"Got Milk? Got Allergies?"

Ms. Drama Queen was on a roll today. Maybe I should mention that she just got divorced, so maybe that has something to do with why everything is so dramatic for her, I still don't know. Apparently she's VERY biased against cow's milk. "Cow's milk is only for baby cows." Well then, Ok. She vehemently told us this in class today. She's against human beings consuming any kind of milk, clearly. She said and I quote "NO MORE MILK!!!" Wow...she thinks that the majority of people are lactose intolerant or have an allergy to milk and should not be consuming it. She said NO soy milk either, sorry. Soy milk has estrogen in it, she stated and "you'll BLOW RIGHT UP!!!" In other words you'll be very edematous (swollen) from it. Right. I've had soy milk and I've never "blown up." I also have milk with my cereal everyday. LOVE cereal. It's never really bothered me either. I do HATE the smell of milk though, I can't tell whether it's rotten or not. It all smells rotten to me, even when it's not. Little tangent, sorry. Anyways, the woman was pretty passionate about the subject. My friends and I decided that we'd all love to bring milk to class next week just to see what she'd do. Have a flippin' MI (heart attack), I imagine. Then a guy in my class (he may earn himself a nickname by the end of semester), decided that he should invent a bumper sticker that says "Got Milk? Got Allergies?" Um, no comment. Anyways, my professor told her normal dramatic stories in class. Except Pop decided that one story was about her having an allergic reaction. "and then the little girl, I mean boy....named Nancie, I mean Ned..." Yeah and the allergic reaction was probably to milk, go figure. Maybe that's why she's so biased against it.

We also covered HIV/ AIDS today. Pop felt the need to tell the class I have HIV by pointing at me. Yeah, I don't. But it was funny nevertheless. The teacher was like, "you don't need to tell us." Oh good grief. Yeah, you know me, total skank and druggie too (rolling eyes). The only way I could've gotten HIV is in the hospital. I did stick myself with a dirty needle once though. It sucked. I had to have my blood tested for like 6 months or a year, I don't remember which. It was less than fun. Don't worry, I'm clean. That's a story for another day though. Anyways my teacher told a story about a couple who came in before their marriage to get tested for HIV. According to my teacher the guy was "REALLY cute!!" Unfortunately, he tested positive for HIV. His fiance' then wanted nothing to do with him, of course. My teacher's comment then was like, "it was really too bad cuz he was REALLY cute. What a pity!" Or something along those lines. Uh, yeah I don't know about her sanity sometimes.

Moving on...in my other class today it was back to monkeys again. Some girl in my class watched the Discovery Channel last night and saw a show about Orangutans or something. I have no idea what that had to do with our lecture, but my friend once again stated "I'm not a monkey, dammit!" Orangutans?! Honestly, the people in program worry me some days.

Don't worry, it gets better...a lot of our lecture today was on the topic of breast feeding. Milk vs. no milk, that is the question of the day. You're supposed to switch to cow's milk at 1 year old. Would you people make up your minds? Milk or no milk?

We moved on to pregnancy. During the first trimester feelings of ambivalence or uncertainty are common in mothers. Questions like, "Is this the right thing for me?" Well, I'm sorry to tell ya, but it's a little too late for that. Sometimes Dad's have "Couvade= pregnancy- related symptoms" in addition to the Mother. The commentary between my friend and me on this was: "Serves him right." "You're mean. Remind me not to talk to your husband when you have your first child." :D We also talked about the Dad's first reaction to the pregnancy. That reminded me of that AT&T commercial where the woman calls her husband and announces she's pregnant, except her call gets dropped and she can't hear him screaming and yelling in excitement. Her response is, "Way to step up there, Rick." hahahahaha, that's one of my favorite commercials, ever!

My lecture today reminded me of when my oldest sister-in-law was having her third baby. Her doctor told her she was going from man-to-man to zone defense. Lol, so true. I love those kids though. They have nothing to do with this blog, but being in this class today made me miss them horribly, hence the picture. Isn't she cute?!:)
(Sorry this was pretty disjointed. I'm kinda tired so I'm rambling. Oh well.)

Yellow Jackets and Yellow Fever

I don't know if it was actually a Yellow Jacket, it might have been a hornet, either way I have NO idea how a bee ended up in my pajama pants @ 5:30am. I totally got stung and then had to try to catch the stupid kamikaze bee careening around my room. My poor roommate was wondering why I was jumping around so much. Now almost 2 days later my leg still hurts and itches. Yay for Benadryl. But, boooo for bees stinging me. I still want to know, how do you get a bee in your pants (excuse the phrase) @ 5:30 in the morning? But this blog isn't actually supposed to be about me, it's about school, of course.

Moving on...my professors this semester are interesting to say the least. Scatterbrained, monotone, and drama queen are words that have been used to describe them. Don't get me wrong, they're all very nice and they know their subjects well, but that doesn't mean they're good at teaching them.

So, as I stated, one of my teachers is a total drama queen. Maybe it's because our class is in the auditorium in the library where the plays are held. So she teaches from the stage. There's actually a white board that states there will be auditions for some Christmas play soon that is on the stage, so maybe that rubs off on her. I don't know. When she tells stories in class we're just waiting for her to say something like, "and then I came and saved the day..." blah blah blah. One story last week was especially bad. Apparently in Panama there was a guy (and his wife) who had had yellow fever before, so he'd built up an immunity to it (I wasn't listening all that hard, so I think this is what happened, anyways, he had an immunity to it). When they had a really bad epidemic of yellow fever down there and everyone was sick, no one could help them because then they would catch the disease as well. But, since he was immune he was able to go around and eliminate every bit of yellow fever in Panama by himself. Because of this, it was then possible for the Panama Canal to be built. I kid you not, that's what she said. Yeah, I do my fair share of eye rolling in that class. Pop, who sits next to me, just cusses at our teacher and makes sarcastic comments. haha

In another class there is, unfortunately, an individual who does not feel the need to wear a bra. I wouldn't normally notice that, but my friend brought it up and now it's really obvious. Gross! This is a quote from a classmate on that topic: "I'm a hippie. I like my freedom." I decided there's entirely too much estrogen in our lecture halls of women. There's only 2 guys in that class, poor things. That class is also incredibly boring. Not because the material is boring, it's not. But because the professor is so monotone that I zone out in about 10 minutes or less. It's bad. So of course we have to entertain ourselves to even stay conscious in class. The following is the disastrous consequences...(once again, I'm not really distinguishing who said what)

At first glance it just looks "busy or crowded." But in response to this picture I said something like, it would be hard to teach your kids about #'s..."this little piggy went to the market." Ohhhh, Jennie you're so morbid. Morbid, but funny according to my friend. She just decided to cross out a toe though, I don't know if that's any less morbid. Ok, maybe.

Often in nursing classes you find yourself diagnosing your own problems. All of a sudden you think you have all of these horrible diseases because you have some of the symptoms. This is pretty common, actually. We decided that it's pretty hard to diagnose yourself in OB though, because we're not babies. Except we could probably pull off a "lusty cry like a baby" pretty darn good. Especially after sitting through 6 hours of class straight. Yeah, you would want to cry too.

At some point in the lecture last week my teacher stated something about "we come from monkeys." My friend vehemently opposed that statement. "I don't believe that. I'm not a monkey. Take THAT chimpanzee." hahaha There's a skin disorder called a "stork bite" due to it's location and appearance that is common in children. Gggrrrreeeaattt....so we came from monkeys and we're dropped off by storks. Lovely.

We got in trouble for talking in class though. Gaysauce. The professor asked us what was so funny and would we like to share with the class since we'd been laughing all class period. My friend after a slight pause was like, we're just laughing about my car breaking down this morning. I chimed in something like yeah if we didn't laugh, we'd cry (which is true). Good thing she saved the day cuz I had nothin'. Crap. But what can she do, kick us out of class? Yeah right. Since we're paying a freakin' fortune to be there. Maybe that means we should pay attention. Nah...OK, OK, that's not totally true. We do pay attention. But we're pros at multi-tasking. Listening to lecture and still having fun with it is a talent, thank you very much. At least in my classes it is.

By golly I think she's got it!!

Today was the last day of Med/Surg II Clinicals. Stupid Dean of Nursing decided that we needed to have clinicals during finals week still. Boooo. I'm so glad they're over though. I still only had 2 patients even though I actually requested to have 3 b/c I'm bored stiff. I'm asking for more work and she won't give it to me, go figure. "Pop" decided to write out a list of something that everyone in our group can be remembered for this semester. It would require too much effort to think of what everyone else was remembered for, but guess what I was remembered for?! Um yeah...Jennie always looked bored. Lol. Well yes, that's actually true. (Please refer to my previous blog "4 more weeks" if you don't understand this). Apparently my instructor did not remember that she already told me that sometimes I look bored in clinicals (which Pop thinks is hilarious and has to bring up constantly :D) b/c she thought it was really funny that Pop thought the same thing as her and noticed that I look bored too. Well, duh....maybe cuz you pointed it out in the first place. And yes, I'm still bored.

We had to meet with our instructor to do our final evaluations for the semester. I won't explain my entire medical background b/c that would take forever, but needless to say I've wanted to be a nurse since I was 17, I know EXACTLY what I want to do, I've been in all kinds of areas of health care, and i know how to get there. If you get in my way I will stomp on you. Don't mess with me. Haven't you ever seen that "competitive jerk" poster form Despair.com? Don't get between a competitive jerk and their goals. (Ok, so I just found it for you, aren't I nice, um maybe not). When I know what I want I'm admitting I can definitely be a competitive jerk. But hey, I wouldn't be where I am today if I wasn't that way. Anyways...my instructor asked what I wanted to do with nursing and I said I wanted to be in a Trauma Unit (possibly ICU later) and that shouldn't surprise her. I love adrenaline, I'm a junkie, the more the better. I explained more of my medical background and all of a sudden, tah dah! It was like the light came on...my instructor FINALLY understood me for the first time this semester. She understood where I was coming from, who I was, and why I was the way I was. It was like it finally was all making sense to her. "Oh you're right, that doesn't surprise me" (or something like that).

I went on to explain that I had spent 1 1/2 years working on a cancer floor before and although I absolutely loved my job and learned a ton, I promised myself I'd never do it again. Emotionally it was just too difficult. So when i got stuck there for clinicals this semester it was the last place I wanted to be. I was miserable. Again, more understanding dawned on my instructor's face. I went on to explain that with all my background I felt like I wasn't being challenged and when I'm not challenged I feel like I'm moving backwards. (Why do you think I always go for guys way outta my league?) So yes, I was bored. I hate that I feel like I just wasted an entire semester. I've been a CNA (PCT, tech, whatever you want to call me) for years, I don't need to relearn that stuff, give me something valuable to learn. I think my brain might have actually atrophied this semester. I learn by doing and observing. I can't believe I just paid thousands of dollars to be a glorified CNA. I was paying THEM to do crappy work that I've been doing for years. What a waste. At least my instructor understands me now though, as useless as that is since clinicals are over for this semester. Why didn't we have this conversation at the beginning of the semester? Oh yeah, b/c she wouldn't listen to me then. But now she gets that I'm not a complete idiot and I'm not lazy, just bored. My classmate was taking pictures to send to our instructor though and of course the one of me is me with my head resting on my arms on the table looking like I'm sleeping. Classic, Jennie. (Of course we planned that on purpose :D) Hey, give me a break it's finals week. I have 3 finals tomorrow and another on Thursday. Mylifesucks.com cuz it sounds cooler. Ok, I'm done venting for now....back to studying and maybe even some sleep. HA!

4 more weeks....

I'm so ready for this stupid semester to be over. In fact, I don't think it ever really started for me. I need a vacation. I hate my classes. I hate my life. Yes, I'm whining. No, I don't care. Clinicals suck, hate them too. Today for instance, portrayed why I told myself I would never be on a cancer floor again. I worked there for a year and a half, there's a reason (or many reasons) I left. There are two kinds of patients in this world: the kind that deal with their illnesses well and are optimistic and gracious...and the kind that don't and are pissed off and mean. Guess who I got today? Oh yeah. Lucky me. I always seem to get the angry patients. Granted they are dying...and soon, so they have every right to be angry, but why do they always have to be in that stage of the grief cycle when I have them as a patient? Good thing they're sick, so I give them a break...otherwise, we'd have some serious problems. I'm also pretty sure that I told Stalker to shut it (or something similar to that) today, and that Stalker and Pop were making fun of how Xena talks and how big she is, today. No way...I'm staying far away from that one, that's entirely too mean. My favorite though is last week's episode when we had to do our evaluations with our instructor...mine went something like the following:
Instructor: Jennie sometimes you look really bored at clinicals...DON'T do that!!!
Me: (Burst out laughing) Uh, yeah...maybe because I am. They're BORING!!!!
OK, so maybe I didn't really say that. In fact I don't think I said anything at all, but it was pretty close. It took a lot of restraint to keep that in. Aren't clinicals supposed to reaffirm why you want to be a nurse? Right now they're just reminding me why I absolutely abhor floor nursing with a passion. Shoot me now. Except the one day I spent in the OR....which was awesome. Total knee replacement, absolutely sweet...and breast reduction/ mastopexy. Minus the part where they pulled out the breast tissue, weighed it and then handed it to me. Um, what am I supposed to do with this?! Ewww....don't get me wrong, I used to clean the birthing carts and bag placentas, they are much grosser and bloodier, but it was still kinda weird. (Just so you know, I wasn't really grossed out, it was just funny to me...like they were trying to pick on the nursing student, haha, whatever) OK...I'm done being graphic, sorry. I hope no one passed out. OR is at least exciting though, floor nursing is tedious and makes me want to vomit it's so lame. I'm not going to nursing school to do floor nursing....I wanna be in TRAUMA, big difference. Anyways, this semester sucks, Yeah, Denver's lookin' pretty good right now. So, I got little sleep. I got up at 5, and I'm taking a nap now. Guten nacht, sort of.