A Much Needed Little Vacation!

Rob and his family own a cabin on Canim Lake which is up by 100 Mile House, we go there at least once a year, but would love to go more often, it's a 6 hour drive. It's absolutley beautiful, with the lake, the mountains, the forest, so peaceful and relaxing. Rob and I made an impromtu trip up there on Wednesday seeing as we both had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. I got all the groceries together, made a menu plan, put together as much as I could because Rob was working till midnight on Tuesday. So Wednesday comes, we load up the car, drive to his parents, switch cars because we are bringing up a bike and it doesn't fit in Rob's Passat. We are on the road by 10:45am, the drive itself is uneventful, long, but nothing interesting. We plan to just hang out at the cabin, rides bikes, go for walks maybe take the boat on the water, just relax, watch some tv maybe. We get to the cabin and start taking stuff in when Rob all of a sudden realizes that the satellite box is not there and we have no tv! On but my goodness, what are we going to do for three days with no tv? We so thought about going right back home, but we didn't! It turned out to be the most wonderful relaxing, just be together weekend, I learned things about him I didn't know, we had some great talks and lots of laughs. No tv turned out to be a huge blessing! We are going up there again in July with my family and then staying for a week with Rob's extended family. It's such a blessing to have a place so beautiful to go to and just be peaceful.

A little about my job!

Without breaking confidentiality, I thought I would elaborate a bit on my job as a Licensed Practical Nurse. As an LPN I can work anywhere, in any hospital, care home, home support, group home setting. As far as I know the only place we don't work is maternity and they are slowing phase us into acute and emerg. The difference between myself and an RN is the amount of schooling, RNs have a Bachelor of Science which is four years and the LPN course is a year. As far as medical procedures go, LPNs do not start IVs or dispense IV meds, we only assess the IV line and site. I prefer to work with the elderly. My main duties are to dispense meds, give injections, perform assessments and provide wound care, all of which I enjoy doing. I work on a unit that has 50 residents, four of which are ventilator dependent. This means they are on machines that control their breathing. The have tracheostomies for various reasons. When I was in school, we did not have any training for vented patients, so it was all new to me when I started working at Langley Hospital. Working in a vent unit is fast paced, be on your toes, hard work. We provide all personal care and I do all medical care, changing the trach, suctioning, meds. I don't know if I'll be able to do this for the next thirty years, but it definitely has provided me with experience, education and a lot of patience. These residents can not talk, so communication is a major factor in their care. They communicate with their eyes and eyebrows, eyes to the right mean yes and eyes to the left mean no, etc. They also have a communication board which has all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers and they spell out words which can be a big help if we can't figure out what they are trying to say with their eyes. It's a lot of work, but it is rewarding and overall I enjoy it.