Night shift and the story of Thursday

After the exhaustion that was last week, I decided that this week I wouldnt do nights. Still down with the agency for whatever, I resolved to ask for afternoon shifts... and I got one, on Saturday, a particularly well paid day! However that was the only one and I ended up back on nights on Monday night (end of a public holiday therefore too good to turn down) and Tuesday night... and then wednesday night. Got up wednesday at 1200 and went to Pilates ( are you impressed?) and then my boss from my main job rang... did i not realise I was rostered for an afternoon shift? I had it written down for next week! OH no! So i gamely went into work on the 3 hrs sleep i had had, and did some clinic work. Then the afternoon got more bizarre. txt msg from my daughter "by the way Ben came home from his excursion with sea urchin spines in his foot". That didnt sound too good, but I was a bit uncertain about what exactly sea urchin spines would do... like are they venemous? I liased with my medical colleague.. well acutally I asked my husband who was working in Emergency department. He asked the paediatric consultant who said they needed to come out promptly as they often became very infected, aside from the fact that they hurt like anything. Rang children to check how things were at home. Ben informs me that he has googled his injury (of course he has!) and according to a story he read on google sea urchin spines are made from calcium and should be absorbed by his body. You have to laugh dont you? Regardless of his google information I felt that the injury should be checked out to see if we could get the spines out, as they were incredibly painful. So.. my clinic was about finished although it was early... raced home (40 minute trip) picked up damanged child, refused pleas for junk food on the way. Ben is 14 so while his foot was sore, he thought he was still pretty focused on food.
Returned to hospital, about 8.15 by this stage. Emergency department as feral as can be. Triage nurse gives me the 'you are wasting my time look'. I had my book and settled in for a long visit. Then had to withstand Ben's pleas that we visit the vending machines. By this stage I am wondering why I have bothered. I am tired, grouchy, haven't eaten properly and want to go to bed! However Ben's Dad is busy out the back trying to facilitate things for us, and the end result is that we get referred to the GP clinic which has No queue! Not only that, they see us straight away, were incredibly nice, agreed that the spines were a concern and set to work right away to fix him up. The first thing the Doctor said is that sea urchine spines can be very difficult to remove and that often they need an ultrasound to find them all.. oh dear not looking good for getting sleep!. He then told me that the last case he had, needed referral to a plastic surgeon to get them all out! OMG, this is sounding really serious.
Then he got some local anaesthetic and talked really nicely to Ben about what he was going to do. Ben being a staunch little kid declined the local and said, just dig them out. So the doctor did just that, and Ben was as brave as can be. Mike arrived about then having finshed his shift and we all went home about 9.45. Not bad at all, except for poor old me who was so sleep deprived I could barely function. I am still amazed at how brave Ben was. I would have taken the local any time!
So here we are crack of dawn on Friday. My weekend plans are ruined because I had written down my roster wrong and i am in fact working afternoon shifts for the next 3 days. Not flash concisdering I just did 3 nights. So I am having a long sleep in today... I will have to get to that next! But we had planned to go camping.. as it is the annual Brewers camp this weekend. A bizarre event which consists of large groups of men who make home brewed beer going to a camp site, brewing a rock beer, which is heated by having boiling hot rocks tossed into it. And it is all lubricated by large amounts of beer, both home brewed and bought. Yes, just a bit of a drunken weekend really, but the boys enjoy it and last year when i went there were a few other families and it was just a nice break. This year it is down at Wilson's Prom so I was excited as I hadnt been that way before. As it turns out, I wont be going that way! Not this weekend.
So.. having covered yesterdays exhausting adventures, and the fact that my life has had little in the way of sleep lately, I guess I should move on to hobby stuff. Namely the scrapbooking.
Now Sarah has released 2 kits since I last blogged (i personally suspect that she doesnt sleep either). The first is a fantastic freebie kit she made in collaboration with Vicki of A work in progress designs It is called Let it Rock. This is a Great kit. With nice bold colours and a bit of grunge. It also features a bit of a rock theme with cool guitars, perfect for all those photos of would be musicians (we have some pretty cool pictures of Ben with guitar hero). I decided to forgo the guitar theme as some of the other CT had that covered and here is my page.
Now the good news, is that they released this kit a few days ago, so hurry on over to their blogs to pick up the bits, as they are all there! And there is so much you can do with this kit!
I am hoping to get back here tomorrow to give you some more info on Sara's other new kit called Butterfly Kisses, but I wont be offended if you have a look on her blog and check it out today. I am hard at work in my spare time (!!!) on a qp so stay posted.
Now finally I have been trying to put in a little info about books.. I think my main problem is that i read them so quickly that it is hard to remember them all. However I have just finished another JD Robb book, She also writes as Nora Roberts. I like her books a lot. I have decided that it is because her characters are so appealing. They are interesting and funny and seem real. The crime series which are written under the JD Robb name are all about the same detective and are very readable, I am not a huge fan of crime books, but once again, interesting characters make it work for me. the books are also set in the future so i like the little sci fi element. I am reading another book by mercedes lackey, writing this time with James Mallory, a series called The Phoenix enchanted. Unfortunately book 3 is not yet written so I will be having to wait on that. But I have a Nora Roberts series out from the library too, so i have plenty of good reading material up my sleeve.
Ok.. I should be going back to sleep or I wont be having a sleep in this morning. Just wanted to remind ppl that we are still alive.. even if it was touch and go yesterday.