All day these thoughts have pounded my brain, distracting whatever I'm trying to do, caused me to take ten minutes or more to choose a loaf of bread in the store. For years I've thought of the freedom retirement could bring.

I'd think how nice calling my time my own would be, then I'd work another nursing shift,and hardly note how easily I traded another day of life for a paycheck. Not that we don't need some support. Years ago I'd read things like "Man doesn't live by bread alone", or "A loaf of bread, and wine, and thee" and thought I knew what it meant, but I only glossed over some interesting words that may as well still be new to me.

Recently I wrote about changes made at work to fill empty beds on the nursing units, and how I chose to work on the Alzheimer one because I didn't want to work in the more intensive care areas.

The first few days I was on the Alzheimer unit I was so busy learning the patients' names and their usual routines, and giving them medications, that I paid little attention to other things there.

My eyes started running, and itching and sometimes would burn a little. Thinking it was a springtime allergy, I would use eyedrops. When I was home a day or two, the redness and itching and burning would ease up some, until I went back to work, and walked past the big locked doors that kept the unit closed up. I couldn't figure out what was causing the misery, until I almost stepped in the food and water that's set out in the nurses' stationfor the three cats that have been on the unit so long, they're considered part of it.

A little aside from this story is that it probably has daughter, Barb a " Chelsea Morning" almost rolling on her floor. Years ago when I went to her house to go to her daughter, Krissy's, college graduation, soon after getting there, I started coughing andsneezing like crazy, and Barb said "Mom, I think you're allergic to my cats". I didn't believe her, and made my opinion quite clear, to which I remember Barb gave up trying to convince me, but the determined look remained in her eyes. So I owe her about this one.

Not only do the Alzheimer unit cats eat and drink their fill in the tiny corner that's our nursing station, (I'm getting a little territoral here) Up higher than a grownup's shoulders, for confidential privacy of the patients' records, is a thick wooden kind of railing that's the cats' favorite place to rest, and if they care to, take naps. How they hang there, with all four paws dangling down, and so relaxed, while I'm dying from their dander, or whatever's killing me, is just not fair.

Aside from an attempt to lighten this with some humor, it really is a serious situation.The last shift I worked on the unit, my eyes were so irritated that on the way home, the edges of the road or painted boundary lines seemed to wax and wane with a ribbon flowing motion, and that was very scary.

A few days ago I wrote about a book, titled "Success Is A Journey" by Brian Tracy, that offers much help about reaching goals, and dealing with our lives. On page 62, the author writes that whenever God wants to send us a gift, He wraps it up in a problem. ...... and that we should look into our greatest difficulty for the gift it contains.

After that very scary drive home, I thought a lot about this entire situation; how I've wanted to live free of a work schedule; have the energy that time can give, for thinking of wonderful books to write. Delighting myself in growing killer tomatoes, and lovely plants all over the house. Not having to just hope I can be home on holidays. Spending time with my family, celebrating occasions with them. I might have to give them less expensive gifts, but they'd be getting more of me.

When the alarm clocks' screeching (I set two of them) un-nerved my spinal column, it was so easy to hop out of bed. Before I poured my first cup of coffee, I picked up the phone, and called my boss, and let her know I can't keep working on this unit with the cats.

They couldn't find a replacement for my next scheduled shift, so I agreed to work it. Knowing it would be the last one there, I could do that, runny eyes, sneezing, and all. Lunch time sometimes gets lost in whatever's going on there, and it did. An extra tray had been setting out too long to eat, some attempt at serving patients an oriental meal, so I passed on it, but took the dried looking fortune cookie, and crushed it in my hand, and I couldn't be more serious when I tell you what it said. It read: "You will soon make an important decision". As I remember this now, I'm reminded of my own words earlier here, about how God uses unusual things to help us look at ourselves.

It was suppose to to be a twelve hour shift but lab reports that should have been dealt with, but weren't, and other patient related problems, and more paper work, kept me there until the twelve stretched into fifteen hours since I began the shift.

I had to find a supervisor to help me with some of the care. When I returned to the nurse's station, one of the cats was stretched out on a stack of patients' charts and papers, and another needed me to get out of its way so he could enjoy a very late snack. I tried to not breathe in much while they were so close around, but it is their home, and a lady always knows how to make a proper exit, or when she's reached her limit, or both, so I can give them that. But I still don't understand how they can sleep on nothing but a rail, and not fall off.