Inner tranquility - struggling with anger and guilt

Sometimes a little thing can make me so angry that I have to sit down afterwards and try to figure out what happened. Why, for example, did I get so angry when husband hung up the laundry for me, that I completely lost it. Seems innocuous enough, even helpful. The following is the result of my reflections on the episode, in which I try to understand the underlying feelings, take responsibility for the situation, and try to figure out how to deal with these feelings in a more constructive manner.

First of all, I am fighting a constant battle to become better organized. This is a real challenge for me - I am constantly misplacing things, or running out of time to do the things I need or want to do. Today was another attempt at a fresh start. We got up at 6:30. At 9am I would have to leave to catch my train to work. I was trying to organize my morning to have time to both eat breakfast, walk the dogs, as well as take down and hang up the laundry before I had to leave. Husband doing the laundry for me while I was walking the dogs, completely took the wind out of my sails.

Since I have started commuting to work, doing my share of the housework has demanded considerably more planning. I often feel guilty that I am not pulling my weight around the house. My areas of responsibility used to be: a daily walk with the dogs, the feeding, medicating (as needed), and daily care of all the animals, picking up milk, selling eggs, shopping, meal planning, cooking and baking and the laundry. Together with husband I share in cleaning and dishwashing. Now husband frequently has to cook his own dinner, pick up milk, shop for stuff that I have forgotten, and I rarely have time to help with dishes and cleaning. So I tend to feel guilty. Husband doing a chore that was really mine, makes me feel even worse. It's bad enough that I have to lay on him things that I am simply not at home to do.

How to deal with guilt and anger, that is the question. Flying off the handle, screaming and throwing things around is definitiv not very constructive, nor fair on husband, who is just trying to be helpful. Maybe I need to adjust my expectations to myself. Maybe it will help if I get back to doing my meditations regularly. This past month they have largely fallen by the wayside. One of these is practicing inner tranquility, ie not getting carried away by every emotion that washes over me.

Winter woods walk

Here is where we leave the country road and take a path into the woods.

The path follows a stream (above) and then snakes through the wood itself.

Lucy coming at me full tilt.

Lucy (black belgian) and Topsy (border collie)

Above is a den (fox maybe) that we get to shortly before leaving the first wood.

Here you can see the field and the second wood through the last trees.

Sniffing around at the edge of the wood.

Looking back on the wood we just came out of, from close by and further away.

Below: looking forward to the second wood. A fairly boring plantation of spruce trees, all in rows. The picture I took of the dogs playing tag in the wood didn't come out.

Coming out of the second wood, a scattering of trees before we follow the power line across the field.

Looking back on the second wood (above) and forward along the power line.

Up ahead (below) the farm where our path joins a private lane. Which will take us back to the country road on which we started. The whole walk from our front door and back takes about half an hour.

Knekkebrød

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole ground rhy flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup oat bran
• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup flax seeds
• 1/2 cup wheat bran
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 2.5 tsp salt
• 3.5 cups water

It is very easy to make. Just stir everything together, spread out over 2 cookie sheets and bake at 350 F for about 45 minutes, then reduce heat to 250 F and bake for another 30 minutes. If you have an oven that circulates hot air you can bake both sheets at the same time, otherwise you have to bake them one at a time. Believe me, I speak from experience, having tried a short cut that didn't really work. I am actually still at the experimental stage re. baking. The point is that the crackers should be crisp but not burnt.

Also, the recipe doesn't say if you should grease the sheets or not. The first time I didn't and the knekkebrød came loose just fine. The second time (which is also the time of the short cut) it stuck to the sheets and I ended up with quite a lot of crumbs to feed to the chickens. They loved it and recycled them into eggs, but still, I buy chicken feed for that.

Night Work Weekend

"Søsterblokkene" from the bus stop in front of AHUS

This week I had my first evening and night shifts in the new job. After 5 days off I was well rested, and discovered that an evening shift where I don't get home until 1 am is absolutely horrible, while getting up at 4:15 to get to a dayshift is manageable. I even had some energy left at the end of the day.

This weekend I had night shifts, and stayed over in the "søsterblokk" - rooms that the hospital rents to travelling nurses, and people like me who have a long commute. It is convenient to live just 2 minutes from the hospital. My room was on the first floor, next to the living room. There were 3 other rooms + kitchen and bath. Apparently all 3 floors share the living room. Each floor has it's own kitchen and bath/showers. The rooms/appartments are clean, but you have to bring your own bedding, and there was no Internett. That is, apparently there is internett on the second and third floors (it's the hospital nett that reaches over here), but I ended up having to actually go over to the hospital to get internett.

I had a bit of a stress when I let my cell phone battery die, before realizing that I didn't knowing the PIN. Also to log onto the hospital net (my alternative method of contacting husband) you need to get a PIN that they message to your cell phone. I tossed and turned, unable to sleep after my first night, just from stress. Not until I figured out that I could use an employee pc to log onto the net and got my phone PIN from Husband, was I able to sleep properly.

Here's what husband does when I'm away: indoor cycling with his cycle club.

Commuting, skiing, baking and agility

My plan for the new job was to commute by train. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this. The train takes about an hour. Usually I have wait 15 minutes for the next bus, which takes 15 minutes to get to the hospital, leaving me with 5 minutes to change. This turns out to be a little short, as it takes a full 5 minutes to walk from the bus stop down the full length of the corridor and to my locker at the far end of the locker room, even if I don't have to stand in line to get clothes. Alternatively I can take an earlier train. To the morning shift I have no choice. The first train goes at 5 am and I was changed and ready to work at 6:35, though the shift didn't begin until 7:30. The second train, however is too late. :(

Husband putting stud tires on my bike.

My train home usually departs an hour and 20 minutes after the end of the shift, giving me plenty of time to change and get the bus to the train station. I actually enjoy travelling by train. I can read, blog, surf the net (the train has free wifi), eat breakfast or whatever, using the iPad that I bought for this purpose. Also today, I discovered a "velferd" room at the hospital, with massage chairs, sofa's and fancy coffee machine. It doesn't seem to be much used, and provides a nice area to just relax when having a lengthy wait for public transport.

Since I spend so many hours travelling and working, there is the question of fresh air and exercise. For this purpose I aquired stud tires for my bike thinking I could ride the 2 miles to the train station. I did so last tuesday. It really takes no longer than to take the car, as the parking lot is clear on the other side of the station, and you still have to go under the underpass to get to the right track. Also, it seems I can transfer to a lokal train in Lillestrøm to a station that is only a mile from the hospital, instead of takiking the bus. The local train is much cheaper than the bus, and I would get a nice walk out of it as well. Next month I plan to try it out.

Our house on a crisp winter morning.

Last week, I was so revved up about the new job that I had trouble sleeping. I kept waking up a couple hours earlier than the alarm (which was set for 5 or even 4:15 am), so that by the time I got home after my third day, I could hardly keep my eyes open. So it sure was nice to go to bed early knowing that I had 4 days off to look forward to.

On Saturday I went skiing with Lucy for over 2 hours. We got onto the track where it passes about 50 yards from the front door, but instead of heading up into the woods, we followed it west over the fields toward the lake, turning north and passing behind Stange Church, and then east again over the fields towards the village of Stange, until we arrived back home. It was a beautiful sunny day, not too cold, and no wind.

Lucy watching from behind the registration table

Sunday I had been asked to help out at a dog agility competition. I tolk Lucy along, figuring it would be good for her to just watch from a corner. She needs to be exposed to new environments, strange dogs and people as much as possible. I found a place near the registration table under a stair. My job was to watch 4 or 5 hurdles. Staightening out the "sack" and picking up the jumps when they got knocked down. There were fruit, sandwiches and soda for the volonteers so we didn't go hungry. I worked for 6 straight hours after which I was exhausted. But it was fun, and I learned a lot about competition rules. Lucy lay flat out for the rest of the evening after we had returned home. She had indeed, taken in a lot of impressions.

Other projects this weekend were baking a Mississippi mud pie, and homemade "knekkebrød" (crackers)

First days in new job

Tuesday, february 1st I started my new job at Akershus University Hospital ("AHUS" for short). I entered by the personell entrance and found myself in a long corridor in the basement where transport robots ("ATV"'s) where zipping around flashing yellow lights and politely asking you to move if you happened to be standing in their path.

This first day was an introduction day for the 3 of us who are new right now (18 new employees started on jan first, 5 or 6 in desember, and there are still about 6 positions that haven't been filled. ie. about 1/4 of the ED staff is new employees), and we spent the first part of the day in the basement. First getting our ID-cards which also open doors and allow access to computers and printers, then getting lockers and learning how the uniform dispenser and laundry shute work. In the picture you see people standing in line. Around the time of the main shift changes there are always lines at the uniform dispenser. You have to swipe your card at the dispenser. Your size is programmed into the card. Then you wait for the pants to arrive, followed by the top. There can be up to 3 sets of uniforms on your "account". When you throw them in the laundry shute you have to make sure it reads a chip that is sewn into each part of the uniform or it won't add a clean one to your account. It's all a bit time consuming.

We spent the rest of the day getting info on how the ED is organized and the admission proceedures. We got a tour of the department and then retired to an office which had some computers so that we could get passwords for the most important programs: intranet, DIPS (the elektronic medical chart) and GAT which is the scheduling program. We also got a tour of the main lobby: the "glass street" (se below), and the canteen.

The next day, which was my first day in clinical practice, I was paired up with one of the code nurses, meaning that he would be part of the trauma code and/or medical code teams. We had several critically ill patients: a hypotensive sepsis patient, a medical code on a COPD patient as well as a couple of other admissions. I was pleased that they paired me up with someone who would have the more critical patients from the very start.

On the third day I was paired up with my mentor for the 4 introductory weeks. I focused on learning the protocols for administering meds, as well as documenting care. By the end of the day I was starting to be able to find my way around, both the lay of the land as well as the routines. Still have a ways to go though. My great comfort is that in the area of patient care I feel fully competent (so far at least).