I'm the late nurse this week so I don't get home until six pm, which is when Jack has his shower and gets ready for bed.  Only two more late shifts and then I won't be working them again, so we'll manage.  I went to an information night last week for Jack's kindergarten class in the fall.  We're working on his letters and words as you can see.  It's surprising how many of the letters he does know and once he figures out that they make words, there'll be no stopping him.  I hope.  Jack's father has learning disabilities and didn't learn how to read until he was in grade five; I bought Hooked On Phonics, and taught him to read myself.  The program worked very well and this time I will know what to do if Jack stumbles when he's learning to read.  When my son went to school thirty-five years ago, the school system had thrown phonics out the window and a lot of students struggled.  Lets hope phonics is back in the school room now.

Miss Katie is doing well and here she is with one of her favorite caregivers.  I bought the sweatshirt for Katie because I love the irony.  To be honest though, Katie is much smarter than people give her credit for.

I shot this leopard's bane in Vancouver but I noticed the other day that mine is starting to make it's way through the dead leaves that I pile on my garden in the fall.  I'm a fan of yellow flowers; they always make me happy.  

I have sixteen days of work left which will fly by.  Everytime I go to work I have to ask for more vacation days off as I'm continuing to acrue vacation days, until my actual retirement date.

Speaking of work, things we've had lately.

An older indigenous man who had been stabbed multiple times and shot, when he was younger.  One of the stabbings involved his subclavian vein on the right side of his chest.  He survived the stabbing but that vein no longer works and it is the vein that we use to install a PORT (a type of central line).  He needed a PORT for his chemo but we had to switch things out and we ended up putting a PICC line in (peripherally inserted central catheter) into his arm.  His son also overdosed last fall on opiods.  How do people keep going?

A thirty-eight year old woman, eighteen weeks pregnant, newly diagnosed with breast cancer.  It took years for her and her partner to get pregnant.  Her body is saturated with estrogen and the cancer will take off like wildfire.  She will not see her child grow up and that breaks my heart.

Met up with an old friend, she used to care for Katie, and her cancer treatment is going well.  I also met her husband for the first time (her second husband) and found out that he also has cancer.  He has cholangiocarcinoma but it was caught early, an incidental finding when he had a gallstone and his treatment is going well.

I've been telling patients at work that I'm retiring and it's hard.  Some of these patients I've known for thirteen years, and a part of me feels like I'm abandoning them.  It's also hard for me to hear that I will be missed, compliments make me squirm.  One of the young nurses has taken over charge duty and she's fantastic, and I'm happy to step back from all of that, but a part of me is sad too, even as my knees complain bitterly.  I will miss these young nurses so much.  They are part of my family.  A bittersweet feeling and I guess I'm thankful for that because there has been a lot of sweetness and I need to remember that.