So Much To Catch Up On!

Last weekend I drove to Logan, UT to complete the Little Red Riding Hood all women's bike ride.  It was so fun!  The Taylor-Bowen Team (Casie, Mali, & I) broke our spell.  You see, on our previous ride 2 weeks prior we had a flat tire within the first mile that we patched and kept going flat, 4 wrecks, 1 bent handle bar and a few bloody extremities - and that was just a 30 mile ride!  I suspected that 50 miles was just more area and time for things to go wrong.  However, we were able to pull it off this time with no wrecks or flat tires.  Mali did run into the back of me one time, but we both were able to hold it together.  It has been so fun riding with my sisters.  I dearly miss exercising with them.  I have started doing my Insanity workout here in AZ again and have enlisted some of my fellow co-workers.  I cannot help but laugh as they are laying on the ground gasping for air, swearing and sweating.  I can only laugh cause I have been there myself.  In fact, I slightly humbled my clinical educator as took pictures of him leaning against the wall trying not to puke.

Mali, Casie & Me

Look at all those women!

Mali & Casie

Me!

Me, Casie & Mali

We all got pink glitter tattoos :)  I called it my princess power leg.

I was supposed to go to one of our other bases in Alamosa, CO for training this week, but luck would have it that the training came to me and I got to stay home.  Keith, my clinical educator, set up Sim-man in my living room (due to all the space).  Sim-man is a robotic mannequin that cries, sweats, has a pulse, breaths, pupils and eyes move, he even pees and dies.  Trust me, I know the dying one since I couldn't save him a few times.  Sim-man in run by a computer, and I cannot see what is coming next.   It is supposed to simulate a real person to put me into scenarios I might encounter with patients.   I also get to do procedures such as intubation (putting a breathing tube in), needle cricothyrotomy (putting a needle in someone's neck to breath), and needle darts (putting a needle into someone's chest when they have a popped lung).  This is fun!

This is Keith setting up Sim-Man.  He's fixing his junk so he will pee on me.

I was looking for something and for some reason I felt the need to hold on to Sim-Man by his nose.  I hope I don't do that to a real patient.

Intubating - Oh I'm almost there!

Yes!  I got it!

And finally,  one of my biggest headaches and regrets has been hiring a moving company to move my belongings from Salt Lake City, UT to Az.  Needless to say this shady company has still not delivered my stuff.  I have had to hire a lawyer, I have filed complaints with the Colorado Attorney General, and sent my sob story to local TV station in Denver.  Denver is where the moving co. is based and holding my stuff hostage.  I am sleeping on a borrowed air mattress, sitting at a borrowed folding table, and lounging on my jelly chair I bought at WalMart after a flight.  Oh, and don't even get my started on cooking.  I have one little borrowed pot, paper plates and plastic utensils, and my George Foreman grill from my college days.  That grill has been so faithful and traveled all over this country with me, but tonight I opened the box and the grill was in pieces.  However, it still worked and I made it work!  Life on "the res" is interesting and never dull despite the lack of civilization.

I love my new lack of furniture.

Borrowed air mattress and bedding.

Trusty George Foreman Grill

Using my trauma scissors to lift the lid.  Amazingly it still works.

Last week my friend Will from Vail kindly brought me my things that I had left in Vail.  He helped me fight with my moving co and would have dinner ready at night when I came home after a flight.  Here he refused to show his face in a picture because I kept teasing him about his hair.  I said it looked like a tumble weed. 

This is shy Will

Getting ready to take a nap during the flight home.  Notice the trees out the window....