Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Nursing school, recycling, and messy rooms

What follows is a terribly mundane very condensed and incomplete update on my life. I don't really delve into the dirty details (for example, the fact that I have thrown several temper tantrums over the past few months) simply because my fingers are tired.

Nursing School:
I'm officially in my 3rd semester of nursing school which deserves a big "Thank You God" because I didn't think I would survive summer. All of the lectures and lab skills and clinical rotations just went right over my head and I felt like the dopiest nursing student ever invented. And then, suddenly, at the end of the 4-months- of-material-condensed-into-9-weeks-of-stress, it all made sense. I told my clinical instructor, "It's finally clicked! Now that the semester is over, I finally get it." Well, better late than never I suppose. Highlight of the summer: I had a patient who hates needles. She was in the hospital because her craniotomy incision had become infected--and a wound infection after surgery is no joke. WARNING: description of a surgery to follow. Read it if you want. A craniotomy is a procedure used to remove a brain tumor. The hair is shaved at and around the incision site and a fairly large section of the skull is removed, exposing the brain. After the tumor is removed, the piece of skull is fit back into place. You can imagine how it would feel to know that you're half bald and the back of your head has an big upside-down horseshoe shaped line of stitches. Well, this patient was incredibly anxious and she'd already had quite enough of IVs, drains, and shots. When I walked in to give her a heparin injection she didn't look too happy. Thankfully we were taught to prepare the injection in the med room and cap the needle so the patients won't see you come strolling in with a long shiny needle; when you're already stressed out and afraid of shots, that inch long needle looks like a sword. My patient sat there cringing and said "Okay, you can do it now." I smiled and said "I'm already done." She looked genuinely surprised. "Oh, good technique! That last nurse came walking in with that huge needle for my heparin and it hurt like crazy!" Ha ha, go me :) Now the fall semester has begun and I'm in Pediatrics/Obstetrics/Psych. Plus I'm taking a silly Research Strategies course (all about using PowerPoint and looking stuff up online. I didn't have to take it at the college I graduated from because I was a science major and you have to use all of those research strategies in class anyway) and U.S. History. I'm pretty sure there aren't enough hours in the day, so sleeping and eating will have to wait until Christmas break. Good news--I'm still on track to graduate May 2011. Hurray!!


original image from  mycampfriends.com/pages/ask_the_camp_nurse/90.php

Recycling:
My little household, consisting of two of my sisters and I, have been recycling and I am working very hard to avoid using plastic grocery bags when shopping. The problem is, I go to the store and leave my cute little tote bags at home. Okay, they're actually not little. They're huge and I'm small. Most of the time I just tell the cashier I don't need a bag and carry my groceries out. Of course, my arms can only hold so much before things start falling all over the place and I end up looking like a one woman circus. I can imagine myself wobbling across the parking lot with red clown shoes and garish clown makeup and poofy rainbow colored hair. Ick. Clowns are scary but I will be one in the name of going green. I'm really quite a klutz anyway. The other day I was skipping gracefully up the stairs, feeling cool and light on my feet, and then I tripped and fell dramatically, very nearly landing on my face. And of course I had an audience. A group of teenage girls and several grown-up ladies all sitting around having a meeting, which I was skipping up the stairs to attend. I am supposed to be a mentor to these girls but I'm afraid I lost some cool points :) I started laughing at myself as soon as I landed. The key to minimizing embarrassment is to laugh first, because that way everyone really is laughing with you. Besides, it's not like you can ignore the fact that I nearly splattered myself across the floor.

Messy Room:
My room is a dreadful mess and it's embarrassing. Maybe it reflects my disordered mind. That sounds bad. I don't have a real disorder aside from being dreadfully unmotivated and easily overwhelmed. Consolation: the rest of my house stays clean. And no I don't have dirty laundry or 3 week old pizza lying about in my room. The papers and books and knickknacks have simply taken over. I'm in the process of getting organized. Really I am.

I could write much much more but I won't. I'm boring myself. My next post will be radical and interesting.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Elsewhere

Sleeping dreams prance lighty thru
                        Whisper thin as air
My daydreams are too full of you


             At night you aren't there...