning and they start talking about worms. Not your average worms, though. We’re talking about 9 foot long tape worms that live in your belly! Ick! Apparently there have been more cases than in past history of people getting worms. This particular case was some guy who passed the 9 foot long worm in his poo and I suppose got “a little” concerned and therefore took his worm with him and went to the emergency room in Chicago. These worms do not go to just your gut…they can go to your brain too.

What are they attributing this to, one might ask? Sushi. Yep, you got it. Raw fish is known to carry more parasites so there you have it. I guess salmon is also kind of high up on the list of culprits also.

Now, I am one that will try pretty much anything. I HAVE had sushi. My mother, brother and I had it in this cute little place in NYC a few years back and it wasn’t too bad but I think I’m ruined now.

tapeworm

This reminds me of a patient we had in our clinic 18 months ago or so. He was an immigrant from Mexico and I cannot remember all of the details but I think he maybe had a seizure. The jist of it was that we found on his MRI of his brain that he had a worm growing in his brain…most probably from contaminated food. Now, what is going on with this fine young wormy man now? I have no idea. As an immigrant, he had no health insurance. We sent him to a neurologist and he never followed up. Scary….