“I am not young enough to know everything”

I’m a middle-class white woman living in Willcox, Arizona, deep in the heart of McCain territory. I’ve got a football-coach husband, and two gorgeous little girls. On November 4th, I’m going to go vote, and I’m taking my girls with me. I think of it as a lesson in Civics, they think of it as a free “I voted” sticker. But the thing is, I’m not voting for Obama.

I’m voting for my grandparents, who worked hard all their lives… and although they don’t have much, they believe in the promise of this country.

I’m voting for my parents, who have worked so hard for decades to provide for myself and my sister, and who have done without for themselves too many times.

I’m voting for Josh, a guy I worked with who was killed in Iraq a few years ago. Since he can’t vote anymore, I like to think that I’m voting for his kids too.

As a matter of fact, I’m voting for several friends who have been sent away from their families to Iraq… Robert, Chris (who is there now, God Bless), Adam, and James. I’m voting so their families may have hope that they can come home soon, or not be sent away again.

I’m voting for my African-American friends… I was oblivious for a long time, but now I realize how much different your experiences must have been.

I’m voting for my mother, who was seventeen and pregnant, who worked two jobs at times, and who hung her head in shame when she had to sometimes pay with food stamps.

I’m voting for my coworkers and old college buddies who are Christian, Jewish, Mormon and (gasp!) Muslim.

I’m going to vote for the guy that came over the other day and hauled all of the tree limbs from my backyard. I think he needs a REAL tax break.

I’m voting for a bunch of dead white men who, although flawed, were willing to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, and used a time of great crisis to EXPAND freedom rather than suspend it.

I’m voting for four little angels from Birmingham.

I’m voting for all of those people, and more. But honestly, I’m mostly voting for selfish reasons. I’m voting for two little girls… one who wants to be an author and writes beautifully, and another who just tore up everything in my living room. I will vote for a world where they can be confident that their government will represent the best that is in this country, and that will, in turn, demand the best of them. I will vote for a government that will have respect from the world, a government that will not abandon it’s people, a government that will care for it’s poor, it’s weak, it’s infirm, it’s elder, and it’s children. I will vote for everything I believe in.

Sure, I’m going to draw the little arrow to point at the word “Obama,” but it’s not him I’m voting for. I’m voting for every single one of us… especially those two girls I love so very much. Vote with me, please?

Valerie

It’s been about ten months since I last wrote. Life seems to get in the way of these things! We recently moved to BFE, which has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I’m sitting in my kitchen right now, and I’m watching the City of Willcox get prepared for their fireworks display tonight. 232 years of being a country, and we still celebrate by blowing shit up. Ellie Cate will be a year old this month, on the 19th. Every single day with her has been better than the last. She’s dancing now… her favorite song is The Rock and Roll Song, by Gary Glitter. Leave it to my kid to jam out to a child molester. I’ve taken up gardening. For the first time, we own a house, so I can garden and not have to worry about moving away from my flowers before they grow! Mundane, I know… but such is the life of a small-town mom.

I have a new job. That’s actually what I wanted to write about. I’m going to be a flight nurse. My training is done on Tuesday, and I take to the air on Saturday. I’ll be called to take care of the very sickest people, on the very worst day of their lives. 24 hour shifts, two days a week. They allow me to take pictures, so I’ll be showing you some of the stuff I get to see. I’m not looking forward to the first time I have to scrape a child off of the road, and honestly, I’m rather scared of the whole thing in general. 16 medical professionals have died in helicopter crashes just this year. Really, there is only so much a flight suit and a helmet can do when you crash into a mountain or some shit.

I’m off to water the yard before the fireworks tonight. Hopefully this place will become what I want it to be… a journal of sorts. Also, I need a name for the back of my helmet. It has to be clean, as the patients who can see will be seeing it. Any ideas?

So Shane has Ella in the other room, sleeping. Of course she’ll sleep for him, but when I’m there all she wants to do is eat and poop. I figure since I have a spare moment, I’ll tell you guys about the ‘ole birth story, because a few of you were asking, and because it was kind of funny, and lots of painful.

I was scheduled to be induced on Saturday, the 14th of July. Little did I know that schedules aren’t actually schedules, and you just go in when they call you, regardless of what time you were actually supposed to go in. Come Tuesday night, I still had not gotten a call, so I popped an ambien and sat down to the computer to do something. I’m typing away, and I feel some wetness. It was enough to be down one (white) pant leg, but it was only one little gush, and then it stopped. I proceed to go find Shane and make him smell of my pants to make sure it isn’t pee, because when you are 40+ weeks pregnant, you pee yourself a lot. Shane isn’t fond of body fluids, but he smelled it anyways because I insisted, and he thought it smelled unlike pee as well… we figured my water broke. Since I had just finished up baking muffins to try and bribe the Labor nurses, we grabbed the muffins and the big sister, and were on our way.

On the way, we dropped off Bec at Erin’s house. I’m having absolutely no contractions, but I have more wetness down there, and a little gets on Shane’s seat. Oops. He didn’t know that until I just wrote it. Ha! We get to OB Triage, the place where they decide if they keep you or not. Since I was next on the induction list and they happened to have a room open, they kept me without checking to see if the ‘ole water bag was broken. I get in the room, get my wet-ass pants off, and change into a gown. The nurse does the first of 400,000 coochie checks, and alas… it wasn’t my water. I, in fact, had peed myself again… but I didn’t care, because I was about to be induced, and I was done being pregnant.

So they have this gel, called PG gel. It comes in a little syringe with this looonnng bright pink plastic tube on the end. The nurse shoves it in and squirts, and it’s gross. It leaks all over the place. It’s supposed to dilate the cervix. I started out at a 2. We do three rounds of this, and after the second round I start contracting, every 4-6 minutes apart. They aren’t painful at first, and I’m able to joke through them. Then they got pretty severe after the third squirt of stuff, so I ask for pain medication. They give me Stadol (which is fun, you should try it). I fall asleep, and wake myself up laughing because I dreamed that Shane was wearing one of those Jew-hats. I forget what they’re called. I kept calling it a Yarmaluke in the dream, and that’s what was so funny. Things proceed to not be funny anymore after the pain medication wears off. The nurse checks again, and I’m at a 3. Already one centimeter improvement in only an hour. If I’m going this fast, I figure that it’ll be quick, and the nurse figures the same. We call for an epidural, because I didn’t want to start pitocin without it. Pitocin sucks ass.

Anesthesia gets there, one guy, and one chick. The chick is the one actually doing the deed. I freak out about needles in my back, so I’m stressed. They’ve got me leaning over this table with my ass just dangling in the wind, and she proceeds to start stabbing me with what felt like an icepick, because she sucked so bad at it. Three or so pokes, a bloody, messy ass, and many tears later, I have an epidural. They leave as quickly as they came, and I’m glad of it. This was about 7am.

About 10am, they hang the pitocin. I’m still contracting the same, but my cervix hasn’t budged. I hate my cervix. Really. I do. I then freak out a little because I can’t feel my left leg, but I can feel my right. Plus, the right one kept getting the Jimmy Leg, and it was all around bad. I lay there for hours. No change.

Finally, somewhere during the day, I ask Shane to help me roll over. As I’m rolling, I think I feel some huge gush of something come out. I make him (yeah, he really doesn’t like bodily fluids, but he’s a good man) lift up my leg and look to see if my water broke. I proceed to pee on him. I’m (again) peeing my damn self, and it’s coming out fast. I had warned the nurse hours before that I felt like I had to pee, but she didn’t listen. I should have peed on her, and I would have, had I maintained any control of my bodily functions.

Side note: Nobody told me that when you get an epidural, you lose control of your functions down there. Luckily I never took a poo in the bed, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t have been hard. If you have an epidural, and you have visitors, make sure they are people who won’t mind hearing you rip ass. Because you will. You can’t help it. Farts just blasted out of my ass like demons out of the pits of hell, and there was nothing I could do but apologize to whomever was at the recieving end, and laugh at their reactions. Really, it’s kind of liberating to just fart. All these times we walk around and hold it…. we should just let them fly.

So anyways, farting and peeing aside, nothing happens, except for sometime in there my water actually breaks. Yeah, didn’t feel that either, it just happened. I didn’t even know until the nurse did a Cooter Check. Nothing. 22 hours of nothing but contractions and farts. This was miserable. I kept thinking it would be anytime, and it never was. My mom had flown in and got there, so she was hanging out. It’s about 8pm or so, and I tell Shane (who was beginning to look like he might smell a little) to go home and take a shower. He leaves. As soon as he gets home (per my idea of timing) I start hurting a lot more. I figure the epidural is wearing off, so I call the ‘ole nurse, who seems to think it might actually be that I’ve made progress. She does a Cooter Check. I’m fully dilated at a ten, ready to push. Of course, the moment Shane leaves, I’m ready to go. I call him and tell him to get his ass back to el hospital. I tell the nurse to give me more epidural. She does not comply.

Shane finally comes barreling into the room, about to knock over the whole scissor/delivery contraption table, some 20 minutes later. He’s freaking out, thinking he’s going to miss something. I’m feeling like I really need to push, but I’m breathing through it. At this point, I have serious-ass pain on my right side, and I’m starting to hurt on my left. Mom grabs the right leg, Shane grabs the left, and I start the pushing. After a few pushes, the epidural is gone. I’m hurting. When I hurt, I kind of withdraw into myself, so I really don’t remember much of this. I remember severe pain, shaking like I was having a seizure, vomiting, and my blood pressure tanking out. I guess this was pretty scary for the others in the room, but I just felt like shit. We proceed to do this for an hour. I’m farting all over the nurse… one time I farted and it splashed blood up on my mother’s arm. My mom, being the saint she is, did not barf on me. Shane, on the other hand, had just eaten shitty vending machine chili dogs, and he nearly lost his lunch. The baby is sunny side up (the little brat) so she won’t come down like she’s supposed to. After all this, the nurse tells me to stop… we’ll just labor for a little while, and let her come down on my own. I have never hurt so bad in my life. She says that she’ll call anesthesia and have them “top me off.” I know this part was bad too, but I really don’t remember it either. Anesthesia comes in, and I say a prayer of thanks, and she gives me the juice. About three contractions later, I’m doing good again, but I guess my blood pressure still sucked, so I’m falling asleep and shaking, and pretty out of it still. This all happens about between 11:30pm and 1 am.

3am rolls around. I’m awake, I feel a lot better, and the nurse says that we’ll try it again. I push like hell a few times, and the doctor arrives. As soon as he walks in, the damned epidural pump starts beeping… out of juice. The doctor tells me I have about 45 minutes before it completely wears off, and we assume the position. While in the position, I proceed to rip ass all over this doctor… and it stinks. I’m apologizing and laughing, Shane still looks like he’s about to lose his lunch (shell-shocked from the previous incident) and my mom is still a saint, dutifully holding up my leg even though she probably was wishing I didn’t smell so damn bad. We push. Hard. With a mission. Because we don’t want this epidural to wear off again before the baby is out. I push, she pops out, and then she goes back in. I cuss her. I push again, and she’s out. God bless my doctor, I didn’t tear or need cut. It makes all the difference in the world, and I am thankful my coot doesn’t hurt today. She’s born at 3:33am. She’s perfect. She’s an easy-going baby, and didn’t cry. She just looked around, gave a few little whimpers, and checked everything out. Shane, in the meantime, is tripping balls, because he thinks all babies are supposed to cry. He doesn’t even notice the placenta come out, which is probably for the better. We finally convince him that she’s OK. We take lots of pictures, and she breastfeeds for about 20 minutes. The nurse then gets me up, walks me to the bathroom, dresses me, squirts my coot with the magic water bottle, and gets me back into a wheelchair, and we’re off to couplet care to enjoy one of the two most beautiful babies ever birthed.

She’s wearing a shirt today that says “worth the wait.”

She was.

There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy” ~Ambrose Bierce

When first formulating my opinions, growing up watching the news with my Grandpa, I formed several opinions which I believed to be my own. Namely, the opinion that people did things sometimes, and for those things, those people should probably be killed. In the Jump/Gary household, there was a quite simple decision-making process on whether or not someone needed to die. We called it “Needin’ a Killin’.” 

Let me attempt to put the NAK scale into words for the first time: 

Things that may justify killing someone else:

1. Murder

2. Rape

3. Adultery in most cases

4. Child Abuse (both sexual and physical)

5. Being a drain to society, re: crackheads, schizophrenics, etc.

6. People who steal your shit.  

7. People who insult your wife/girlfriend/slut you just met in a bar

8. People who insult you in a bar

9. Anyone standing outside a strip club looking suspiscious

10. People who endanger your life by driving like an asshole on the interstate

So that’s a pretty accurate assessment of what went on the scale when I was younger, and redneck, and conservative. In my college days, I spent most of my time with more intelligent people than what I had encountered in Jacksboro, Texas, and I started to get quite liberal on your ass. I figured that if I didn’t think abortion should be allowed, I also shouldn’t think the death penalty should be allowed either. After all, killing someone is killing someone, right? Regardless of the reason, there is only one type of murder, and it involves someone dying.

Now I’m stuck in a crux. I’m not a fan of murder, and of course, it should be very illegal. However, I do see certain populations that should probably be shot, namely to rid them from the presence of society, and to clean things up in general. The older I get (and the more family I acquire) I find myself thinking that more things should be punishable by death. Side note: I realize the legal system is greatly flawed, and that’s not so much what I’m rambling about here. I’m talking about this situation: Dude walks in your house and stabs your momma. You stab him right back. I’m not involving legal process in this case, I’m talking one-on-one killing.

So I’ve been deliberating these thoughts for a few days, and I sit down to speak to my husband about this issue. Typically we agree on things, and I was suprised we disagreed on this issue. He doesn’t think people deserve to die sometimes. He thinks that if someone were to molest our daughter, that life in prison would be an adequate punishment for said molester. I disagree. People that molest children need to be shot. Plain and simple. If my daughter came to me and told me some dude had been porking her at the age of seven, you can damn right believe that said man would be killed…. somehow. I realize many people say this, and you’re probably thinking I don’t have the balls to follow through, and I wouldn’t really kill the dude. You would be wrong. I also realize that by killing the dude, I may very well not be able to hide a body properly, and I may go to jail myself. I’m OK with that. I would hope that the judge would at least see some rationale in my ‘He Needs Killin’ defense.

Granted, my list of people who need killin’ is a lot smaller than my Grandpa’s list, but it’s still there, and I think it needs to be. My problem is with the judicial system, killing people who may not need it because they got some facts wrong, or because the guy couldn’t afford anything other than a public defender. For this reason, and for these people, I am still opposed to capital punishment. But you cross my family wrong, and you may just get some old-west style judgement on your ass.

Sorry if the rant makes no sense. It was sponsored by Ambien tonight.

 

It’s been since March, and I’m missing it. Granted, I should be asleep right now because I’m in an ambien haze, but it’s much funner to write than sleep. There are several things I’ve been wanting to talk about over the past few months, but not enough inspiriation to actually write them down. Considering I will be called when a bed opens up for me to deliver this hell-child, I won’t have much time for ramblings afterward. So here they are, topics I want to address:

1. Healthcare in America (as pertaining to Sicko, Immigration, and overcrowding in the ER)

2. Al Gore: Why he won’t run, but why I still hold out hope in the man. Also, why I didn’t like him 8 years ago, but have fallen in love with him this time.

3. My crazy family, who loves me to death, but shouldn’t do some of the things they do.

4. The return of Chuck Norris

5. Investigating the reason people actually believe in hell, from a biblical and logical standpoint.

6. President Bush, Scooter Libby, Harriet Miers, and the pardons that are about to fly. How much longer until we’re done with this man?

7. Is government sponsored assassination such a bad idea?

8. Prostitution in general

9. Do people need a ‘killin sometimes? I say yes, some say murder is never justified. I figure “He needed killin’” is a reasonable defense in some cases.

10. Why brownies, milk, and beef jerky mix together so well.

11. Why my new job entails listening to people bitch 70% of the time.

I figure if I address these topics in no particular order, I’ll have caught up on my blogging for the time being. See, if I keep this up long enough, I’m going to move to one of those fancy ass blogs over at blogspot. I also might make a seperate blog about work issues… but that seems to be entirely too much writing with a family at home.

 

-I really don’t even know what to say, or if I even have anything. Matter of fact, I don’t have anything at all. I’ve got a lot on the brain, but nothing that really looks right on paper (or on a computer screen). Here we go… it may end up being nothing at all.

– I have the urge to just disappear. It’s been an urge that I’ve had on and off for quite some time. One of these days, I’m going to up and leave one night, and I’ll go to some random place and be some different person. Rationally, I realize that I couldn’t do such a thing, being that I love my family and all that… but it is quite appealing to just pull a Robert Redford (The Apostle) and leave, go somewhere, be something new. I feel so dormant here lately, like I’m not really accomplishing a damned thing. I’m halfway through my life, and I don’t have much to show for it, besides the kid here and the other one on the way.. but anyone can make a few kids, so that’s nothing really exceptional. It doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by either the dying or the stupid every time I go to work. The people I take care of give me no hope in humanity. Last night I worked, and a three year old kid came in with a gunshot wound to the back. I met a woman who was being concurrently raped by her husband and her brother-in-law, who had four children, and didn’t know which man any of the children belonged to. She’s a frequent flier, she’s always in the ER… because she’s always getting raped and beaten. She’s about as bright as a box of rocks. Of course, the smart people are the worst. They’re the ones that come in because they were ran over by their wives or crashed their rich-person airplane.

– I had a panic attack at work last night. I think that’s why I couldn’t quit barfing. I threw up for four hours straight, even after my fellow RN’s gave me nausea meds… my stomach hurts today from barfing so much.

– My father in law, who weighs all of 78 pounds and cannot breathe, is wheelchair bound. He got mad at this other old man (who has no legs) out at the nursing home because the old man threw an egg on the ground and was cursing in front of the ladies…. being that my father-in-law is a rambunctious fellow, he takes a vase, dumps out the flowers, and goes toward the guy, aiming to crack the vase over this other guy’s head. The staff of the nursing home got to Cecil before he got to no-legs, so no-legs survived. As funny as it was, I worry that Cecil may get kicked out of the nursing home pretty soon, and then my ass will be stuck trying to find a new one.

– I feel as if I am being taken for granted by my husband, and I’m not sure he really cares too much about this pregnancy. I’m not sure if I have legitimate reasons, or if it’s just horomones.

I’ve got to go, for my nose is bleeding.

So yesterday morning at 0830, I took a pregancy test. I am positively pregnant. At first Shane didn’t believe me.. and I think he still may have had some doubts. So I guess that would explain all the crying and bitching I’ve been doing for the past week. We’ve been trying for what seems like forever, but is really only about six months. I’m suprised the pregnancy test came up positive so quickly, I was only late two days.

So anyways, since I like the bloggings, I thought I would tell you all what happened to me tonight.

I go in to work tonight, and my supervisor says “Hey. One of your patients last night had bacterial meningitis. You need to take some antibiotics since she was all up in your face.” And I said “What?” all high-pitched and sharp-like. So I said,  negative, I will not be taking any pills, due to being pregnant. If I get sick, I will take some meds.

And then about 12am, I get sick. I’ve been nauseous for a week, so it was really no different at first. Then I barfed. Then I felt hoooot. My temp was 101.3. I said “Sons a bitches, I had better get some antibiotics, justincase.”

And I did. Being that I was knocked up, I couldn’t take the standard pill. I had to have the med that only comes in an injection. So therefore, everyone at work found out I was pregnant. I was doing good at keeping a secret too… I know it’s not kosher to announce a pregnancy before three months along… so I really wanted to wait. No luck.

So anyways, on to other subjects. Ms. Mead and I are going to Ikea tomorrow to do some shopping! Svelte. I’m going to look at baby stuff!

I know it’s entirely too early to be planning anything, but I just can’t help it. I know about a billion things can happen to a pregnancy this early on… and I need to remain guarded, but I just can’t. We wanted a kid SO bad… I just can’t help but be overjoyed.

I’ve got to go to bed now… it’s 4am and I’m too excited to sleep.

Tristyn Lee Sparks, born 10/12/06 @ 10:21pm, weighing 7lbs 7.5oz and 19″ long

He’s perfecto. Blonde hair, brownish/green eyes. I wanted to take him home with me, but my sister wouldn’t let me. Now if I could only get one of my own….

He’s a good baby too, sleeps a lot, doesn’t cry too much, not really fussy about things. Don’t you want one now?

Could someone please tell me what that word means? What is it? Why are all these administrator people at my job using it? What is a “synergistic workplace?”

Is it energy? Does it mean some sort of special energy? Maybe synonomous energy?

I love these people that sit behind their desks all day and come up with surveys and powerpoints and diagrams about ‘optimal patient care,’ all the while they’re drinking their starbucks and forming committee subgroups of larger ’steering’ committees…. when they haven’t been at the bedside of a patient in ten years minimum.

Never fail, about six times a year they roll out some sort of new paperwork we’re supposed to fill out or ‘be subject to disciplinary action.’

Not only do I have to send out at least 16 thank-you cards to my patients a month, but I also have to fill out the rounding sheet (four checkmarks and initials every hour) the computerized charting (which is the only part that actually goes in the patient record)… the ‘green sheet’ for ‘medication reconcilitation’ (which is another paper I don’t know what the hell even means)….. let me think…. Oh! Lab labels, two blood bank ID labels minimum, stocking checklists, monthly education credits, glitch forms…. there’s more, and I work at a place that is better than most others.

OK, I’ve got my bitch out for the day and I feel much better now. I’m going to go get some synergy now. Peace.

For some reason, the last three times I’ve vaccumed, I’ve nearly had a panic attack. I don’t get it.