Why I don't go on blind dates anymore

So some friends and I were discussing malpractice insurance for Doctors the other night and it reminded me of the time that I could have sued a Doctor for misdiagnosing me....We were also discussing dating which reminds me of the same story. This is why I will NEVER go on another blind date again. This is also why I don't have an appendix, or a belly button either.

I woke up at 12:30am with the worst pain I've ever experienced. Actually, it's a toss up between that pain and the pain of having the packing removed from my nose after that surgery. But, that's an entirely different story. I can tolerate my fair share of pain, really at it's worse I've only called my pain an 8 out of 10. For me to call it a 10, I'd have to be unconscious from the pain, nearly dead. Anyways, I suffered through the night somehow until 8:30am and then convinced one of my roommates to take me to the Health Center at BYU (this is no way degrades the care of the Health Center, they are great!!). Let me back up just for a second, my pain was in my abdomen, but was not localized like appendicitis usually is. Since I knew appendicitis is usually pain in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen I figured that it was not appendicitis so I could put heat on it, which I did. BAD BAD idea. NEVER EVER put heat on appendicitis. It can kill you! I'm an idiot. Luckily I survived my stupidity. Back to the Health Center....I received IV #1 and fluids. They took a x-ray of my abdomen and the Doctor determined that I was constipated. Are you freakin' kidding me?! Worst pain of my life and he's says it's just constipation. Yeah right. He wouldn't give me any pain medication because he said that would make the constipation worse. Lovely. I stayed in misery for the next 4 hours at the Health Center. They finally sent me home sometime after noon (they took out my IV) and told me to call if I started vomiting.

I went home and of course...I started vomiting. At this point they decided that I needed to get in to have a CT Scan. So I drove to the Imaging place, bawling my eyes out. At this point, I called my brother and sister-in-law and asked them to meet me there. At the Imaging place of course they had to start another IV (IV #2) to do a contrast CT Scan. If you've never had one of these done, I'll just tell you this, it leaves a copper taste (kind of like penny's) in your mouth and also makes you feel like you peed your pants. I know, awesome. At least I can have empathy for my patients now, I guess. They did the CT Scan and I sat in the waiting room with my bro and sis- in-law and nephew for a while crying until they told me to go straight to the hospital, I had appendicitis, I have to have surgery immediately. Basically, do not pass go, do not collect $200. So, luckily the Imaging place was around the corner from the hospital. I was no longer in any shape to drive though, so I had to leave my car and have my sis-in-law drive. I'm so grateful for the Priesthood in my life. My brother gave me a blessing on the way to the hospital, it wasn't the only one I would get during this hospital visit.

We got to the hospital ER (I don't remember what time it was). So much for being an emergency, though. I sat in the waiting room of the ER for like another 2 hours, puking my guts up in a bucket. Oh the joy. I vaguely remember that one of the bathrooms was flooding in the waiting room too, but maybe I just made that detail up, I don't know. My brother called my Mom while when we got to the ER waiting room to tell her what was up. Unfortunately, I had not warned her of what was going on, so she just got a phone call from my brother saying..."we're in the ER, Jennie has to have surgery." Hahaha, my poor Mom. My brother thought I had talked to her earlier, so that news was a bit of a shock to her. Luckily my home in Colorado is only a 5 hour drive from Provo, so she left right away. Now, to the blind date part....

I had a blind date planned with a guy who's parents were good friends with my parents for the night after my surgery. Well...as I was puking in a bucket in the ER waiting room, my date called me to finalize details. Of course I didn't want to answer, so I made my brother answer and explain to him that I was in the ER and about to go to surgery for an emergency Appendectomy, so the date would have to be postponed, obviously. End of story, right? Wrong! But I'll get back to that a little later.

I was finally admitted to the actual ER around 5pm, where they FINALLY gave me Morphine for the pain. YAY for narcotics!!!! Big fan!!! So basically I hadn't had ANYTHING for pain for the past approximately 17 hours since my pain had started. Yeah, it was the day from Hell! Well, I had never had Morphine before and it works great for me, but it also knocks me out and makes me pretty loopy. Basically I am NOT responsible for ANYTHING I say when I'm on narcotics. I DO NOT edit what I say and basically you could probably get me to tell you anything. I'm pretty sure it would NOT make any sense though, sorry. I'm not sure if I received IV #3 or if they left the one in from the Imaging center. I thought I spent like 2 hours in the ER waiting to go into surgery. I found out later that it was actually 5 hours. My poor brother, who must seriously love me, sat with me for the entire 5 hours. I love him dearly!! Poor guy! Apparently there were like 3 or 4 more cases of Appendicitis in the ER at the same time I was there, which was really random. I was finally taken back into a prep room for surgery at about 10pm. They gave me something that they said would make me kind of drowsy. Hahahaha, yeah right. I was completely out in like 30 seconds. I don't remember anything until they were taking me into my room 3 hours later. I wasn't even awake to go into the OR. I woke up at 1am as they were wheeling me into my room on the Med/ Surg floor and my Mom had just barely arrived.

The funny thing is they put me on the floor below where I worked. 3 weeks previously I had started work on the Medical/ Oncology Floor as a PCT (Patient Care Tech- basically a CNA who gets to draw blood and put in catheters, woohoo :P). I was even supposed to work that weekend. That obviously didn't happen, but I did go up to visit my co-workers, IV pole and all, just to prove that I wasn't just skipping out on work for fun. :) The next day was pretty blurry for me. I was on a lot of drugs, which not only knocked me out, I was also in pain. I know a bunch of people from church, who I didn't know yet (later we became really good friends) came to see me. I don't remember the details though. The funny thing about narcotics and me is that, like I said, I don't have the ability to edit things when I'm on them. So, apparently I told me brother something that is entirely too graphic to put on here (I've taken so many medical classes that I tend to use correct medical terms. This isn't coming out right. Ok, I described something in detail in medical terms that normal people don't use in casual conversation). My mother was mortified, though. I think it's hilarious, but my brother was kind of horrified. Anyways, me on narcotics is dangerous for casual conversation.

Back to the blind date thing. The evening after my surgery, we got a phone call in my room that my Mom answered and guess who it was? My blind date. Yeah, guess where he was? Downstairs in the hospital. Oh yeah. No, I'm not kidding. He drove like an hour and a half to get there, it wasn't like I could turn him away. Another note on narcotics, they make me incredibly emotional. So I was completely irrational and had just been crying about something. So anyways, I got to meet my blind date while lying in a hospital bed wearing literally nothing but a hospital gown, no make-up, I've just been through surgery, and I'm totally loopy on narcotics. Lovely. Talk about embarrassing. He does get points for making me cookies and bringing me a card, but I can't quite forget how humiliated I was. Now it's just funny, but it wasn't very funny at the time. Apparently, my Mom spent almost the whole time talking to him. I was too drugged to be very conversational. That may be kind of rude, but considering the state I was in, I didn't care. I did end up going out with him later on our date, which was disastrous, by the way. It was awful. He was sizing me up for marriage the whole time, basically. But, I don't want to totally trash the guy, so back to my hospital story. Nope, I'm not done. It gets better, although the blind date part is done.

I should have gone home the next day (Post-Op Day #2?), I think (I don't know, the days all kind of ran together). But I do remember the PCT coming in the next morning and taking me vital signs. She stuck a sat monitor on my finger and nearly panicked when it read my Sats as in the 70's. Yeah, VERY bad. Ok, your "Sats" is your oxygen saturation in your blood. Basically you want it to be above 90% (my nursing professors say much higher, but basically when it gets to 88% it rapidly drops)...so the fact that I was in the 70's was a bit of a panic moment for them. I had to get a chest x-ray, which showed that the bottom of my lungs were starting to collapse (I had atelectasis, my nursing friends will appreciate that diagnosis). Basically, that put me at a big risk for getting pneumonia, unless I started moving around and coughing, deep breathing. By the way, when you've had you're stomach muscle cut through, the last thing you want to do is cough or deep breathe. Yay for nurses who told me about using a pillow as a splint. Ok, I better stop there before I get really carried away with the nursing stuff. They also sent me down for ultrasounds on both of my legs to check for DVT's (blood clots) from lying in bed too much (a cause of the atelectasis). It was a rough day. I finally got to go home the next day (I think). Recovery was like 3 weeks at home and another 3 weeks not lifting anything. That was just a laparoscopic appendectomy. (P.S. Yes, this means I have 3 tiny scars, one of which is in my belly button, basically he destroyed my belly button. I don't really have one anymore). I can't imagine what an open appendectomy would be like. Recovery sucked, to put it lightly. Lortab (Vicodin) was my friend for weeks! Thank goodness I only had one appendix, I NEVER want to do that again.

Anyways, the good thing is it did give me a lot of empathy for my patients. I know what it feels like to have a sore throat from being intubated. I know what it feels like to be in pain from having air inflated into your abdomen for surgery and then to have to burp it up for the next day (yes, they do that, and yes, it actually hurts). I know what real pain feels like (to a degree, of course, pain is subjective and different for every person). I know what it's like to need pain medication and to have to wait forever (or so it seemed) for your nurse to bring it to you. Ok, I should stop. Basically, I learned a ton from the experience.

Hmm...did I forget anything? That's a really long story, sorry. It's better when I tell it in person, with my voice inflections and facial expressions, of course. I'm not telling this to be cocky or dramatic, it's just a great story. Anyways, I refuse to go on anymore blind dates. They're not worth it. What would happen next time? I'd probably get hit by a truck and have to get my spleen out or something. I can only lose so many internal organs. Yeah, it's not worth it. No go. (because I'm morbid and like pictures) :)

"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.

"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!!!

Durnit....

It's almost 3:30am and I totally can't sleep. Why?! This sucks. My nephew and niece will probably wake me up in about 3 1/2 hours. Awesome.

Who needs a conscience, I have a nephew...

It was my niece's turn to say the family prayer tonight, she's 2 1/2. (Oh, P.S. I'm in Utah with my bro's family right now, yay!) So she said her prayer, but then my nephew (he's 5) decided he needed to say his own prayer too. I don't remember exactly the words he used in the prayer, but it went something like this..."please bless that Aunt Jennie will not be good and will not be mean to Daddy and put hot sauce in his water again like she did last time." He struggled through that part trying to put it into words, but by that time I had my hands over my face trying REALLY hard not to laugh out loud. Once he was done, I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. That was 3 months ago, he has an amazing memory. Apparently I traumatized him by doing that. I was just getting my brother back for something he did to me, I don't even remember what. Welcome to my family! That's what siblings are for, right?! My brother was like, "yeah, he's got my back." Blah...now I feel a little bit guilty. OK, maybe not. Kids are great!!! He repeated the "Aunt Jennie will be good" part at least twice. So apparently I'm supposed to be good this vacation. Hahaha!! We'll see.... :D