LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR!

It is officially summer. officially officially. finished my last exam yesterday and started work today. 7am til 8pm. yea that's right, 13 hours. but it was fantastic. i love the patients and the staff are fantastic. hard working problem solving fast paced and autonomous nursing is where i belong. today my preceptor had another student working with her - from NFL! since he'd been there for a couple months already he showed me the ropes and thought me lil tricks to make my life easier for the next 2 months at CCN. I mostly shadowed today and did HR stuff, but I did get to do vitals, clean some oozing serosanguineous chest wounds, assess and monitor my vomiting patient and learn all about ECGs and telemetries - white snow over green trees, smoke over fire and brown in the middle! while i was down at HR one patient started spurting blood out of her trach, so i was disappointed i missed that, but back tomorrow for another long day, then the weekend OFF!!! :)
Stay tuned, i'm sure i'll have lots of great stories to share this summer

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH



60 years ago my grandparents met in England at the Fish & Chip shop. My grandma coming from the dance and my grandad probably coming from a Manchester United soccer game drinkin Guinness (or some English beer). He stood her up on their first date but was brought to his senses when my Aunt Liz kicked him in the rear and pulled him by the ear and then he took her on a proper date to see a show (in which they snuck into for free). A few years later my grandad got down on one knee and asked my grandma to marry him. They married at the age of 26 and decided to move to Canada a few years later bringing along Aunt Liz & Uncle Ed and cousin Neil, leaving behind the rest of the family in the hopes of finding jobs and a new life.
They came over on a boat carrying all their belongings in a big trunk tied with a huge rope. My poor grandad was seasick the entire week long (?) boat ride. Once arrived they lived in a hotel and worked a variety of odd and terrible jobs before my grandmother was hired on as a secretary at a Cardinal Newman High School and my grandad hired on at Olson Elevators (?) - he worked on the elevator for the CN Tower!
They've been married for 51 years and have been through so much together. Raised 5 kids plus cousin Neil and neighbor Donnie (who should never be allowed near rabbits!).
The funniest stories my dad and his brothers and sisters have told me have been:
-well the rabbits but it's too cruel to tell on my blog - yet makes even me and Danielle, the vegetarians in the family, laugh when the story gets told at every family gathering...
- playing golf in the backyard and peter chipping the ball right through the kitchen window and into the sink full of dishes where my grandad was washing them ...BLOODY HELL FIRE!
- Neil's ginormous boat in their driveway for months and months...i swear it's just gonna be hear for a week...
- Andrew learning to drive in an empty parking lot and hitting the only lamp post in the whole lot and scratching the whole side of the car - bloody hell we're going home

The only time I got bloody hell out of my granddad was when we would watch the soccer game together (Manchester United of course) and when they'd do something wrong...bloody hell! Fire! What the bloody hell are you doing twinkle toes?! ...my granddad was a huge soccer fan...played when he was growing up and then coached the stoneycreek minor league to the national championships winning coach of the year.

He had such a great sense of humor making the silliest jokes and being a lil bit of a goof even leading up to his last days. I see where uncle James gets his goofiness from and i love love love it! family gatherings are never dull! My grandmother has always been the serious one who likes to be in charge and it was hilarious to see my grandad roll his eyes at her. He always took my side in everything too which was great. But grandma would never stay angry at him because he was her "buddy" and all he had to do was blow her a kiss and she'd soften right up.
I don't know any other couple in the world that are/were so devoted to each other. My grandmother spent everyday looking after him for the past few weeks/months and slept in the chair beside his bed at the Henderson Hospital for 2 weeks before he passed away peacefully this past Wednesday. We honored him on Friday at the funeral with red carnations on our shirts and flower arrangements in the shapes of soccer balls. Most people wore red or white. We tried as much as possible to make it a celebration of his life in spite of the sadness.
I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to become closer to him and get to know more about him over the past year since I moved to Ontario. I miss him very much.

Happy Father's Day Granddad.