forty one

I turned 41 today. There were no strokes, unlike last year. And my husband remembered it (unlike last year.) No drama, or stress, or tears, or worry. Just another birthday. Mellow and low key..perfection! My kids have one more week of school, and then summer vacation. Roughly 9 weeks of nothing to do, and barely a care in the world. We've had our pool up now for over a month. We were able to go in it around Memorial Day weekend when we had a small heat wave. It was wonderful. We threw in the a/c, and ran out of towels from all the trips in the pool (and my kids inability to remember to use the same towel!) That was the last of the heat. Since then it's been more or less raining, sorta cold, and just generally crappy. Summer does not appear to be in a rush to get here, but I won't be seeing as much of it as I would like, due to the fact that I'm going to be working a lot more this summer, and my husband will be home with the kids. My new job in the ER is going well. It's an entirely different world working in an emergency room. It's barely been 2 months, and I've seen more blood, more gashes, tick bites, severed fingers and dog bites than I ever thought I would witness in my lifetime. I've got some great stories already, like the man who checked in after he accidentally cut his neck while using a saw. The nurse that was sitting next to me, asked to see it, thinking it would be something benign, and easy to fix. He was afterall, just standing there with a towel on his throat, and had driven in. How bad could it be? I wish I had looked away, or had been doing something else. Instead, I was focused on this man, this poor man, who had no idea the severity of his injury, until I saw it, and gasped. I'm pretty sure the entire waiting room heard my gasp, and I have no doubt that they all saw me cover my mouth just to stop the long horrified gasp from escaping any further. There was an opening in this guys neck. I'm pretty sure it winked at me, or at least tried talking to me. It was 3 inches long, an inch wide, right across his jugular. He was sent to the Operating Room, and has recovered..unlike myself who has the image of this talking neck burned into my brain. forever.