Memorial Day Weekend

It was quite cold and rainy all weekend, which made for a perfect weekend for work.  And that's exactly what I did.  Friday through Monday, just about 50 hours in all.  And I wasn't even sad about it because my job is awesome.  It is living up to every good expectation and hope I had.  I can't believe how fast paced it is and the kind of variety we see every day.  It is so exciting and the time FLIES by!  Things are probably going to be changing here in a little bit because they are planning on hiring a couple new PA's for the ER, starting maybe around July.  So who knows what my schedule will be like then.  For now I just work whenever I can.  I saw my first patient suffering from severe alcohol withdrawal this weekend.  He came in talking about how he was in a shootout and he barely made it out alive and there were bullets flying everywhere.  And he would have come in by ambulance except he had to talk to the National Guard.  And all manner of other entertaining hallucinations.  Dr. Beachy, one of the locums guys who worked this weekend, played right along with him and it was pretty funny, actually.  Saw a guy who had chopped off his finger with a hatchet while getting kindling for a fire - most likely living in a van or RV and trying to boil some water or something.  His finger sat in an ice bag on the counter for a good part of that shift. 

There was a guy that had gotten hit by a wood beam or something at work and had a HUGE laceration on the back of his head.  It was open to his skull basically.  When we were numbing him up, Dr. Beachy was tapping on his skull with the needle.  Wowsers.  So much blood all over the place.  He helped me put in a few absorbable sutures under the skin and then we put 20 staples on top.  Totally gnarly.  We talked a ton in school about diabetes and the wounds you can get etc.  Saw my first good diabetic wound this weekend too.  This guy had a huge ulcer/blister on the bottom of his big toe.  It's crazy to me...the kind of guys that are up here.  They make tons and tons of money and almost 100% of them have no insurance and the worst health ever and complain about money or not having jobs (this guy worked in the oil fields for like 4 plus years and then was homeless and has no job right now, etc) and it just baffles me.  What the heck do they do with their money?  We never cease to be amazed by the kinds of people here and their different lifestyles.  Also a first for this weekend was my first time to give someone bad news.  I had to tell a darling older lady and her husband that there was a possible stroke or tumor on her CT scan.  I've been around a lot of people having to give the bad news but this was my first time and it was harder than I expected.

 So not to make this whole post about work stuff - I will stop.  Besides I start to forget all the crazy stuff we see because we see so much.  I'll have to take notes and just post about the most exciting!  Tanner didn't have to work this weekend so he was left to his own devices.  He enjoyed himself some exciting Indy and Nascaar races and had a little visitor. 

This little mangy thing has been hanging around the last couple of days.  Tanner sent that top picture and asked if we could keep him.  I almost said yes.  Well, I did say yes...I was almost serious.  He's a cutey.  And probably would be super adorable all cleaned up.  He's a spaz though.  Had some fun with the doggies, but we haven't seen him much this afternoon. Hopefully found his way home. 

And the last exciting thing of the weekend...except that it happened today so technically it wasn't part of the real weekend - but we got our furniture.  The last of the unpacking is D-O-N-E.  It's all clean and there are no cardboard boxes out in the living area ("neatly" tucked away in the back rooms) and all our books are on the shelves. 

But now all the trinkets, etc that I had on these shelves over the counter are on our bookshelves, and so I'm not quite sure what people do with shelves like these.  Thought about putting dishes there, but it gets to dusty in here, that would be a bad idea.  Any ideas of what looks good and what I should try?  I'm not a professional make-my-house-look-cool person, and I am still unsure of how I feel about the bookshelf arrangements and such.  If anyone has good ideas or suggestions...I'll take them! 

Hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend as well!  We missed all our family!  Especially my favorite family reunion ever up City Creek!  Hope it's not too long before we get to be there again...

DISCLAIMER!!! If you are easily offended or offended at all, this isn't for you!

Okay so I (Tanner) am going to attempt to post a blog about a couple of funny stories we've laughed about up here. I'll start off by saying, THERE WILL BE SWEAR WORDS in this post. I will kindly put a DISCLAIMER up in these more colorful blogs. Me not telling it exactly how it all went down won't do the stories justice.

So now that we have covered the need for a disclaimer I'll get into the stories.

The first of which happened a couple weeks ago while we were in the WalMart. (I have a funny feeling most of our funny stories will happen there). If you've ever seen the webpage PeopleofWalMart.com or ever called them WalMartians, then you know the type of people we are dealing with here. I swear all the ugly people in the world, and a select few that look like mutants all shop at the Williston WalMart.

At any rate, back to the story. So Carissa and I went into the store to do our weekly shopping. We learned not to go in on Friday night, because well, you don't have anything to choose from, as the pics show.


So unless you want the one piece of meat the rest of the mutants don't want, then you just don't have a whole lot to choose from. So I decided to go over and get some fresh ham sliced. Like any and everything in Williston, there is a huge line, so I just took my place. Naturally, they only had one lady working behind the counter, while the other lady who could've been helping, but wasn't, was wiping down her garbage cart instead. So this gruff old man, who I figured was probably living in his RV just out in the parking lot (yes, it does happen) covered from head to toe in the nastiest dirt/oil combination one can possibly imagine, comes up to me and says:
"What the F*#^. They have 20 people in line and one person working, while the other bitch wipes down her damn garbage cart?"
Me: Yeah I guess so.
Grumpy old man: This place is complete bullshit. Son-of-a-bitch I hate these people.
Me: Hahaha
GOM: All I want is my damn sandwich cut in half. Is that too damn much to ask?
Garbage Cart Cleaning Lady: Excuse me sir? I don't have time to do that shit. Look at this line! It's huge and you want us to cut your damn sandwhich?
GOM: Well damn right I do. It won't fit in the f&^%$ing fridge of my RV (I was fist pumping myself because I was right about living in the RV), if it isn't cut in half.
Garbage Lady: Can't you just rip it in half? It's a damn sandwich.
GOM: Hell yeah I can rip it, but I want it cut. It's nicer that way.
Me: HAHAHAHA, while thinking, "This guy like something nice?"
Garbage Lady: Well we are short over 300 workers and you want me to cut your damn sandwhich? I don't have time for that! And she walks off.
GOM: What the hell was that bitches problem, she took longer to argue with me than it would've taken for her to cut the damn thing.
Me: Yeah I agree. Hey why don't you just get it cut before I order, it won't take long.
GOM: Thanks man............... hahaha can you believe that grumpy old bitch?
Me: That was pretty amazing.
So he proceeds to ask the other lady to cut it, all the while complaining up and down how rude and ornery that other lady was. In the meantime, getting the sandwhich cut took longer than anyone with an IQ over 3 shouldve taken, the Garbage Lady had returned, and he got his sandwich back at the same time. He grabs it, Thanks the lady who cut it and said "Tell that other bitch thanks for her help." Just loud enough so not only can she hear it, but so can the rest of WalMart. Carissa and I were dying laughing.

So as you can see, these people dont really care for each other, and their priorities are a little bit off. Which funny enough, leads us right into the next story.

It's never a good thing when the first thing your wife says to you as you walk in the door is:

Wife: So it's no secret I see guys penis' at work right.
Me: Well I guess not, no.
Wife: Okay so this black guy (this is where I tuned her out, because she is now scarred for life, and I will never be looked at the same) came in today wanting to make sure his junk is normal.
Me: Awesome. I'm screwed.
Wife: HAHAHAHAHA, no, but he had me write a Dr's note to his girlfriend on a perscription pad letting her know everything checked out okay.
Me: Seriously? That's what he paid his co pay for, was to get his junk checked out?
Wife: Yep.

So as you can see, these mutants really have their acts together. Nothing but the finest in a boom town......... and I'm one of them for the next 3 years.

Band Day...

May 12.  It might be the biggest day of the year in Williston.  Hot dang was there a crowd!  It started off with a parade.  They even threw candy.  Haven't been to a parade where they actually threw candy for who knows how long.  It was extremely entertaining seeing the kids all around us fight for all the goods.  The paraders weren't skimpy with the candy either.  There were a few kinds of candy I wanted to go after and take a few kids down in the process, but Tanner wouldn't let me.  He was much kinder and more sharing than I was :)  They had bands from all over around here.  Even one from Canada.  There were old people bands and elementary and Junior High bands and plenty of High School bands too.  I probably should have taken more pics, but I didn't know I was going to be a blogger then :)  I think the thing that impressed Tanner the most was the amount of women with tatoo's on their breasts.  Apparently it's the thing to do up here.  We definitely needed more than our two hands to count them all. 

This kid was fiesty.  He and his 3 siblings or cousins or whatever made out better than halloween.  Lucky. 

 There was also this photographer that I WISH I would have gotten a picture of.  I'll let you picture him yourself.  Imagine: 50 year old man about, skinny, kind of balding with a long, wispy ponytail.  Each ear pierced and decorated with a long dream catcher/feather type earring.  He kept walking around us taking pictures of the parade.  Probably some fancy newspaper professional, I'm sure.  The best part was when he would lay on the ground in the middle of the road to capture that special shot - the backs of band players as they walked down the parade route.  Only by the time he got down on the road in his sacrifice-your-body-for-the-cause type way, the band was 20 yards down the road and probably were just specs in the distance.  I bet they looked good from that angle though :)

Then after the parade they had a bunch of vendors selling food and crafts and treats and what not set up at a park near the parade route.  It has a big outdoor stage where they had a bunch of other bands playing throughout the afternoon.  We didn't stick around much for that.  There was also a car show that didn't seem too promising, so we bailed on that as well.  But shoot, there's always next year.  And the next! Happy Band Day everyone! 

The Move...

Yep.  We live in Williston.  North Dakota.  It is, in fact, part of the United States.  I never knew, or cared...to be completely honest.  But now we will be calling it home for the next few years.  Mercy Medical Center offered me a pretty great job in their booming Emergency Room and we couldn't resist.  And with a little nudging from family, we decided it would probably be a good idea to document this wild ride via our very own blog.  And since we love Strange Brew (who doesn't!?), and we practically are in the great white north...our blogger URL was born.  Stay tuned for updates on life, crazy stuff we see, do, witness, experience, etc.  Prepare to be shocked and awed...and try not to be offended or disturbed - we can't make this stuff up :)

We got here after a long, 14 hour, uneventful caravan drive. There was some beauty along the way.  We saw a couple moose...one just chilling in the middle of a river in a canyon we drove through.  Unfortunately didn't get anything but a mental snapshot of that.  

 Through bug stained windshields we enter new territory...oil territory - as seen by miles of oil train cars and oil rigs all over the place.

 I think I was a lot more excited about our new home on the initial vision (May 3) of it than Tanner was.  And the first couple of weeks didn't help, seeing that our moving van was a week later than we expected.  We enjoyed a borrowed TV from someone at work (thanks Rick and Lori Lee!), 2 $9 Wal-mart camp chairs, and a cardboard box ottoman.  We did pretty well with that for a bit.

  

I started my job on May 7 and mostly just did orientation for the first week.  The second week was mostly shadowing and trying to figure out how the Emergency Room works up here.  Then our stuff got here on the 16th.  It was glorious to sleep on a bed and sit on a couch.

So I think we are gonna be okay.  Our home away from home.  A little sanctuary from the rest of the madness that surrounds us.  Definitely a typical trailer park.  I'm sure there will be a future blog on that and some of our classy neighbors :)


But I guess that brings us up to speed on the basics of our move and getting here.  Lots more stories already, but we'll get caught up with those in other blogs.  So stay tuned for more Adventures in Williston!