Valentine's whatever

As you may recall, cupid died. Remember this?! He's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Yeah, still dead. I'm married and I still tell you, he's dead. Sorry. Ugh. I hate pink and I hate sappy holidays.

Germ-O-Phobe

I am a germ-o-phobe. A germ freak. Completely OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) about germs. I don't know if nursing has made this better or worse, mostly likely worse. I imagine unseen germs on everything everywhere. For instance, I have an entire routine for dressing, going to work, and undressing. I put on my scrubs for work and since I bring little things like alcohol pads and blunt tip needles home in my pockets, I load up my pockets, then wash my hands. I grab the rest of my crap for work. I leave my name tag and stethoscope in my car and yell at anyone who tries to touch them- I then make them wash their hands. At work I have to have everything in my room in order, clean, and straight, especially my IV lines and other tubes and you better not touch anything in that room either. As I've discovered, this is actually a common trait of night ICU RN's. We all seem to be OCD about cleanliness and order for some reason. Back to germs...Everytime I touch something in the room, especially the patient I basically use alcohol rub or wash my hands. I use alcohol pads on everything too. Hey, better overly cautious than under, right?! My biggest pet peeve is seeing RN's not wearing gowns, gloves (and sometimes masks) in isolation rooms. Drives me nuts. What's even worse than that is when I notice they don't wash their hands, I cringe inside everytime. C-Diff is the worst (a nasty bacteria in stool that spreads like crazy and stinks, by the way) because you CANNOT use alcohol rub on your hands with c-diff patients. It basically takes off all the good bugs on your hands and allows the c-diff to grow. GROSSSSS....You HAVE TO wash your hands. Yet people still don't wash their hands. Ugh. Moving on to heading home. I only wear 1 specific coat to work and I don't wear it anywhere else, same with gloves, scarf, and hat. These items all touch my germy body and scrubs, why would I want to wear them on my day off and invite those germs back onto my body. No thanks. I know basically no one else thinks of this and I wish they would. When I get home, I don't touch anything without washing my hands first and I UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES will let anyone touch me. My scrubs go directly into the dirty laundry baskets. My shoes have their own box in a separate closet. They are essentially quarantined. haha I shower, then put on new clothes. Some mornings this sucks cuz our water isn't very warm and all I want to do is sleep. But there is no way I would lay in my sheets with my nasty scrubs/ skin. Do you have any idea how many bodily fluids, gross things, germs I touch at work a night?! I don't want that on my sheets. (Shudder) YUCK. When I do the laundry (or the rare occassion my husband does it) I immediately wash my hands after putting it in the washer. Yes, I am actually that bad. You should see me with germs in the rest of my life. But I can't get this story from another nurse out of my head, where she said they swabbed the nostrils of the nurse her entire family and even the family dog and they ALL came back positive for MRSA (nasty antibiotic resistant bacteria). Yeah, I want to avoid that if at all possible. My poor future children will never get to play anywhere in public. Alright, now that I have the willies thinking about germs, I'm gonna go now. You should wash your hands. Trust me, you don't know what you've been touching! PERFECT! I'm glad other nurses see invisible germs growing on surfaces.

Glamorous, this is....NOT

A little update since I haven't blogged in so long- I am currently working as a nurse (duh) in a new hospital in an Intensive Care Unit. We do everything from Medical/ Surgical to Coronary Care to Cardiovascular to a small amount of Neuroscience (MSICU, CCU, CVICU, & NSICU). I always thought I would specialize in something, but at least this keeps me up on all of my body systems. Who am I kidding though, most of the time I feel like I don't have a clue about what the hell I am doing. Comforting, huh?! So much for getting out of school and not having to study anymore. Haha, yeah, no deal. I still have to study a ton. I've learned nursing school didn't teach me squat. Bleh. One of my coworkers was telling me the other night about her sister who never got a degree and now makes 6 figures and gets to dress up to go to work everyday. We, on the other hand, wear what is basically pajamas to work everynight. I had to work my ass off to get two degrees over 7 1/2 years of college and I make barely enough to get by. What kind of deal is that? Really. As I was standing in this lovely outfit(plus gloves)

that we have to wear in isolation (infection patients) rooms holding the head of a puking, kicking, punching, screaming, crapping patient while another nurse put down a NG tube (nasogastric tube so she won't puke anymore), I reflected on the fact, glamorous this job is, not; and we are, not. Nights like that I honestly have to search really deep to find a reason why I keep doing this and why I ever wanted to do it in the first place. Cuz' let me tell you just how fun this is. I don't even like germs (that's another blog, coming soon though). Haha, not that anyone likes germs. Wiping butts (when it's not your own kids) and being there when a family finds out that their family member is dying is not really my idea of a good time. SO glad I spent so much on school for this. Oh well, I guess it's the occasional feeling of knowing that you might have actually helped someone (patient or family) or easied their pain for a night. It's the occasional adrenaline rush that I live for. It's the love of medicine. It's the thrill of getting to do all the things I've wanted to do for so long. It's the teaching. It's the occasional thank you's. It's the hoping that you actually made a difference in someone's life. It's the things I learn everyday. It's the joy of getting to tell someone that they're doing better. It's getting to be real. It's being me...Oh well, I guess glamour will have to wait for another day.

For as little as $1.29 you can have stink in a bag!!

Apparently in Arkansas they believe in buying cow manure in a bag. I didn't know that was even possible. I literally saw this and thought it was so funny (and impossible) that I had to take a picture of it. I spent most of my childhood running through fields trying to avoid the stuff and being desensitized to the smell because it was a regular part of my day. We were constantly wiping it OFF our shoes, not picking it up and selling it. Had we known there was a market for that maybe....nah, never mind that's disgusting, I'm just kidding. I can't believe people actually pay real money for that stuff. Gross and dumb if you ask me. But it IS Arkansas. haha I'm going to get in trouble with the Boy for that comment. :) Unbelievable.

Bad traffic? I'll take it.

Last week was my spring break from school, so naturally I wanted to fly somewhere. Bad idea. Apparently, I am not meant to fly anymore. If you don't recall my last experience flying, then read this blog from January. Well, needless to say they lost my luggage AGAIN. That's 3 times in a row. What are the chances?! I was so frustrated I was nearly in tears. The Boy, who was with me, was really good to me though. I learned the valuable lesson to never leave anything in your luggage that you can't part with. Seriously.

Anyways, I just had the weirdest dream. I was in this room of luggage and clothes were strewn everywhere (including my underwear, niiiiccceee). There were people all over the place, my family was all there, and the Boy too. I had my suitcase and then someone moved it and I couldn't find it. I was searching everywhere for it, under all of the clothes, all of the other suitcases, between all of the people (while grabbing my underwear)....yeah, I woke up before I could find it in an utter panic. Stress. Ugh. What a nightmare.

Oh, and on the flight back I was once again sick, like Christmas, our plane was delayed, like Christmas, and something happened to ATC (Air Traffic Control) like someone cut a cable or took out a pole or something weird like that and no flights were going out so we sat on the tarmac for an hour and 45 minutes before we took off, like Christmas. I was having flashbacks. You have no idea. At least this time I had someone with me. It made it bearable and we made our connection fine. I told myself if I didn't get my bags for the 4th time, I wasn't flying again. Luckily they arrived when I did. I'm just not sure I'm meant to fly. Seriously. I'm having nightmares about losing luggage now. I'm stressed about situations that aren't even real. I like cars. Cars are good. I'm going to stick to cars for a while.

Too bad I'm from Colorado.

Single's Awareness Day

Cupid died. Sorry (not). There's no Valentine's day this year.

P.S. My dislike of this holiday has nothing to do with whether I'm single or not, just for the record. I dislike it even when I have a boyfriend.

P.P.S. The use of so much pink might have something to do with it....and the fact that it makes me gag. Too sappy. Yuck.

P.P.P.S. There might be a few other reasons too. But, as you can see it doesn't matter, cuz he's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

THE END

Dream dream dream dream

So I had this dream last night....in animation. Like cartoons. Not like new PIXAR cartoons, but the old school stuff from when I was a kid watching on Saturday mornings. I didn't know this was even possible, to dream in animation. It was bizarre, but funny. All I remember really is that it was like middle ages times with castles and armies and battles (we were assembling an army for a battle apparently) and strange creatures made up our army (they reminded me of they creatures off of Lord of the Rings or Narnia). I was there watching it, like 3rd person, but I think I was actually a cartoon character too. Oh wow. Lol. Cartoons. Classic. I've apparently regressed to childhood due to the stress in my life and am now dealing with it by dreaming that I'm a cartoon in cartoon world. Lovely.

I've been having nightmares a lot lately, which is an unpleasant experience to say the least. Last week though, between the nightmares I had a very funny and kinda gross dream. I dreamed I was brushing my teeth. Nothing unusual there I guess. Clean teeth are a good thing. However, I woke up when I realized that I was drooling in my pillow as I was "spitting" out the toothpaste in the dream. hahaha, gross. I immediately woke up the minute I realized my pillow was getting wet. Yeah, I washed my sheets. Gross. But funny.

"Come Fly Our Friendly Skies"

(This is really long, sorry...it's more me de-stressing than anything. You don't really need to read it all. I won't be offended if you don't) :)
So after 3 weeks of vacation in Colorado and Utah I finally flew back to DC a couple of weeks ago. It was by far the WORST trip I've ever taken. Everything that could have gone wrong (minus crashing the plane) did.
This was the sequence of events that fateful day (I added that for dramatic effect :), you're welcome):

I had a really bad night because I was really sick coughing and I was on narcotics so I didn't get very much sleep...

I ran out of time getting ready so I didn't get breakfast (my favorite meal of the day), then we took my nephew to a friend's house before Kindergarten and I said goodbye to him.

My Sister-in-law drove me to the airport, but by the time we got there, both of my nieces were fast asleep so I didn't get a chance to even say goodbye to them. Booooo.

Salt Lake International Airport is not exactly a large airport and I usually don't have problems flying through there because it's small enough that checking in and security doesn't take very long (nothing like DC). That shouldn't have been any different this day right? WRONG! I waited a good eh, 45 minutes in line just to check in my baggage because there were families all over the place from Europe with skis and a freakin' ton of bags. Lovely. Good thing I got there early and my flight was already delayed.

Getting through the security line took another probably 20 minutes, the line was all the way out into the hallway. But of course, what should happen when my purse goes through the x-ray? TSA person: "Who's bag is this?" Me: "Mine" TSA person: "We need to run it again" Me: "That's fine" (what did they think I was going to say? No? Yeah right.) They run the purse again. Nada. Me trying to be cooperative: "Do you need to look through it?" TSA Peeps: "Yes." Me: "Go ahead." At this point they proceeded to rip apart my purse piece by piece, which is an ordeal in and of itself. Nada. TSA Peeps (who is obviously new and being coached by someone else next to him): "Can we run this through (the wallet, the purse without the stuff in it, etc.)?" Me (annoyed by this time, but acting very nice and calm and cooperative...and glad my flight is delayed since this is taking forever): "Of course, you do whatever you need to." They finally told me what they thought they saw, a pocketknife. Are you kidding me?! A pocketknife. In my purse. Yeah right. I don't have any clue what they thought they saw that looks like a pocketknife in my purse, but I'll tell you this much, I don't have a pocketknife in my purse. They finally let me go when they didn't find anything. Good grief.

So I get to my gate and my plane is delayed....like a while. So I get something to eat, oh and I get my seating arrangement since I didn't have an assigned seat on my ticket (nice one). But only after standing in another line for a good 30ish minutes. Then....*Ding* "Attention: flight 522 (or whatever it was) to Chicago O' Hare your flight has been delayed" AGAIN. Ok, so that's not exactly what they said, but close. Apparently the President of the United States was in Chicago so NO flights were going into or out of Chicago. I guess he's more important than we are. :) Well, a lot of people were already going to miss their flights out of Chicago and the more we got delayed (since they kept changing the time we were leaving) the more concerned I got about missing my flight.

Salt Lake to Chicago was ok. Then run to find my gate....phew, made my plane. But, I'm absolutely miserable by this time because I'm coughing and I'm on a narcotic and I'm feeling somewhat sick. So we get on the plane and we sit and we sit and we sit. The Captain finally gets on the intercom and proceeds to tell us that for some reason (we switched original planes or something) we have no crew and not only do we have no crew we don't have gasoline. Say what?! That definitely got my attention. I looked at the two men beside me and we were like, that's never a good sign. I was more than nauseous at this point and basically conked out against the window. We sat there forever though. We finally started taxiing and we taxied and taxied and taxied and then STOPPED. What? Why did we stop? Runways are for taking off. Not stopping in the middle of. Needless to say, Chicago is not know for its good weather. There was actually lightning and rain that was visible out the windows of the plane. Back on the intercom, "Sorry folks, no eastbound flights are taking off at this time." They did let us talk on our phones though. I was quite possibly the shade of green by this time and it was roasting on that plane. Their idea of a free movie to show everyone was Jane Austen's Book club or something like that. Uh, no. I didn't watch it. We sat on the tarmac for about 2 hours and 15 minutes. On the runway. We couldn't even re-route because, oops, we don't have enough fuel. At one point I saw the line of planes behind us. It was long. We finally got in the air for one of the bumpiest rides I've ever had (and I was already nauseous). I don't think I've ever come so close to having to use one of those barf bags before. I actually had my head between my knees for a long time. I could describe how sick I was in detail for you, but I won't. Narcotic + Motion sickness (which I get really badly) + bad turbulence + little food (airport food for that matter) + sinus infection + cough = recipe for disaster. It was pretty darn close. I have never been so glad to see the Washington Monument and the Kennedy Center!!

I felt horrible for my roommates, by this point, who were supposed to be picking me up because I knew they both had to get up early the next morning and it was getting later and later and I had a lot of luggage: a huge suitcase, a Massive duffel bag, my laptop bag, and my purse. I had some serious issues carrying all of those at once. Moving on....I made it without puking all over everyone and everything. I'm sure United appreciates that, as do the guys sitting next to me. But, now I have a headache headed toward a migraine. Who wouldn't? So I wait for my bags and duffel bag? Yes. Suitcase? No. They delivered it the next day (I didn't get it on the way there either) Booo....That officially made this the worst trip EVER. I'm NEVER EVER EVER flying through Chicago again. Not if I can avoid it at least. By the time my roommates showed up and I had filled out my missing baggage claim ticket I was nearly in tears. I was dry heaving when I got home and then the trip from HELL was over. The End.

"Good thing babies are breakable!!!"

OK so I haven't written in a long time I realize. These are the last few experiences from my classes last semester. I know it took me forever to write this even though I started forever ago. Sorry. I hope they're worth it now. :) Enjoy!

So Scatterbrained was on a whole nother (is that a word? eh, oh well, it is now) level one week. This is a direct quote from her while we were studying GI (gastrointestinal): "this is boring. Well it's really not boring, you can save someone's life with this stuff. But, I'm like dying for a guest speaker for GI." Um, did she really just say that her topic was boring? Wow. I guess it was true though, GI is pretty boring but we still have to learn it. I'm not sure a guest speaker would have helped us though. Scratch that...maybe that class would have made more sense from guest speakers. This is a demonstration of what she drew on the board almost daily with her notes. Yeah that's a box that's circled like 10 times with arrows coming off of it pointing to things all over the board. This was a daily occurrence. Too bad you can't read her handwriting. I think my all time favorite moment in that class was when she brought in two old casts from a broken arm and a broken leg and made one of my friends put the cast on to demonstrate something. EWWWWWWWWWW GROSS!!!! Who wants to put on someone else's old, dirty, smelly, nasty cast?! That gives me the willies!! Poor girl. Then Scatterbrained threw her leg up on the front table in our classroom and tried the leg cast on herself. I'm pretty sure I'm was trying to contain my laughter (and horror) on the back row by that time. Yuck!! Seriously. Oh well. She's a really nice lady and was a pretty good professor (minus the ditsy part) and I did fine in her class so whatever, moving on.

My last class period of Drama Queen's class period was rather uneventful, if I remember right, except she just HAD to get in one last jab about milk. Ugh. It started out with her going off on calcium. She told us to ask our patients: "Excuse me?! How much calcium do you take?" Then she told us that we should "take enough to supply our bones, but not too much." This has to do with kidney stones and how too much calcium (aka milk according to her) causes them, supposedly. She said that she "just had to bring it up." Well yes, we wouldn't have it any other way on our last class period than to have you vent one last time about milk. Then she succeeded in throwing in her anti-men clause as well. Kidney stones are incredibly painful (just so you know). But this was her little complaint about men. "Especially men, they act like they are in labor and I say 'No way!' They act like such babies." Hahaha, eh never mind it was funny when she said it. But your public service announcement for the day is that you "need to be really careful about how much milk you drink." Oh no, not again! I'm so freaking sick of hearing about milk. Not that I'm a big milk drinker, but I love cereal, therefore I have milk in my diet. Heaven forbid. However, this is NOT something I ever want to have (forgive the pic, don't worry, they're much grosser in person). But FYI, high calcium alone isn't a risk factor for kidney stones (despite what DQ's opinions may be) other factors are involved. Enough with the nursing stuff. She was also a very nice professor, as dramatic as she could be.

On to the title story of the blog. No, you didn't read that wrong. That is a direct quote from Monotone herself in one of my last class periods. Monotone said, "Good thing babies are breakable." I burst out laughing, I just couldn't contain it, it was too funny. But I was kind of loud and by this time everyone in the class was zoned out already. She looks at me and she's like, "what?!" I'm like "did you hear what you just said? [at which point she stares at me blankly, so I have to repeat it back to her] 'Good thing babies are breakable.'" I was having a hard time keeping a straight face (I think she was surprised to find that I was even listening to her at that point). Monotone then tried to correct herself by saying "one good thing about the babies is that they break easy. [I was still laughing, that sounded just as bad- so she tried to fix it again] Not that they break easy, but that they heal easy. It came out wrong." Well, obviously. I would hope that you're not glad that babies break easily. Too bad she didn't find this situation nearly as humorous as me and my friends did. It was worth it to go to class this day just to hear her say that. I still think it's funny. :D

There's this weird thing about winter here where everyone and everything gets really staticy (that's not a word either). (Yes, I'm going somewhere with this) After the whole breakable babies conversation I had a hard time (harder than usual) concentrating in that class. Both my friend and I were really staticy though and kept shocking each other. So we were discussing this (instead of the lecture- during the lecture)...the following is the disastrous (or funny, whichever way you want to look at it) result of sarcasm + the two of us + Monotone's class + funny moments in Monotone's class + no filter + lack of sleep + too much stress + end of semester= Me: "you just have a sparking personality. You want me to rub you? Oh wait...That sounded wrong...." :) Her: "I dig myself a hole. You jump in it and start covering yourself up." Unfortunately that's very true. Damn.

Moving on to the Postpartum Depression lecture (that was like 15 minutes later in the class)....this was my friend's response about how she's going to be when she has kids. "I'm gonna be like WTF?" [when they hand her the baby and she doesn't know what to do with it]. Me: "Your kids are going to need therapy before they get home [from the hospital]." Her: "I'm not going to lie to you. Maybe that's what their Dad is for." Lovely. Well if we haven't learned anything else this semester I think we have come to the conclusion....are you ready for it?! OK my final conclusion for this last semester is....We're not ready for kids yet. Love them to death, but yeah I'm so NOT ready for them. Nephews and nieces are great. At the end of the day, you get to give them back. I've lived with a nephew and niece and I just spent the Christmas vacation with my nephew and nieces. Yeah, I wouldn't trade them for anything, but boy am I glad I'm still single at this point in my life. There you go folks, that's the final blog for last semester. Sorry it took so long. I hope you're IQ didn't drop reading this. Alright, off to bed so I can start a whole new semester at 8am tomorrow morning. Bleh.

6 things you may not know about me...

So after reading Megan's 6 things list, I thought about it long and hard (or not) and came up with my own. This is my oh so brilliant list:

1. Minus a little jaunt, with 3 gorgeous blond roommates, into Tijuana I've never been out of the United States. Pathetic, huh?! Don't worry, I'm planning on going to Belize (and Guatemala) next May for a month. Still, at 25, that's just sad. My life is boring.

2. I have this weird habit of pulling one of everything that I love (one of my favorites) off of whatever I'm eating and saving it to the end and eating it last. For example, I pull 1 sausage, 1 pepperoni, 1 black olive, and 1 mushroom off of my pizza, or 1 dill pickle slice, 1 piece of bacon off of my hamburger, etc. I do this with almost everything that I eat that it's possible to do so. Hamburgers, Sub-sandwiches, Pizza, Calzones, Salad, etc. I do it unconsciously though. I've done it for as long as I can remember. Why not save a little bit of the best for last though?! Sounds like a great idea to me. Savor what's good in life!! Yes, I know that I'm weird.

3. I grew up horse-back riding. I LOVE horses. I was probably put on my first horse around 3 or 4 years old and fell in love. I spent as much of my child-hood on horse-back as I could. I miss riding horribly. Someday I'm going to own my own ranch and have horses. Gosh, I miss them... :( That made me really nostalgic there, sorry. Moving on....

4. I'm an American and English Literature junkie. (This is probably the only time I'll be serious in this blog, but...) I love Thoreau, Emerson, even Poe, and Faulkner (because you can try to figure out their deeper meanings), etc. I've even been to Emerson's home and Walden Pond (they're near Boston, duh). A.P. English was probably my favorite class my Senior Year of High School (except Athletic Training, of course). I would have been an English Major if Nursing wasn't an option (too bad I have an Exercise Science degree too, funny how that works :P). Anyways...that's a whole different side of me you'll never get to see probably, sorry.

5. Easter is my favorite holiday. It's such a happy time. Obviously it's celebrating the Resurrection of the Savior which is an incredible event in and of itself, but it also means that the Atonement had to happen first. Easter is also happy and full of pastel colors and bunnies. I like bunnies. I know that seems out of character for me, but I do. I used to own rabbits, so don't make fun of me. It's just a sunny, happy, fluffy (yes, I said fluffy- bunnies are fluffy) holiday. Oh, and it's Spring which means that it's relatively warm again after a long cold winter. Yay. :D

6. I HATE hair. Lemme explain. When it's in your head that's fine, but once it leaves your head (or anywhere else for that matter, yes I said that), it completely creeps me out. Gives me the willies. Yuck. I don't like touching it or seeing it, anything. My own hair is bad enough cuz it falls out constantly and I still have plenty on my head, but other people's hair completely grosses me out. I hate hair so much that I actually shave my arms, everyday. No, I'm not kidding. Everyday. I've done it for years. My nursing friends tease me about this because obviously I have lots and lots of hairy patients that I have to get pretty personal with and touch a lot. Yeah, it still totally freaks me out to touch their hairy bodies. Ok I can't think about this anymore, it's gonna give me nightmares.

(Oh, and Megan...this is a bonus #7- I can also touch my nose with my tongue. Honestly I think I have one of the longest tongues on earth. Yes, it's disgusting, I agree. No, I probably won't show it to you. Merry Christmas, hope you enjoyed reading this at work :)).

This isn't Celebrity Death Match

So clinicals were a little out of control tonight. They were loooong and at points kind of boring. Other points were cool. I won't give you details on seeing a circumcision done or feeling a fundus, cuz I'm pretty sure that just made some of you puke, but it wasn't all bad. There were some interesting moments. The problem moments were between my instructor and a certain individual (who will remain un-named although you could probably figure it out), they had somewhat of a disagreement. In other words, they despise each other. Basically they spent the entire shift venting about each other and we vented about this particular individual too. He irritates the staff, offends the patients, and pisses off our instructor, along with annoying all of our clinical group. We just dread all shift what's going to go wrong next with him...aka what he's going to do to piss someone else off and then my instructor has to try to fix it. Don't get me wrong, this individual is very nice and probably has good intentions he just goes about them all the wrong way. When he doesn't get his way he appeals to the person above the person he asked and so on until someone gets so irritated they just say yes to get him to just shut up and leave them alone. He thinks he's entitled to everything whenever he wants it. Lamesauce. Then he throws a hissy fit when he doesn't get his way. Good grief, we're not in grade school anymore, kids. These are our second degrees. Grow up!!

Anyways, my clinical instructor happens to be a very outspoken person (sound familiar?!). Except, unlike me, she uses very, um, filthy language when talking, especially when she's mad. Boy was she mad today....and at a student, even worse. She went off on this particular student to us several times while he was in another part of the hospital observing, then she came to "save us" from him during dinner, then when this particular student didn't show up for our presentations on time (like half an hour late) I thought she was going to blow a gasket. The cuss words flying around that room were a bit shocking. That's not the worst of it though...the worst is what he was calling her. He literally pulled my friend out of her patient's room (where her patient was giving birth) and started spouting off about our instructor and then decided that he was going to disregard our instructor's instructions anyways and go watch a C-Section that he wanted to see, just because he felt like it. He hates our instructor so he was complaining about her in the hallway to my poor friend. #1 Totally inappropriate place for that conversation (patients and families are all around and can hear everything you're saying), #2 Very unprofessional, #3 If you have a problem talk to the person you have the problem with, not everyone else, #4 Wow, I won't repeat the word he used to describe our instructor, but it's possibly THE most offensive word you can use to describe a female (no, I'm not kidding) and he said this is the hallway of the Labor/ Delivery floor. So needless to say, it was an unpleasant atmosphere in our post-conference tonight. Our instructor was confronting him as we were leaving....we bailed, we practically ran out of the building. Don't get me wrong, I don't usually back down from fights, but when you start resorting to name calling like we're 12 years old again and I think fists might actually get involved between 2 sober adults, I'm sorry I'm outta there. Good grief, buddy, grow up. Buck up and do your school work. She's the instructor with a Bachelor's and Master's and years of experience in this stuff why can't you just follow her instructions for once?? This isn't Celebrity Death Match, I didn't sign up for this.

Ok, that's just flat out X

It's been a while since I wrote a blog on my actual classes, sorry. Just for the record, my instructor was wrong, my slides say it's actually > 3-4 cups/day of caffeine that's unsafe for pregnant women, not 5. Still, that's a LOT.

I decided after my class last week that Drama Queen is just plain Anti-Estrogen in addition to the multitude of many other issues she has. But that would explain a lot if she is. She also just can't leave milk alone. She just has to bring it up every class. Basically my friends and I decided that "If you learned anything in this class, just don't drink milk." Ok, wow, I think I'm dumber for being here. My big mouth got me in serious trouble though last week. My friends call it my filter. The filter between my brain and my mouth. Yeah, sometimes it catches things before I say them out loud, often it does not. Hence the blog name. :) Anyways, we were doing a test review and the professor basically just reads the test to us. Awesome. So she's rattling off questions and (p.s. having 4 3rd semester accelerated nursing students sitting together in a 1st semester class is a really bad idea, we are just FULL of smart ass comments. I'm sure she thinks we're obnoxious know-it-alls who don't care...oh yeah, we are :P)....she's like asthma is caused by allergies and allergies are triggered by (here's her pause waiting for the answer and Jennie yells out)....."MILK !!!" Oh my gosh, I actually said that out loud!! Wow. Oops. Everyone just burst out laughing. Brilliant Jennie. It was like a knee jerk reaction, but I just couldn't resist giving the smart ass response. I don't know if she heard me, but people like 7 rows up from me were laughing, so apparently it was really loud. I'm sure she hates me now. Eh, oh well. She pretty much begged for that one. Oh, I'm so mean. Moving on...

Drama Queen also went off last week about Colorado and high altitudes. I'm from Colorado and I miss it horribly, I absolutely love that state. Ok that was a side note. She was talking about pulmonary edema (short explanation- fluid in the air sacs in the lungs) and how you can get it from hiking at high altitudes. Ok, granted that's true, but rare. But she basically sounded like a commercial for this drug Diamox that you can take that helps you breathe better. "I highly recommend that when you go to Colorado you get a prescription." Ha, that's the Florida girl talking. She talked about going hiking in Colorado and how it's SO high. blah blah blah Ok, I hiked a fourteener last year. It really wasn't that hard and it was totally worth it. Of course I was acclimated to Colorado altitude, but still it's not really THAT high. She's like, "they suggest you walk in, not fly." *Snort* City girl! Then of course she had to bring up Wyoming, Tibet and Peru and how the same thing happens in all those places too and you absolutely HAVE to get a prescription for Diamox before you go there because of course it worked for her. Uh huh, cuz she's so cultural. I swear by the time my class is over every week you'd think my eyes would be stuck in a permanent eye roll.

Ok, different class now...Stalker was really on one yesterday. This was great dialog between Stalker and my friend and I (at the back of the class of course, so he didn't hear us) though: [We were talking about epidurals and spinals that are given to women during labor] S: "So this is given after?" Us: "Because post-partum means what?" "When the baby is parted from the mother's body." Wow. I feel like my IQ drops every lecture. Apparently we need to go over basic definitions like "post" again. Unbelievable. People in my class (the same people, over and over and over again) kept asking the same questions too. Write it down people. You could tell my professor was getting ticked, she actually started being short with people. By this time my friend and I were having completely different discussions in the back of the class of course and laughing our heads off. That probably didn't help my professor's mood. Eh, I don't really care. We were annoyed too. Part of that discussion involved the fact that several people were wearing rather unusual hats in class. This is an example of what some sort of looked like. (this last one was on "uh-huh's head, if you remember him from my MySpace blogs, except it was much much smaller, as in it only covered the very top of his head, yeah weird). Ok here's the dialog now: "What's up with the hats today?" "Maybe it blocks the rain [it's been raining for 2 days straight now]." "It doesn't even cover their faces." "Maybe he has a problem losing body heat." "hahaha." "Apparently we're in Paris now." "I love it." :)

Alright I saved the worst for last. Since it's O.B. the pictures in our slides are rather graphic. (See the "Do I have what?! Shhh...." Doctor Porn blog for more explanation). My friend likes to point out that they also happen to be drawn anatomically incorrect. I decided that including one of those pictures was just a really bad idea and this is the commentary that resulted between said friend and I: "You're doing your part to de-sexualize medical conditions." LOL...actually that was from her friend and I just sat there and stared at her for a minute and was like, are you serious?! "That's not even remotely attractive." "Well I just think people need to know this." I still decided that including the pics was too graphic. This was her advice to me, "Well you did make your blog PG-13," and my response, "Ok, that's just flat out X." Uh yeah sorry, no pictures kids.

Avoid caffeine = 5 cups of coffee a day??

I don't really have time to put a full story of last week's classes together so this is just the highlights. Drama Queen has it in for milk, seriously. For some reason my slides aren't opening so I'll just quote what she typed on the slides, my comments are in brackets. "Do not put a baby or child to bed with a bottle of milk!!! [Um, this is Pathophysiology, NOT Pediatrics, I happen to be in OB and Peds right now too, so I don't really think you're the expert on kids, sorry.] If the child must have a bottle in bed, fill it only with water. When they lie flat, children will aspirate the milk down the right main stem bronchus and develop pneumonia- very common [I'm pretty sure if you lie anyone flat with fluids while sleeping, they'll aspirate and could develop pneumonia, it's not just the milk]. No pacifiers- They cause vacuum pressure in eustachian tubes with resultant otitis media (ear infection). No smoking around infants and children- results in lung and ear infections." She then felt the need to add her comment that this was not her bias and that studies have been done that have shown these results [that just made me roll my eyes, not your bias, B.S.]. She also mentioned several times that her children didn't ever take pacifiers [of course not, because your children were perfect, of course]. This woman drives me crazy! I wish I could put some of our slides on here for last week, you can't even read them, the print is so small and they're just paragraphs of information that we can't even read. Oh, and how do you know that your professors need a hobby? When they're so bored they're putting the pictures of famous authors who had diseases from the 1800's on your slides because they have nothing better to do. What a waste of ink and paper, since we have to print them out. This particular author that she put a picture of on our slides had TB (tuberculosis). She told his story of how he moved to a better climate for treating his TB, then his wife hated it, so they moved to a different climate and the "TB loved it. [like it had a personality] It did him in. [Of course it did, otherwise the story would SO not be worth DQ telling it]." It's like inanimate objects talking, except now diseases have personalities too, lovely. Oh, and we're CONSTANTLY told NOT to diagnose in nursing school, including this class. But somehow several times each week DQ will find a way to slip into her lectures "nurses do a big job in diagnosing." Or "the doctor told me that basically I diagnosed the guy." Of course you did, and you're the hero and you lived happily ever after....oh wait, wrong story. Oh, by the way, apparently DQ has gone off on milk in other classes. My friend said that she also told them not to shave their arm-pits [excuse me while I gag here] and that deoderant is bad and gives you infections, or something like that [remind me never to get too close to her]. The woman might actually be insane, I don't know though, I'm not supposed to diagnose.

OB is always interesting as well. Monotone nearly kills me each week of boredom. Everytime I look around the room everyone looks like a bunch of zombies that are completely zoned out. We may be looking at the professor, but that doesn't mean we're paying attention. Like I said, it takes all of 10 minutes or less to zone out in that class. The glazed over eyes aren't from drugs, they're from boredom and lack of sleep. This is about how I feel about that class: Actually this picture was on the slide about the effects of alcohol and drugs and tobacco on pregnant women. As my professor put it, "cigarrettes have that stuff in them, what is it called, nicotine, in addition to upteine other things, and it's best avoided." Um, no kidding. Street drugs will cause your "baby to be born as a junkie." Oh yes, this is the enlightenment I get in my classes each week. That doesn't even count the comments we get from the idiots in our classes. OB is probably the worst b/c some of the students have kids in there, so obviously they think this makes them THE experts on the subject (more so than the professor, at least). They also think whatever stupid things they hear from their friends who have kids are automatically facts. One said idiot tried to argue with my professor for like 10 minutes about whether you can have too much Vitamin C or not. My professor kindly tried to explain time and time again that Vitamin C is water-soluble and therefore goes right through you. It can't build up in your body. But this girl was having none of that. She's still convinced that you can have too much. Apparently we need to go over the definitions of water and fat-soluble again. Good grief.

Pre-natal classes are common and there's several different ones besides just "Lamaze" which is the one most people have heard of. Unfortunately, one of them is named after it's creator "Dick-Read." Why the hell would you name a childbirth education class this? I also love (NOT) that all of them are created by men. As one of my friends raised her hand and asked in class, "are any of these actually created by a woman who's been through birth?" Seriously! One of them is all about the woman being able to feel the pain and he thinks that "fear of birth = tension/ pain." Um, I'm pretty sure that's because he's a guy and he's never been through it. The jerk. I'd love to see him try to go through just an hour of labor. I'm pretty sure he'd change his entire philosophy then. Apparently when you no longer fear the birth you won't feel tension or pain. Yeah right.

Peds was actually pretty good this week. I actually learned stuff. That might have more to do with the fact that I had a really cute 14 month old as a patient this week, so lecture related to what I actually saw with my patient. I totally wanted to keep him, he was adorable. But the one highlight from that class was when my professor (Scatterbrained) was talking about allergies [not milk] and stated "If the dog/ cat dies, it's a good opportunity not to get a new one." Brutal! My classmate chimed in and was like "In other words kill it," (sarcastically of course). I think that just came out really wrong for Scatterbrained. It did not go over well for my class.

Oh, the title line: "Avoid caffeine = 5 cups of coffee a day" is from OB. Apparently avoiding caffeine during pregnancy is equal to having no more than 5 cups of coffee a day, a couple of bars of chocolate, some coke, etc. Ok, even thinking about that much caffeine is making me sick and I'm not pregnant. Yuck! It sounds a lot like the diets of a lot of my classmates though. Not like mine is all that much better, minus the coffee. :)

"Take 'em back, take 'em back..."

I realize I haven't written in awhile and people have been asking about it, so here's the deal....I'm taking OB and PEDs this semester (aka children and mother/ baby). So...a lot of our lectures, at least in OB, are really graphic and pretty awkward subjects outside of nursing (even in nursing). I'll try to tone it down for the blog, but you've been warned, k?! This commentary from today's OB class was between a friend and I. I'm not going to distinguish between who said what, but they are direct quotes mostly. :) Oh...and most of it shouldn't be said out loud, as usual, last warning...

Male determines gender of new baby
X = girl
Y = boy

I believe the response to this picture was:
"Cute."
"You just called sperm cute."
"It looks happy."
"Not THAT happy, it hasn't been fertilized yet."
"Why does the male get to determine the gender?"
"Because they don't really get much of a say in anything else." (Oh, soooo true, poor men. I almost feel bad for them, almost).

A fact on another slide: "Sperm: Live 1-3 days after ejaculation"
Response to that slide: "AH-HAH! That's how they do it. Otherwise they'd never survive in our world. We're very mean to them." (Ouch, that's actually true too...hmmm, but they might deserve it).
In response to this slide and my professor's rather terrible explanation of it my friend wrote on her slide "WTF?!" "Look up in book!" Hahahahaha...that's pretty bad when you have to write WTF? on your notes b/c your professor sucks so bad at explaining the material.

On the "Infant State-Related Behavior Chart" descriptions of actions of the infant are evaluated on scales. Under "Cuddliness" the "Implications for Caregiving" are stated as: " cuddliness is usually rewarding behavior for the caregivers. It seems to convey a message of affection." I do believe, we volunteered to spoon at this point...cuddliness IS, indeed a message of affection. Hey, guys are good for something, at least. Yay for LoveSac's which facilitate great said "cuddling or spooning." ;-)

Last Saturday I went to my bro's house for their going away party. Boooo....they're abandoning me in DC. Gaysauce. I'm really too bitter about this subject to talk about it right now. I already whined for a good half an hour about it today alone. Anyways, I went to their party with a bunch of married people, oh the joy, actually that really has nothing to do with this except we were talking after. OK, I am tired. Moving on. My sister-in-law works at an all girls private school. One word, "MONEY." Their tuition is more expensive than mine, good grief. Who pays $25,000 for their 7 year old to go to school? The answer is lots and lots of people in the DC area. Anyways, Carly was telling me a story that one of her co-workers, an alumnus (is that the right word? whatever) told her. The woman said she knew that she went to an all girls school one day when she saw a girl walking down the hall, grab her stomach and say "Ah, my uterus hurts." Uh yeah, only at an all girls school would that happen. My sister-in-law is also pregnant and due in February with their first baby, YAY (except they'll be in Littleton, BOOOO, again). The problem is, my brother gets horribly queasy when it comes to blood and guts. Yes, we have VERY different tastes in life. Poor guy can't even handle me telling stories...he turns a little green. It's kinda fun. :-D I'm so evil! He's convinced that he's going to be in the Labor/ Delivery room with Carly when she has the baby though, I'm convinced he's not going to make it. He'll pass out, I'm sure of it. He's so determined that he'll be fine and that he's just going to stay at the top of the bed. He thinks he'll rally when he has to though and be just fine. There's a slight possibly that might work, but there's NO way he's going to make it through the after-birth. The placenta is probably the bloodiest thing I have ever seen/ touched. I used to have the oh so pleasant job of cleaning the birthing carts and bagging the placentas to freeze them. My professor tried to describe a placenta today, but until you hold one in your hands there's no way you can possibly sum up how bloody, rubbery, and disgusting it really is...and yet that sack allows a fetus to grow for 9 months, amazing. Truly incredible! There's also nothing like holding a brand new, literally, baby in your arms. It's a pretty special experience. I would never do OB, it's just not for me, not enough excitement, surprisingly enough, but it's fun to do every once in a while. I enjoyed the time I worked there as a CNA and a secretary on a Mother/ Baby Unit.

Anyways, that was quite the tangent, sorry. I hope I didn't gross anyone out too bad. Oh, I just realized I didn't explain the title line. We also talked about twins and how they're formed today. My friend decided she definitely does NOT want twins and if she has them she's going to be like: "take 'em back, take 'em back!!" hahaha...yeah, I would probably feel the same way. In fact, by the time this class is over we're probably not going to want kids at all. Thank goodness for nieces and nephews. LOVE them, especially since you can give them back!! ;-) So this semester promises to be an entertaining one full of lots of blogs, probably. For now, it's late and I need to be sleeping.

Hotter than H#!!...

So, I just looked up the forecast for today for Arlington...right now it's: Sunny, 97 Degrees, feels like 108 Degrees with 46% humidity. Yeah right. Just shoot me. No wonder our air conditioner never shuts off. I don't even want to leave my house, but guess what?! I have to...and I'm home alone because all of my roommates are on vacation, BORING. OK, time to go brave the heat. At least I love my moonroof!!! :)

Scratch that, I went outside, um, dripping wet in about 10 seconds. 46%? Yeah right...more like 99% humidity. YUCK!!!

Do I have WHAT?! Shhh....

My life is full of awkward moments. Like last week wasn't bad enough with female repro. and breast/ testicular exams...this week was male repro. and STDs which, by the way, are now called STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections), since I'm sure you were just dying to know that. YUCK!!! Sometimes I'm seriously grateful (more so than usual, at least) that I'm LDS (aka Mormon). But here's some of the highlights from my class tonight- I didn't say any of these, just for the record: :)
On the topic of STIs:
The first slide for this section said "Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease"
- Yeah, that caused plenty of controversy in my classroom. The lady behind me said "It's not a disease, it's a joy." Someone also stated, "It's an infection."
- Me: On the first slide- "What is THAT supposed to mean?" On the next two comments, Me thinking: "LOL, no comment...."
Moving on with the lecture, these were more rather entertaining comments made on the STIs lecture:
- "It's great fun" (that was actually from my professor)
- Me thinking: "Are you serious?! Gross!"
- My Professor then went on to comment on how she always feels a little guilty giving these lectures when the screen for the PowerPoints is right next to a crucifix on the wall (I'm going to a Catholic school. BYU to Catholic school, lol, yeah) She especially commented on the nasty pictures (porn) she has to put up on the screen. By the way, don't get a STI, they're nasty and you'll be REALLY sick. OK, enough on that, moving on....
With a couple STIs, rather disgusting sores show up on people's hands if they are infected...here's my favorite comments on that sign:
- To the patient (or I guess to a guy you're thinking about dating): "Can I see your hands? I'm not only checking your cap. refill...."
- Me thinking: Smooth. That was funny....That's a disgusting test to do on someone, but yeah, probably pretty accurate...the sores make me want to gag, there's NO WAY I'd hold that hand, much less want to date the guy...What have YOU been doing, buddy?! Nevermind, I don't want to know. I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

Several weeks ago I was studying and one of my friends asked me, "Do you have Doctor Porn?" I believe my response was something like, "Do I have WHAT?!" Once she explained that she meant graphic, not censored (at all, usually) pictures in my nursing books, I realized that yeah, I do, unfortunately. I've never thought of it that way, but yeah that's probably pretty accurate. I have a lot of it. I see a lot of it. It's become so much of my professional life that it doesn't even phase me anymore, but I think I nearly had a heart attack when she said that, lol. If I had been drinking something it would have gone all over the room. Yeah, not my favorite part of nursing. Booo...oh well. I can be professional and move on. Doctor Porn, lovely...that's just great. (me smacking myself on the forehead and shaking it...oh and probably rolling my eyes too, since I do that A LOT).

We also had to abdominal exams in lab today, which was no big deal. Here's the problem though....I'm incredibly ticklish. Bare skin, especially my stomach is a prime spot for tickling me. Good thing no one ever has the opportunity to tickle me like that (except this once). My poor friend was having a hard time palpating and auscultating (listening to) my abdomen cause I kept bursting out laughing. By the way....when your patient is laughing and you're listening to it in a stethoscope it's REALLY loud. Not nice, lol. I tried not to laugh, and failed. At least she's just as ticklish as me. Minus swimsuits I'm not a regular advocate of showing off a lot of skin, but in this lab they literally told us "less is more" meaning that the less clothes you wear the better (we have to do pretty extensive exams, so it's understandable, but still...) I think nursing school is corrupting me. Oh wait, maybe I was already corrupted. ;-)

P.S. This is by no means an invitation to tickle me, it will not end well for you if you try.

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.