Guess who's back? Back again. Whitney's back. Tell a friend.

JK. Enough Eminem.

But I AM back!!! I haven't blogged in years. For those who have just tripped over this blog, or who have entered, or re-entered my world in the past few years, HI. My name is Whitney. I am a comedy blogger. Or just a regular blogger--depends on the day. 

Re-entry into the blog world for me is both sentimental, and nostalgic. I find writing very therapeutic. I also find my life relatively entertaining. It is also periodically embarrassing. I find joy in exploiting both of those aspects of my life and airing them out to the public for your entertainment. 

As some of you know, I made the career move to start travel nursing just a little over a year ago. I love what I do as a nurse, but I got tired of the corporate politics, and the garbage that came with being a staff nurse. I was tired of the chronic understaffing. I was sick and tired of being hauled into the "principal's office" and being told that I was going to be punished for not taking my breaks--only, we were chronically short-staffed with no one to break me. I was told that it was my job to find someone to break me, but, as luck would have it, I don't know how to make competent nurses materialize out of thin air to give breaks. I kind of suck that way as a normal human. 

Then Covid hit. We were then chronically short-staffed, and up in the face of a deadly virus. I finally decided to pull the plug and play the travel nurse card. No more staff meetings. No more trips to the principal's office to be reprimanded for slave labor working. I was done. ✌ OH...and big money.

OFF TO THE WORLD OF TRAVEL NURSING!!!

I took my first travel nursing contract in San Jose, California. It was awesome. I loved it. I got to learn new things. I made new friends. I got to travel and see some amazing new things. I took trips to Monterey, and Carmel. I was making a ridiculous amount of money for all of my (ahem) trouble. Some people say, "When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." Uh, NO. God slammed that door on staff nursing (and put some stank on it...with a Z-snap), and He opened a tunnel for a freight train--and breathed life back into my nursing career. I am very grateful. 

My second travel contract was in Sacramento, California. I was still in the process of figuring out how I wanted to go about housing, and having a vehicle for my contract. I decided to drive up to SAC, leave my car there, rent a place that specifically catered to travel nurses, and then fly home on my days off, and rent a car when I go back down to L.A. 

Hindsight is 20/20, but I look back on those poor choices and wonder what I was actually thinking. I rented a room in a 4-bedroom house, with 3 other travel nurses. The house was lovely. The nurses were not tidy. AND...I had to share a bathroom.

 I feel like you reach an age where that really shouldn't even be a thing. Like, I am at that age. 

Anyway, I am setting the scene for how I ended up in Sacramento, and subsequently breaking my face in a stupid/rogue accident. Hence the title of this blog, "I DO ALL MY OWN STUNTS".

It was pretty epic,

A little history. I am a klutz. I blame the fact that I have these crazy long legs, and a short torso. Some people who know me are probably like, "Your legs are GOALS!!!" Even my children say that. However, they are SO LONG, and my torso is SO SHORT (like, Bambi gets me). I am this tall girl who gets into cars, and then can barely see over the steering wheel. When I was dating my ex-husband, I borrowed his car one day, a mutual friend saw me driving down the road, and told him that a 10-year old had stolen his vehicle. I can't make this 💩 up.

I digress...

So...I was staying up in SAC. I am a night shift nurse. My days/nights are never normal. I am constantly trying to live in two worlds--day, and night. Consequently, something's got to give. I have tossed around the idea of becoming a day shift nurse, but it is hard to want to. The pay is less. AND...there is a very different vibe between the day shift nurse, and the night shift nurse. Hard to explain, but it's a real thing. Anyway...

So, I was up in SAC. I had this trip to Napa Valley planned on my days off. I booked and amazing resort. I had wine tasting on the brain. I was READY!!!

Because I work nights, it means that I get off of work on my day off. I usually leave work by 7:30am or 8am. I go home. I shower. I nap. Then I try to get up so I actually can enjoy some of my day off. However, on that day, your sleep is off. You run on short sleep. Then, because you napped, when normal sleep time comes, you aren't tired. You are wired to stay up almost all night.

I set my alarm that night (actually, early morning...because I can't sleep like normal people!!!). I set my alarm for 12:30pm. I figured that would give me enough time to wake up, get ready and drive the 1.5 hours to Napa. Hotel check-in was at 3:00pm. My alarm went off at 12:30pm. I was super tired. I got up, knew I needed to pack, and walked into the bathroom. That was the last thing I remember. 

I woke up, face-down on the bathroom floor, in a puddle of blood. I was in my PJs. I had my UGG slippers on. I had no idea what had happened. 

Being the ridiculous person that I am, when I finally came to, I was like, "Holy shit! This is a huge mess! I have to clean this up!" I quickly stood up, looked in the mirror, saw my bottom lip hanging off my face, checked to make sure I had all of my teeth, cleaned up the floor, folded up the bathroom rug (which looked like a crime scene piece of evidence), and then wadded up a piece of toilet paper, tucked it into my mouth to absorb the blood, and then decided I needed to go back to bed.

K. I am a nurse. This whole scenario sounds so crazy to me now, but this was the scenario, nonetheless. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I WAS CONCUSSED. I was not making good decisions. If Nurse Whitney could have spoken to Face-On-The-Floor Whitney, she would be like, "Um, Sis, that was a poor choice. You could've died. And stop trying to clean everything up for your roommates--like, you have bigger fish to fry." But Floor Whitney and Nurse Whitney had morphed into two different humans that day. 

I want to stop for a brief intermission here. I can read your thoughts. You've probably drifted off to your wicked CSI and Dateline skills. Probably like, "Oh, she must have been drinking/been drunk." 

First of all, I am bumping my head on 50. I enjoy alcohol. However, I am also a control freak. I also hate the idiocy of drunk people, so I try to never aspire to be like them. 

Fun drinking?...YAY!!! 

Drinking to get drunk completely wasted?...LAME. 

 I was also running on short sleep, trying to flip/flop my days and nights, and trying to get to Napa in zombie mode that day.

BACK TO THE STORY!

I tucked TP (of all things) into my face to stop the bleeding, and went back to bed (fully concussed). My lip was still hanging off my face in my slumber. It's times like these that you must know that it's just not your time to die. Like, I probably should've died. But God was like, "Nope!...girl...you have a trip to Napa!!!" #thankyoujesus

I woke up (3 hours later). I picked up my phone. TP in my mouth. I texted my boyfriend. I said, "I fell. Lip hanging off face. It's not good." Then I drifted off again. 

I woke up to him calling me. While I was on the phone with him, I was fading in and out. I didn't know anyone up in SAC, and my roommates were not home. He was like, "Can you take an Uber?" I said, "I don't think so." Then I went back to sleep.

My poor boyfriend. First of all, I am in long distance relationship. I am dating an Alaskan. We have been (on-and-off) for nearly 14 years (mostly on). Imagine getting this information from 2,500 miles away, and how helpless you would feel as the partner, not knowing how to help.

My boyfriend contacted emergency services--only emergency services in Alaska is no help in Sacramento, California. Also, I am kind of a shitty girlfriend, because I didn't give him the address of where I was staying in Sacramento--you know...on the off chance you wake up one day, and break your face on the floor at the house you are staying at for travel nursing.

He finally was able to go through emergency services in Alaska to then get transferred to emergency services in California. Then he had to keep me awake on the phone long enough to get the code for the front door of the house for emergency services to rescue me. It was a successful mission.

The ambulance came and picked me up. I was in my PJs. I had bare feet (a cute pedi and toe rings, though). Lip still hanging off my face. They told me how busy all the area hospitals were. They turfed me to the one I actually was working at. I was still loopy as hell. Still had no idea what happened to me. Because I was considered "stable", they had no room in the ED and sent me to the waiting room.

The waiting room was a cluster of crazy. One woman freaking out because she wanted pain meds stronger than Tylenol. Homeless people left and right. One guy, sitting next to me, dripping blood everywhere after taking a drug elevated joy ride on his skateboard. I was like, "I have entered the seventh circle of hell."

I was in my blood-stained PJs. The ambulance took me in my bare feet, so I ended up with a pair of yellow "fall risk" grippy socks from the hospital. I felt totally mocked at that point. As a healthcare worker, it's an F-you, with a crescendo, "F-YOU!!!...YELLOW GRIPPY SOCKS FOR YOU!!!"  LOL! 

They finally took me back to the ED. I felt so bad for the doc. Because of my concussion, I had been puking on the way in. Then the blood in my mouth. I'm sure I had death breath as this poor doc was sewing up my face. And he had to sew...DEEP. I ripped that mo-fo from the bottom of my jaw all the way up to my lip. He sewed on the inside, and the outside of my face/mouth.

My CT Scan came back negative, even though I was loopy as fuck. It was a bad day. AND I HAD A TRIP TO NAPA PLANNED (priorities)!!!

I got discharged from the ED. I had no car. I was still in blood-stained PJs. No shoes. Yellow "fall risk" grippy socks.  I looked like the progeny of a murderer who hooked up with a homeless person. Definitely NOT my finest moment.

I walked out the doors of the ED. The lobby was still jam packed. People were waiting outside the doors. Made me glad I wasn't and ER nurse. 

I walked over to one of the stone benches, sat down. Then I tried to summon an Uber. 

As I was sitting there, a guy walked up to me. He said, "Hey, you got a light?" I looked up from my phone. He saw my broken face, He said, "Oh, I am so sorry, are you ok?" I said, "Yes. But I don't have a light." He said, "I am so sorry...I hope you have a blessed day." 

Thanks...but...too late.

Then the Uber came. I have taken a lot of Ubers in my life. This was BY FAR the most humiliating. Blood-stained PJs. Hospital grippy socks. I felt so bad for the driver. He got a huge tip. I had to redeem my humiliation somehow.

He dropped me off at the house I was staying at. Concussed Whitney brain said, "You need to put stain remover on the bathroom rugs and throw them in the laundry to get rid of the blood!!!"

Like,  why wouldn't that have been my first priority?...I serve people for a living. My roommates are pigs. Forget the fact that I am concussed with a broken face--we gotta Martha Stuart those bathroom rugs, or somebody is not going to have a place to dry their feet!!! Story of life.

Then I called the hotel I was supposed to be staying at that night in Napa. I had reserved two nights. They told me if I didn't come that night, before midnight, that I would lose my reservation. I had pre-paid. The money would be lost.

What do you do when you have a trip to Napa planned, sustain a concussion, don't know you have a concussion, your face looks like a sewing project in home ec,  but the hotel is threatening to cancel your reservation?...YOU DRIVE TO NAPA!!!!

My packing strategy was probably not the best for this trip. I did the best I could.  The whole day was pretty much a blur. I also hadn't eaten all day, and it was getting late. My teeth felt messed up. I didn't know if I could chew. I decided to go through the only drive thru I saw open--which was Carl's Jr. I have literally never eaten there before. I ordered french fries to try to suck on/eat on the way to Napa. Concussed logic is always the best logic. LOL.

As I was driving through to the drive thru window, the guy opened up the window, told me my total, looked at my face, and said, " Ma'am...are you ok?...like...are you safe at home?" Literally one of the sweetest humans, LIKE EVER. I felt like saying, "Yeah, I did this shit to myself, and like--stone-cold sober. I'll be here all week. I'm just super talented."

I drove to Napa that night. Boyfriend wasn't going to be able to join me on that trip, originally, but he ended up taking an overnight flight down to SAC, and then Ubering to Napa to meet me. He is the sweetest. Not exactly how I had planned that trip to go. 

Not sure if you can get a DUI for being concussed without knowing you are concussed. BUT DAMMIT....WE MADE IT TO WINE COUNTRY!!! And before they cancelled my resort reservation. 😂

Boyfriend took me back to the house up in SAC after our trip to Napa. We were doing our forensic research to try to figure out how I broke my face. Turns out, the transition to the bathroom was not nailed down properly. It came up 2 inches when you hit it the right way. It must have been my lucky day in my night shift daze. 

From what we can guess, my slipper hit it, got wedged, I fell forward, hit my chin/face on the vanity, and then hit my head on the tub to seal the deal...and that is the story. Pretty lame. I've tried to kill myself way harder and in way more unique ways in this life--the cliff jumping in Kauai was the MVP. Next time I will try to go bigger 😂.

Face full of stitches and 3 root canals later (and potentially braces in my future)...I am still here. Oh. And I do all my own stunts. 

BUT WE MADE IT TO NAPA!!! 

😂🍷