Somehow I allowed time to get away from me again. However, not a whole lot is new in the Nelson Home.
The new job is going well. I have only worked 3 weeks at it, so I am still figuring out some things and getting used to the new hours. It is nice having a more regular schedule though. My new co-workers are very nice and I am learning a lot on the the job. So, all in all it is going well.
Last weekend my parents came to visit. We spent time shopping and just hanging out. My parents bought an IPad while they were in town, and they became pretty addicted to it over the weekend. We also ate at Carnaval Saturday evening, which is a Brazilian Restaurant. They bring meat selections right to your table, and if your ready for more you turn your token to green, and if you need to rest for a while you put your token to red. They also had this awesome pineapple that they bake and then put cinnamon and sugar on. It was a fun experience and they food was really good!
I am now 17 weeks pregnant! I am finally just starting to show, but still able to wear my regular clothes thus far. I am feeling great, no dizziness or anything crazy with my pseudo-tumor. At the end of February I have my ultrasound and can find out what we are having, so that is really exciting! I can't wait to start buying things once we know the sex of the baby. I am almost halfway there!!
Not a whole lot else is new, just looking forward to spring and warmer weather!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
New Year, New Job!
Happy 2012 Everyone! I know I am about 10 days late on this, but I just don't know where the time has been going lately. So far it has been a good year!
First of all, I am 15 weeks pregnant right now, and it is going really well! All the medical stuff that was going on with me earlier (the pseudo tumor) has finally settled down and I have been feeling great! Last week I had an ultrasound done just to make sure everything looked good, and it was amazing to see my baby in such amazing detail. I could even see his/her fingers!!! It definitely made things more real for me.
The other big news right now is that I started my new job. I am now working in the Recovery Room, which is where patients go as soon as they wake up after surgery. We get all kinds of surgeries and all ages of patients, so it's nice to have a variety and a challenge. My schedule is completely different than it used to be. I used to work 3 days a week, 12 hour shifts, and now I am working 8 hours shifts 5 days a week, so it is really different for me, but I am liking it.
Right now I am orientating on the unit, so I am in the process of learning how everything works in the recovery room. It's still early, but I can tell I am going to like it. I am surprised at how much I already miss Orthopedics, but I think some of it was that I was so comfortable on Ortho.
Those are the major things that are new in the last couple weeks. John and I are very excited about Baby Nelson's arrival in July, and we are preparing by starting to shop around for baby items at all the different stores in town. I am still fitting into all of my clothes as of right now, but I am sure maternity clothes are right around the corner!
Thanks for reading!
First of all, I am 15 weeks pregnant right now, and it is going really well! All the medical stuff that was going on with me earlier (the pseudo tumor) has finally settled down and I have been feeling great! Last week I had an ultrasound done just to make sure everything looked good, and it was amazing to see my baby in such amazing detail. I could even see his/her fingers!!! It definitely made things more real for me.
The other big news right now is that I started my new job. I am now working in the Recovery Room, which is where patients go as soon as they wake up after surgery. We get all kinds of surgeries and all ages of patients, so it's nice to have a variety and a challenge. My schedule is completely different than it used to be. I used to work 3 days a week, 12 hour shifts, and now I am working 8 hours shifts 5 days a week, so it is really different for me, but I am liking it.
Right now I am orientating on the unit, so I am in the process of learning how everything works in the recovery room. It's still early, but I can tell I am going to like it. I am surprised at how much I already miss Orthopedics, but I think some of it was that I was so comfortable on Ortho.
Those are the major things that are new in the last couple weeks. John and I are very excited about Baby Nelson's arrival in July, and we are preparing by starting to shop around for baby items at all the different stores in town. I am still fitting into all of my clothes as of right now, but I am sure maternity clothes are right around the corner!
Thanks for reading!
Friday, December 30, 2011
Nelson Family Christmas
So, I was originally supposed to work today (after a two week long vacation) but instead I was mandated, and I probably won't have to work at all today, so I decided to catch up on my blogging from this weekend.
On Monday, December 26th John and I headed from Minnesota to Brookings to celebrate Christmas with John's extended family. We had soup and munchies for lunch, and then we opened presents.
Tuesday we took the day off from Christmas and cleaned the house and caught up on laundry. It was nice to have a day to ourselves.
Wednesday we went out to Jim and Barb's for Christmas. We had lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and cheesecake. It was delicious. Then of course it was time for presents again. We announced our pregnancy the same way to John's family, and they were all very excited as well.
It was an awesome Holiday Season, and we still have New Years to celebrate! I'm ready to grab my sparkling grape juice and welcome in 2012!
On Monday, December 26th John and I headed from Minnesota to Brookings to celebrate Christmas with John's extended family. We had soup and munchies for lunch, and then we opened presents.
Wednesday we went out to Jim and Barb's for Christmas. We had lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and cheesecake. It was delicious. Then of course it was time for presents again. We announced our pregnancy the same way to John's family, and they were all very excited as well.
It was an awesome Holiday Season, and we still have New Years to celebrate! I'm ready to grab my sparkling grape juice and welcome in 2012!
Christmas in Minnesota
John and I headed to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas on December 23rd. The 23rd was actually my mom's 50th Birthday so we celebrated with family and friends at the Frontier Bar. It was a pretty good turn out and it was nice to catch up with everyone I hadn't seen in a long time.
On Christmas Eve, John, Dad, and I made cashew cookies because I wanted to bring some to the Nelson Family Christmas. Then we opened presents with my parents, brother, and sister. We had my parents open a Grandparents book, which was our announcement to our family that we are expecting a baby in July. It was nice to finally share the news with the family. I have known since about week 3, and now I am 13 weeks pregnant. That is a long time to keep a secret!
After opening presents, we headed to Janel and Tim's to eat and hang out. At around 6pm we headed to Fairfax to watch the Christmas Program. Afterwards it was back to Tim and Janel's for more eating and mingling.
Christmas Day we went to church in the morning, and visited with people we hadn't seen in awhile. After church we headed to Mark and Kathy's to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side. It was nice to see everyone and hang out for a while. And my mom was busy blabbing to everyone that she was going to be a grandma, she was really excited.
We had a really good Christmas in Minnesota, it just went by way too quickly. We were so busy going from one place to another, that the weekend flew by. But it was a good holiday get-together, and now everyone knows that we are expecting a little one in July.
Happy Holidays!!
On Christmas Eve, John, Dad, and I made cashew cookies because I wanted to bring some to the Nelson Family Christmas. Then we opened presents with my parents, brother, and sister. We had my parents open a Grandparents book, which was our announcement to our family that we are expecting a baby in July. It was nice to finally share the news with the family. I have known since about week 3, and now I am 13 weeks pregnant. That is a long time to keep a secret!
Christmas Day we went to church in the morning, and visited with people we hadn't seen in awhile. After church we headed to Mark and Kathy's to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side. It was nice to see everyone and hang out for a while. And my mom was busy blabbing to everyone that she was going to be a grandma, she was really excited.
We had a really good Christmas in Minnesota, it just went by way too quickly. We were so busy going from one place to another, that the weekend flew by. But it was a good holiday get-together, and now everyone knows that we are expecting a little one in July.
Happy Holidays!!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Christmas!
John and I opened presents last night because we will be in Minnesota for Christmas. I think we did a pretty good job.
John got me a Kitchen Aid standing mixer, which I absolutely love. I just had a cheaper hand held mixer, so it's a treat to finally have a nice mixer to cook and bake with. He also got me pajama pants, a book light, and a couple books by my favorite authors.
I got John a Shop Vac (hey, he wanted it), a coffee thermos, starbucks gift card, sweatshirt, travel coffee mug, a movie, LED flashlight, and a remote control helicopter (he wanted that too).
We both had a fun night opening gifts and can't believe Christmas is almost here! Merry Christmas too you all!
John got me a Kitchen Aid standing mixer, which I absolutely love. I just had a cheaper hand held mixer, so it's a treat to finally have a nice mixer to cook and bake with. He also got me pajama pants, a book light, and a couple books by my favorite authors.
I got John a Shop Vac (hey, he wanted it), a coffee thermos, starbucks gift card, sweatshirt, travel coffee mug, a movie, LED flashlight, and a remote control helicopter (he wanted that too).
We both had a fun night opening gifts and can't believe Christmas is almost here! Merry Christmas too you all!
Catching up
Holy Moly, it has been 2 months since I last blogged. I don't know how the time has gotten away from me. However, in my defense I have been busy and have had some medical stuff going on. I will get into that later. I will touch on the highlights from the last couple months.
Halloween- Well I had to work Halloween Night, so I handed out candy to the little kids until about 6:15pm and then headed to work. We had around 30 kids come to our house, not too many, but enough.
Thanksgiving- Again I had to work. I actually worked Thursday-Sunday of that weekend, so needless to say I didn't celebrate the holiday in any fun way.
At the end of November, I had a routine eye appointment with my Optometrist. Well, it turned out that my optic nerve was swollen, meaning there was a bunch of pressure in my head putting pressure on my optic nerve. The Optometrist referred me to a neurologist, who examined me and then had me have an MRI of my brain to see what was going on.
I did not expect any of this after a routine eye exam. Let me tell you, having an MRI is not really a fun procedure. It's loud, crowded, and a little scary. I am glad I am not claustrophobic because I don't know if I would have been able to do it. But anyway, the MRI came back completely normal, no brain tumors or any other scary things, which was both good news and bad news. It meant that my brain looked good, but meant they would still need to do more tests.
I was also referred to a Ophthalmologist who took pictures of the back of eye to look at my optic nerve and to measure the pressure in my eyes. He basically told me the same thing as my Optometrist, which was that I had severe papillary edema.
My Neurologist was guessing that it was a "pseudo tumor " which means that my brain acts like a tumor is there, when really there is nothing abnormal. They don't really know why it happens. Anyway, the neurologist had to perform a spinal tap to diagnose and relieve the pressure. When she tapped me (which wasn't very fun) my pressure was 51, and normal is around 8. So there was a ton of extra pressure on my optic nerve, which if it gets bad enough can cause permanent eye damage. Yeah, pretty scary stuff.
During the spinal tap, she removed about 4 tubes of cerebrospinal fluid, which is a very high volume. This would relieve the pressure for about a day or two since the body just makes more cerebrospinal fluid. In order to treat the pseudo tumor, they put me on a diuretic to help slow the making of cerebrospinal fluid.
So there it is, my life for the last couple months. Like I said, it's been pretty crazy. Along with the diuretic, they are monitoring me pretty closely with every 2 weeks appointments with the Ophthalmologist. I never imagined having such a unique medical situation. However, I am finally feeling good, and at my last eye appointment they said the swelling was mildly better, so it's on it's way.
In other news, I accepted a new nursing position at Avera. I am going to work in the Recovery Room, which is where patients go immediately following surgery. It will be patients of all ages and of all surgeries. It will be 8 hour shifts which will be a nice change. One weekend every 6 weeks and one holiday per year. There won't be any night shifts, except for being on call, and every time I come in on-call it's time and a half. I am really looking forward to this new opportunity, but I will miss all my Ortho co-workers!
Sorry for the wordy post, but I had a lot to catch up on. I can't say my life is not interesting. Thanks for reading!
Halloween- Well I had to work Halloween Night, so I handed out candy to the little kids until about 6:15pm and then headed to work. We had around 30 kids come to our house, not too many, but enough.
Thanksgiving- Again I had to work. I actually worked Thursday-Sunday of that weekend, so needless to say I didn't celebrate the holiday in any fun way.
At the end of November, I had a routine eye appointment with my Optometrist. Well, it turned out that my optic nerve was swollen, meaning there was a bunch of pressure in my head putting pressure on my optic nerve. The Optometrist referred me to a neurologist, who examined me and then had me have an MRI of my brain to see what was going on.
I did not expect any of this after a routine eye exam. Let me tell you, having an MRI is not really a fun procedure. It's loud, crowded, and a little scary. I am glad I am not claustrophobic because I don't know if I would have been able to do it. But anyway, the MRI came back completely normal, no brain tumors or any other scary things, which was both good news and bad news. It meant that my brain looked good, but meant they would still need to do more tests.
I was also referred to a Ophthalmologist who took pictures of the back of eye to look at my optic nerve and to measure the pressure in my eyes. He basically told me the same thing as my Optometrist, which was that I had severe papillary edema.
My Neurologist was guessing that it was a "pseudo tumor " which means that my brain acts like a tumor is there, when really there is nothing abnormal. They don't really know why it happens. Anyway, the neurologist had to perform a spinal tap to diagnose and relieve the pressure. When she tapped me (which wasn't very fun) my pressure was 51, and normal is around 8. So there was a ton of extra pressure on my optic nerve, which if it gets bad enough can cause permanent eye damage. Yeah, pretty scary stuff.
During the spinal tap, she removed about 4 tubes of cerebrospinal fluid, which is a very high volume. This would relieve the pressure for about a day or two since the body just makes more cerebrospinal fluid. In order to treat the pseudo tumor, they put me on a diuretic to help slow the making of cerebrospinal fluid.
So there it is, my life for the last couple months. Like I said, it's been pretty crazy. Along with the diuretic, they are monitoring me pretty closely with every 2 weeks appointments with the Ophthalmologist. I never imagined having such a unique medical situation. However, I am finally feeling good, and at my last eye appointment they said the swelling was mildly better, so it's on it's way.
In other news, I accepted a new nursing position at Avera. I am going to work in the Recovery Room, which is where patients go immediately following surgery. It will be patients of all ages and of all surgeries. It will be 8 hour shifts which will be a nice change. One weekend every 6 weeks and one holiday per year. There won't be any night shifts, except for being on call, and every time I come in on-call it's time and a half. I am really looking forward to this new opportunity, but I will miss all my Ortho co-workers!
Sorry for the wordy post, but I had a lot to catch up on. I can't say my life is not interesting. Thanks for reading!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Halloween
I like the Halloween Holiday. I like decorating, and someday it's going to be fun to dress my kids up in cute Halloween costumes. I also traditionally watch the movie Hocus Pocus every Halloween. This movie is corny, and was made back in 1994, but it's just a tradition that I have, and that I will share with my kids someday.
I also am looking forward to handing out candy this year for trick or treaters. Last year we lived in a locked apartment complex, so we didn't really have a chance to hand out candy. This year we are looking forward to it. I have to work a night shift, so I can't help out with it too much, but hopefully there will be some kids to the house before I have to leave.
In the spirit of Halloween we did put up a little bit of decoration to hopefully welcome some trick-or-treaters.
I also am looking forward to handing out candy this year for trick or treaters. Last year we lived in a locked apartment complex, so we didn't really have a chance to hand out candy. This year we are looking forward to it. I have to work a night shift, so I can't help out with it too much, but hopefully there will be some kids to the house before I have to leave.
In the spirit of Halloween we did put up a little bit of decoration to hopefully welcome some trick-or-treaters.
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