Friday, December 17, 2010

7 Quick Takes Friday

It's been 7 days since I last posted and since I have a ton of things to write about and absolutely no time to write them... I've decided to join in on Conversion Diary's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

-1-
Last Saturday I ran my first trail race! It was a 10k which was perfect because for my long run that weekend I was supposed to do 6 miles... why not throw in an extra 0.2 miles right?! Well, unless you are dumb like me and you decide to follow people off trail and make it 7 miles instead of 6.2... not so fun then. It was by far the hardest run I have ever done... possibly harder than my half marathon because it was UPHILL the entire first half. I survived though and I even got a cool medal for it!

-2-
The following two days after my first trail race I could barely walk because every muscle from my waist down was screaming at me and punishing me for being so cruel. It was so bad I had to call in sick to work the day after.  Don't think I will be doing that race again next year... 
 
-3-
I was lucky enough to meet a good portion of Chris' family last week (he has 8 brothers and sisters... 6 boys and 3 girls in the family!) I was expecting to feel incredibly overwhelmed because I'm so introverted and I come from such a small and not-so-close family but it was actually really, really great and I absolutely love them all already. They were all so welcoming and I was so thankful for that. I've always wished I had a bigger family that I was close to and I'm excited to get to know them all more. 

-4-
Despite the fact that I feel like I have no time to catch up on anything... blog writing, cleaning, sleeping, running, seeing friends... I have been able to keep up with my marathon training... I think signing up for regular races has helped with this and it has paid off! I officially made a record for my mile time this morning on the treadmill. When I started running 7 months ago I ran a 13 minute mile and today I ran an 8:45 minute mile! Woohoo!!
-5-
This week at work was absolutely INSANE. I got to see a man's chest opened up at the bedside by our CT fellow because he went into cardiac tamponade. The only way to fix it was to crack open his chest right then and there. Literally I stood a foot away from a man's open chest and beating heart. By far one of the most amazing things I have EVER seen in my entire life.
-6-
I was able to take care of this same patient the day after they opened his chest up and it was incredibly terrifying for the first four hours because he had an intra-aortic balloon pump. It was my first time working with one of these and within minutes of me getting report on him he crashed his blood pressure and went into a heart arrhythmia called SVT (supraventricular tachycardia) = not good.
It has been a very long time since I  have been scared at work and let me tell you.... I was TERRIFIED. It all ended up being okay though and it actually gave me a great shot of life in terms of being excited about work again.... I mean how many times do you get to see a person's heart beating in their chest?!
-7-
 I have yet to do any Christmas decorating... yes... it is the 17th of December and I just started my Christmas shopping last night and I have not hung a single Christmas decoration and my fake tree is still sitting in it's box... hopefully I will fix this problem today and hopefully I can take some pictures and post them soon... haha might be an ambitious goal.... wish me luck.
On that note  I think I am going to get started.... time to be productive. :)

Yay for the weekend being near! Happy Friday Friends!

5 comments :

  1. You are a rockstar with the running. I'm so impressed! (and also feeling super guilty because I haven't run in months! Oy!) So glad you enjoyed Chris' family - that is one heck of a lot of siblings!

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  2. It was our pleasure to meet you, Andi! Hopefully next week you'll get a chance to meet the rest of the family...

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  3. happy Saturday to you honey: hope the decorating is at least enjoyable :) our tree (which Petra picked out) is already loosing its needles, Andrew gave it alittle TLC, hopefully whatever he put in the water gives it enough life to last thru Christmas. Are you free at all tomorow? I'd like to call ya....love u, Aimz

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  4. so glad to have stumbled upon your blog. as a fellow cardiac ICU rn, i'm looking forward to reading your stories!

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