Playing Jenga. Chloe wrecked it.

Bec at ScienceWorld trying to blow the ball through the hoops. She actually succeeded in getting it through both hoops. I almost got it through one.

At ScienceWorld in front of the ball contraption thing. I cant think of the correct word for it but hopefully the picture explains it well enough.

Not the best shot but this is a pic of the day we went up to Cypress mountain. We got to see proper snow and Dan (our cousin-in-law) got to have a great day snowboarding.

This is (obviously) Chloe with some random stranger we found at the fountain. He was very entertaining and helpful in directing us to the tourist spots in North Vancouver. He also threatened to push me in the fountain. I threatened to push him back and we left it at that.

This is the electric 'steam' clock in Gastown. It rings on the quarter hour. I videod it piping and making its little piping noise. Its funny but not that cool.

This is just down the road from where Bec lives in an area of town called Gastown, founded by Gassy Jack.

Day who knows in vancouver
Hello! I havent really posted in a while. Mostly cuz no one has commented so I don't think anyone is reading this and so I couldnt be bother. But also kinda that we have been up to lots of things. Last week was a little quiet which was good. The weekend was full of 18 hour days which was exhausting but fun. This week has been good. Today is tuesday. Yesterday we went shopping around the place with Bec and Stephen and I bought I few presents as well as stuff I forgot to bring or have lost. Today we went to the science centre with Bec and it was really fun. Kinda similar to the ones I have been to but different activities and we ran around acting like kids. My favourite bit was the muscle stuff like wheel chair riding and jumping high and testing reflexes. It sounds boring but it wasnt. Sadly we didnt get to see the body works exhibit as shown in the latest Bond movie. I am gonna search for a picture to show you.


Anyway, we might be going shopping again tomorrow and hopefully on thursday we will go to vancouver island which should be nice.
Bye for now.

Day 2 in Vancouver
I thought I had a really bad sleep last night cuz I kept looking at the time on my mp3 player and it was saying things like 1:30, 2:30 etc and I felt like I had no sleep. Then finally I looked at my watch a few wake-ups later and it was 11.30. Oops never converted the time on my mp3. So I woke up kinda late in the day which doesnt matter cuz Bec and Stephen both work nights so they need to sleep during the day. They still were both awake when i got up. Actually I am not sure Bec has gone to sleep yet and she's working tonight so I don't know how she manages. I need lots of sleep after night duty. Although I need lots of sleep all the time. After watching our nerdy sister play World of Warcraft for a while (you are a nerd too if you know what that is), Chloe and I walked downtown (although we are staying in the downtown area) and did a little bit of shopping and a fair bit of looking. Chloe got a photo in front of subway here. And I bought a cute fold out map. It turns out that while thankfully Chloe has a sense of direction, I have very little and would have gotten very lost without her or a map. So I bought a map so I can educatedly argue with her that my way is the right way. (Although it rarely is). Anyway I should go will try to post a couple photos maybe tomorrow.

Hey Everyone from kinda freezing Vancouver. We got here 10hrs ago and its been a great day. Its wonderful to see Becky and where she's been living and meet a bunch of people that she lives with. We went downtown for a bit today to do a bit of shopping and have lunch. And then I crashed asleep for 3 1/2 hours. I just got up. I am really looking forward to the next three weeks and as I regain my brain my posts may become more coherent. Oh and as slightly alluded to earlier, I havent been to cold, in fact even a bit hot at times in the layers I was wearing.

Excitement! Stress! Anticipation! Tiredness!
Just a little of what I am feeling right now. Why? *sings* I'm goin to Canada, I'm going to Canada. Super Yay! I am extremely excited cuz I get to see my sister who I haven't seen since march last year. As an added bonus I get to see a reputedly cool country (and freezing too) but mostly I am excited to see Bec. I am gonna try to put up blogs and stuff as we go but we will see how keen I am once I get over there. In the mean time, enjoy the hotness of Australia. hahahaha

You wouldn't think that a crazy, insane, one in a million day at work would be the perfect way to end a huge year. No rural nurse would think that 5 air ambulance retrievals in one day is a good thing (we usually have about 1 per month). And I don't think there are too many people who want to work 13 hours on a Sunday. Much less New Year's Eve.And yet this is what my last shift of the year was like and it was one of the best I've had. Sometimes the worst days are the best days.

Let me start at the beginning. Regular readers would know of the training course I recently went to. Since then I have felt significantly more confident and competent in my nusing practice and on New Year's Eve I put those new found skills to work. The day started at 5.30 am when my housemate rang me to find out where we keep a very useful and important machine that we rarely use. This was because she was looking after a patient who had started to bleed internally. She also mentioned that they had a patient with a foot injury from a motorcycle accident would need extensive surgery. An hour later I started work and jumped into the thick of things even though I knew none of the patients and had no idea what was wrong with most of them. The two sick ones took up most of the morning as we tried to stablise the patients and organise them to be retrieved by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Finally after hours of low blood pressure and fluid replacement, we got the call that RFDS were on their way. At 2 pm, I went with the patients in the ambulance to meet the plane at the airport. We had no sooner loaded the patients into the plane then the local paramedics got called to a car accident and (because it would take to long to drop me at the hospital first) I got abandoned at the airport all by myself after making a quick call to my sleeping housemate asking her to pick me up.

We arrived back at the hospital at 3 pm just as the first ambulance was turning up. I couldn't find any of the other nurses on shift so I met the ambulance as it pulled in. I knew it was going to be a long night when I saw one of the volunteer fire fighters driving the ambulance meaning the paramedic was in the back with a very injured person and more were on their way. The first patient was the young driver of the car. He had a badly smashed up face and was not in very good shape. I spent the next 3 hours or so with another nurse and 2 doctors trying to stablise him for retrieval. Meanwhile, the other two passengers had arrived unbeknownst to me and I found out later that my exceptional housemate had the uneviable role of doing initial assessments & management of these two because my patient was the more serious of the three and commanded the initial attention of the doctors.

To summarise, the injuries and treatment - my guy lost 1.2 litres of blood from facial injuries alone and required a breathing tube (which I got to assist with!). He had multiple facial fractures and to my knowledge is still in intensive care. The other two passengers had facial fractures and were also air lifted but I think had been discharged from hospital awaiting further treatment. Sarah and I performed excellently in this stressful situation and it was a poetic illustration of how far we have come in only 1 year. It was such a proud day in my career as a nurse. Happy New Year!