The Friedman Fam Update!

Here is a general update from the Friedman Fam!

I have been gone the last three days. I worked at the hospital working night shift. It was a bit of an adjustment because I haven’t worked night shift since April but I am reminded of how much I love working some dayshift and some night shift because I truly believe that there are benefits to both shifts.

Yesterday in between my shifts, I stayed at the super eight in town. My hospital is AWESOME and they cover most of the hotel cost to offer a place for employees to quarantine from their families when they are taking care of COVID-19 patients. 

It was so nice to get some uninterrupted sleep during the day and not have to worry about falling asleep on the way home. I have driven home several times now after working night shift and I haven’t had any issues with being too tired to drive. This is such a relief because that was a concern of mine when considering taking a new job and commuting.

I’m definitely getting my footing again after being thrown into a totally new environment with such a steep learning curve it. Some days I wonder how I ever thought I was actually qualified to teach nursing students because I feel so lost myself. My eyes are now open to how small my world used to be. It truly taught me how much I don’t know.

Now that I am working up to my full scope, I have a far higher job satisfaction (we will just leave it at that) and as one of my very first nursing instructors put it I “feel like a nurse” again.

Once again I am reminded of how terrifying but rewarding it was to totally dive headfirst out of my comfort zone into something brand new and I 10 out of 10 recommend it to anyone who is considering it.

Craig has been working on the farm. Nothing really new there. They are busy and he’s working more weekends than usual. He usually ends up hanging out at my moms for supper when I’m gone at work. We are so thankful that my mom is able to support us in that way and I’m also grateful for the relationship that Craig and my mom have.

Gannon is doing wonderful since his hospital stay. We got some of the test results back from the biopsies that they did which showed Gannon has a sensitivity to lactose which isn’t surprising at all.

We are still working on getting him into physical therapy which has been a frustrating process. I’m working to see how we can ease the transition of care from children’s of Wisconsin in Milwaukee to University of Iowa. A lot of these phone calls need to be made during business hours which is hard to do when I’m sleeping for three days in a row and I usually have to leave a voicemail for them to call me back. I feel like Gannon is walking is getting better every day which is encouraging. That boy, he just absolutely loves to be outside and will cry if I let Betsy outside without him.

Carver becomes a pickier eater by the day and this morning refuseD to eat the “peel” on his pop tart. He is growing up so much and has matured by leaps and bounds the past few months.

I got a tagalong bike which essentially turns any bike into a tandem bike for a kiddo and I can’t wait to try it out this weekend with him. Even though Carver is the rougher and tougher of the two boys, he definitely is more hesitant to try new things and more scared and cautious than Gannon.

We are so excited. Craig‘s sister Kelly works in retail and was able to snag us a pool! We will fill it up and have it ready for this weekend! I have no idea what it takes to maintain a pool so it’ll be a learning process for all of us. We’ve been spending as much time as possible outside every single day and we absolutely love summer.

That’s all I have for you today. We have a long weekend of family time together and I’m so excited to see the boys again after I’ve been gone! I also get to watch my niece Georgia tomorrow. My sister Kelli is a nurse as well and she works weekend package (works every weekend for a higher pay rate) I usually get to see Georgia on the weekends when I watch her or at my moms house.

My other sister Kayla is on her way to my moms house as well so I get to see her and her son Jasper this weekend. She invited me to go hiking with her in Decorah today but I think I’m gonna pull the “I just worked night shift” card because she said she wants to do 4 miles! I sure do love some quality sister time but I just don’t think I can bring myself to hike four miles today. You can follow her at Pin’s Needles on all social media platforms.