Catharsis

After a difficult few days, I am now embarking upon a much needed vacation. For the next two weeks (or bloody close to it anyhow), I will have the pleasure of plenty of quality family time with the kids, the opportunity to visit places I've never seen, and in one case, satisfy an exploratory itch I've had for several years now. The itinerary is still cast in putty, but one firm destination is Centralia, PA. Centralia has the dubious distinction of slowly dying as a community, courtesy of an underground coal mine fire that has been burning its way through rich coal deposits since 1961. Tacincala was enthusiastic about exploring what remains of the once thriving town, but to my surprise and delight, my son Nashoba was even more excited about the trip, since Centralia evidently is a plot location in a Dean Koontz book he has enjoyed. Miko has other destinations more pressing on her mind, but will hopefully catch the Centralia bug with the rest of us once she is there.

At any rate, I've survived my annual review (and obtained a modest raise in the process), an absolute straight out night from hell at work when we were slammed with admissions all night, and an excess of pissiness generously shared by some of my co-workers during shift change. The morning after we were slammed, we got grief because no one had found a spare few moments to tape report, so they had to wait for verbal reports. That evening when we came back in for our next shift, only one person had taped on a grand total of one patient, so we had to wait while day staff trickled in to give verbal report--this was fine because we understood they must have been as busy as we had been the evening before, but one nurse in particular was not shy about expressing her displeasure that report ran very late that night. Hey--we were wanting to get going as well, but what were we to do when we had to wait for staff to come into report off?
This morning I had completed the assignment so that the nurses who had worked the day before got the same patients back (I had all my patients reassigned and got a new one last night, but hey--you go with the flow) for today. The first nurse to show up was quite cheerful and printed notes for her assignment. The next one, an orientee, grumbled that she did not have the same assignment as the day before, and with her nurse preceptor proceeded to redo the assignment so she would have her patients back. This would have been fine except that it meant nurse #1 had to reprint for her now changed group of patients, and nurse#3, who had precepted the orientee the day before, lost her group as well. Nurse#3 (who I like a great deal, but who has been rather stressed of late), came in and was very vocal about her displeasure, wondering why I hadn't given her back her patients. Somehow I don't think she believed me when I explained that I HAD given them to her again, but the orient and nurse #2 had reworked the assignment. It was a case of no one being happy. Given that I was in the midst of dealing with the incident reports for an unsecured bag of very potent fentanyl, was operating on three and a half hours of sleep due to stress induced insomnia, and had been getting no end of grief from my son's care team, I just wanted to cry. The shift ended at last and my holiday commenced--does it sound like I need a break?

After driving home and lending Tacincala the car so she could run errands, I grabbed a 90 minute nap and then was off the team meeting for my son. That meeting ended up being about as much fun as an extended bath in a vat of battery acid, as the theme du jour was "give Kat shit for anything and everything". I might have been able to roll with it on a normal day, but after the preceding two days and in my state of sheer and utter sleep deprivation, I broke down and wept in the meeting. I'm sure my poor son was terribly embarrassed. That finished at last I sought catharsis for my weary and embattled soul.

Ravenous as it was now 4:30pm and I hadn't eaten since about 6 am, I walked to the closest restaurant and had a gigantic salad, about 3/4 of a cup of corn chowder, and steamed broccoli (in lieu of potatoes) with a broiled haddock filet. Man did that ever hit the spot...
Walking back to the house, I found that Tacincala was back with the car-- I resisted the siren call of the bed and dragged myself to the gym. That ended up being the main cathartic I so badly needed. There is something about pushing off underwater and feeling the caress of the water as I glide through it that always soothes me and brings a measure of peace. Its the same sort of utterly transcendent peace and healing I found during my skydive after I had deployed the canopy. Freefall was exhilarating, but swimming and the glide down from the sky both brought great beauty, a silent calm that fills me with joy, and a deep sense of being one with the universe--emotions and sensations that occasionally come unbidden as gifts, but also emotions I can tap into simply by swimming. That is one reason swimming is my favourite form of exercise. I also enjoy the workout it gives my muscles, and feel rejuvenated physically, emotionally, and often, spiritually after a swim. Fifteen laps were all that were in me tonight, but they were incredibly satisfying laps. Kvetch complete, now I'm curled up in bed ready for the additional rejuvenation of sleep, and a sleep unburdened by schedules and alarm clocks. I'll see you in the morning.