My Life Takes a New Direction!

Wow….my life feels like it’s in complete upheaval. In all honesty, there is some truth to that statement. I loved my time in Arizona last year; I made friends and connected to a church…basically, I didn’t realize that I was putting down roots until I left. After six months, I returned for a visit over Easter weekend, and it felt like I was back home. As I started talking to my former roommate, she told me there might be a job opportunity to join her company as a hospice case manager. I never thought I wanted to be a hospice nurse, but the more I thought about it, the more it sounded appealing. I’m burned out from working in the ICU, and the pandemic hasn’t helped. 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this might just be the opportunity for me to change up my career. I’ve been thinking about changing for a while but hadn’t decided on what or where to go. After a couple of interviews and some back-and-forth discussions, I accepted the job. Now, I am moving to Arizona for a permanent position doing something I never thought I would do. Don't get me wrong, there is some anxiety involved with this. Did I make the right move? I will miss out on watching my nieces and nephews grow up; am I okay with that? What if I realize the job isn’t what I thought, or it’s not for me? Then what? I’ve packed up all my stuff and moved it 2,000 miles across the country. 

As crazy as all this is, it’s happened very quickly, and everything has fallen into place. I keep waiting for a roadblock that never happens, so I keep moving forward. My family has been supportive; they would love it if I was closer to home but understand why I’m moving. I loved working with my recruiter from the travel agency, but things are changing for him, which means things are changing for me. 

Several weeks later……………………….. 

I started this blog before I moved but never got a chance to finish and post it. Now I’ve driven across the country again, got things settled, mostly unpacked, and started the new job. This week is the completion of the second week. How do I feel? Honestly, I still feel like I’m adapting to a completely different lifestyle, but overall it feels good. Working 5 days a week is still new, and it will take a little while to get used to, but the regular hours and routine without the crazy stress of nights and high acuity patients is strangely relaxing. 

I’m still learning the job, and there is a lot that I don’t know yet. So far I think I will like it. The best part, I have Sundays off and have attended church for the last 3 weeks without having to flip my sleep schedule!!!. It may not sound like much, but I haven’t consistently attended church in years. The nights and weekends made it extremely difficult, so I usually opted to stay home and sleep instead of falling asleep at church.

Arizona is now home...and the journey continues...

Michigan Camping Trip

So far I’ve been enjoying the warmth and sunshine of Arizona…and the summer isn’t actually that bad. Then again, I’m loving the heat with minimal humidity. As great as it is to be here, I was able to fly home for a brief visit and spend time with my family over Memorial Day weekend. 

It was nice to be home for a little bit, except my family decided that camping in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) on Lake Superior would be fun. I would have found it much more enjoyable if it wasn’t so COLD!!! I left sunny Arizona and my 90-100 degree weather and the first night we camped it was 35! For pretty much the entire weekend I was in layers with a winter coat and hat. I could not get warm. The day we left the U.P. it got to high 70’s and that was much better. 

One day some of us went out to do some sightseeing. It ended up that we spent most of the day driving around the area and visiting several different waterfalls. For the most part they were easily accessible with a short walk, but there were a couple that involved going down several steps for a better view of the waterfall. 

Miners Falls (1.2 miles round trip)

Munising Falls (1/4 mile round trip with a paved trail)

Sable Falls (1/4 mile with 168 stair steps each way)

Tahquamenon Falls (the upper fall)

Our campground was pretty much right on Lake Superior, and so the last night some of us went rock collecting and then I went back later to take some pictures of the sunset. 

Rocks on Lake Superior beach, many people collect the unique rocks from the shoreline

I had fun playing with some different camera setting and enjoying the skyline. 

Lake Superior Sunset

Since I’ve started travel nursing I really haven’t spent my summer’s in Michigan. I forgot how green and beautiful it can be. When I initially left the state and started my nursing career in Pennsylvania I never thought that I would ever move back to Michigan. 

Ultimately God had other plans, I left for about to 10 years before moving back. I was back for a few years and now I’m back to traveling a living life on the road. It is still nice to have my own place to go back to on my breaks…but who knows where the path of my life will take me over the next several years. 

Arizona

Wow, it’s been too long since I updated my blog. I really enjoyed my time at home over the holidays, part of me didn’t feel like it lasted long enough but another part of me knew that I needed to get back to work. I finally did start looking at new contracts and ended up settling on one in Arizona. It took a lot of effort and motivation for me to pack up all my stuff, load the car and start driving across the country. 

Now that I’ve been here several months, I have done some sightseeing but not as much as I would have liked by this time. One day I went and visited the Botanical Gardens in Tucson. It was relaxing to walk around a take pictures of the desert flora, and zen garden they had.

It was a lot different than some other gardens I've been to. 

This plant was tall!

Zen or rock gardens like this are always some of my favorites 

While I was walking around the garden, I noticed several bee's collecting the nectar from different flowers. I really only stopped at one place I stood there for several minutes taking pictures. Personally I think some of them are really cool. 

After I left the garden I went to watch the sunset, it was a pretty cool sunset. 

The next day I drove up into the mountains a little bit. That was an interesting experience, I went from starting out in the desert to being up 8,000 feet in about 26 miles (the catalina highway)...it was a steady drive up but there were lots of amazing views. 

I found snow towards the top!

The pictures really don't do it justice. While I was driving up the mountain, I passed a lot of people biking. I can only imagine that it's great training! I'll admit I was a little jealous of their ability, but I have to respect the dedication and work they put in.

I still have to make it north and visit the Grand Canyon, I just have to figure out when it works for me to go. I'm hoping to visit soon...maybe within the next month.

Nail Avulsion

Last week wasn’t the best week…I decided to go out for a run since it was a nice morning. Everything was going well, and I was on pace for my best run. Then I hit a section of uneven sidewalk and tripped…it was a hard fall! 

I had some decent abrasions on the back of my right hand, jammed up that thumb, and tore off a fingernail! Not sure how I fell or landed…it happened so fast. I also managed to bruise up my right knee. 

A lady walking her dog saw me and stopped to ask if i was okay or if she should do anything for me. There wasn’t anything for her to do, I could still walk so I walked home. 

As I was walking up the stairs to my condo a neighbor saw my bleeding hand and asked if there was anything he could do. I said that i was fine, just going home to see what i had to clean my wounds with. He had hydrogen peroxide that I could use so I borrowed that. 

After I had cleaned my hand I wanted to bandage it for a little since I needed to go buy a new phone, but I was having trouble doing that with one hand. I went and knocked on another neighbors door and got help bandaging up my hand. That night my hand throbbed, and was swollen and bruised. I could move all my fingers and joints so I knew nothing was broken, it was just hard with the swelling. 

I eventually made it to the store to get a new phone, I wanted to get the same model I had since I loved it…but Apple is no longer making that model so I had to get a different one which is sad, but there was no way to fix my phone. The screen is completely shattered and won’t do  anything, plus it no longer lays flat on any surface. While I was at the store the sales guy asked if I was okay, and wanted to make sure that no-one hurt me intentionally. 

I shattered my phone, nothing would show up on the screen...
I could also rock it on a flat surface

The next day I did decide to go to the local Urgent Care since my finger was still oozing. I wasn't sure how long the nail bed would continue to oozing, and my finger was really bruised and swollen. I could sort move it, and still had full sensation so I wasn't to worried about but I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to get it checked out. It was fine, I'd done everything I needed to except give it time. 

The PA I saw did a nice job with the dressing.

It took several days, but the swelling has gone down and my hand is finally back to normal size. The abrasions have scabbed over but some of them were pretty deep so it’ll take awhile for them to heal. My nail bed is finally starting to dry out and toughen up. Each day I’m able to do a little more than the day before.

Why do fingernails take so long to grow back?

Wonder how long it's going to take for the abrasions to heal.

For all the craziness of 2020 and social distancing I was encouraged. There were complete strangers that helped me out, or at least offered to help. I’ve gotten so use to avoiding people, or people avoiding me that I sometimes forget people can actually care about a stranger on the street. 

Great Falls National Park

At the end of October I finished up my contract at Inova Fairfax. It was weird saying goodbye a second time…it really felt like it had become my home unit since I’ve spent so much time there. Especially after working through a pandemic with them, there were many rough and exhausting days. 

I did make it to Great Falls National Park before I left this time. It’s amazing, the Virginia side is nice, but I personally think the Maryland side is better. It’s more walking (but really easy), to get to falls on the Maryland side, but you get to see smaller waterfalls on your way to the large one. I love waterfalls, so I think that’s why I like the Maryland side more. 

The Virginia side of the falls

One of the smaller falls you pass on the Maryland side 

The Falls from the Maryland side

While taking time to enjoy the waterfalls, I also spent some time playing with my camera and various shutter and aperture settings which I haven’t done in a while, so that was fun. I have a lot of okay pictures from that day, but there are a few which I’m happy with. 

Maryland Side

One of the smaller falls, (playing with my shutter speed)

I spent so much time in the section of the park taking pictures and listening to the water, it was so relaxing and just amazing to be there

The next couple pictures are very similar frames, but they have very different shutter speeds which is what is so fun to play around with. The third picture is an even closer up of that same frame. 

One of my favorite pictures from this day

Now that I’m back home, I’m spending some time relaxing and working on a couple home projects as well as spending some time with family. There is part of me that misses work, but there is also a part of me that is finding this time to take a mental break and rejuvenate essential. I’m not sure what the next couple months are going to bring, heck I don’t even know what the next couple weeks are going to be like, but I'm working on things that I otherwise always seem to busy to complete. 

Long Overdue...

I have so many thought running through my head and I'm not sure how to organize them into this blog post. 

As I was glancing back at my older blogs, I noticed the one I wrote just after the first of the year...one of my questions asked "what will this year bring?" The year 2020 has been very different and difficult. As the pandemic hit and social distancing / isolation became the new normal my life seemed somewhat normal. I'm not an overly social person so I had a good reason to stay home, read, watch TV, and basically not feel guilty about not going out except for work. 

When my first travel contract of the year ended, I returned to Northern Virginia, in April, where Covid-19 was escalating. The number of new cases a day kept climbing, the ICU's where full of the basically Covid-19+ patients. The current number of cases in the hospital has drastically reduced. I'm happy to be getting back to caring for my normal patient population. 

The last 3 months have been really hard, and July was emotionally draining. I've been working through a pandemic and seeing some people get better while others don't can be discouraging. Not only that, I'm away from family and friends and am geographically isolated from my social support system, I'm not going to it's hard. I finally had a 2 week period where I didn't have to care for a Covid + patient, and so I was able to make to 3 hour drive to visit my sister and her family. It was amazing to be around family, to play with my nephews and just remember that something don't change. 

There are some good things that have happened. I've been doing better about getting outside and going for a run or walk, and started using the Crossrope system for exercise. I use to love to jump rope when I was younger, but I stopped at some point. Now I'm getting back into it using weighted jump ropes mixed with intervals of body weight exercise and rest. It's actually a lot more fun than running or going to the gym (for me)...I just take my ropes outside, and get in my workout while I'm enjoying some fresh air and sunshine. 

I love these jump ropes...I've been using them for a couple weeks now.

I've also been trying to explore some of the many National Parks in this area as things are starting to reopen again. It's a great way to enjoy the outdoors, see some amazing scenery, and often get some physical activity in with a hike or two.  

So far,  I've been to Shenandoah National Park:

 -The mountains are amazing, I've done some short hikes here to get to some of the views. 

Luray Caverns:

The Wishing Well

Harper's Ferry National Park:

Historic Lower Town

The view from the Maryland Overlook Trail

The view from the Maryland Overlook Trail

I hiked the around the park some, before completing the Maryland Overlook Trail. After it was all said and done, I'd hiked 7 miles and walked a total of 10 miles that day. I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day, and a little sunburnt. Overall, it was a great day, with some fantastic views.