Learning humility.

There are a lot of jokes about nurses, considering that the kind of work we do often involves bodily processes and orifices that don't make for good dinner conversation (except in my opinion.)

What you don't hear so much about, at least not from outside the circle of nursing, is the great lessons in humility you experience day after day, sometimes every hour of your shift.

My job is in a very rural area, serving close to a 100,000 people who have spent generations living on conventional wisdom. Often that leads to poor health choices, low compliance with prescribed health regimens, and equals frustration for all members of the health care team. When I took this job, very aware of the area in which I'd be working (an area I grew up in), I was afraid. Afraid that I would lack compassion. Afraid that I wouldn't be able to see past the disease process, past the poor choices and unfortunate events leading to this person lying in the bed in front of me. Afraid that my middle-class, highly-educated judgment would get in the way of the empathy integral to the heart of nursing.

I'm grateful, and humbled, to say that I was wrong.

Do I still feel frustrated when I see people out in the community making poor health choices? When I see parents chain-smoking in the car with their children? Absolutely.

But when I've had substance abusers overdosed and diabetics losing another portion of their foot, I'm finding that the compassion I thought I would struggle to find is eager to come to me, eager to show my patients that it doesn't matter how many times they've misstepped or screwed up, there is always a chance, a hope for a new beginning.

The humility is everywhere. When I enter a patient's room at 1am and find their loved one quietly sobbing in the corner. When a proud diabetic admits they don't understand their disease, but they're finally ready to. When the bereaved spouse of a marriage older than my parents graciously bids farewell to their partner.

I grab this humility and I hold it close. Nursing is a profession where it's easy to become jaded, where patients stop being people and start becoming just another insert diagnosis here.

I don't want that.

So in the still of the night, when the darkness is forgiving and offers a screen of protection for pride, when patients and families are at their most vulnerable, I stop and I listen and I feel. And then I do my best, day after day, hour after hour, to remember.

Nursing School--week 4

Took my first nursing fundamentals exam this morning, after pretty solid studying for several days prior. Nursing tests are formatted after the NCLEX, which is the licensing exam we have to take in order to be able to practice. NCLEX is all about the critical thinking, and not so much about hard-and-fast technical facts.

I'm good at technical facts. The critical thinking style is going to take some practice.

That being said, I still feel like I did pretty well, and after discussing the iffy questions with classmates afterward, I feel slightly better. I'm sure I passed, but I always want an A, which only allows for missing 5 questions. I know for sure I missed 1 question, but I guess I'll see in a few days...

Tomorrow is my first A&P exam, which should be more hard & fast. I'm feeling pretty good about it too, and I have all day to study as well as tomorrow morning/early afternoon.

The best thing about having the first tests under my belt is that I now have a better idea of how I need to approach studying in the future. I think I'm going to be able to structure my days better in terms to keeping up with homework and still having some free time.

I'm desperate for some free time. It feels like lately, every moment that I'm not studying I'm either exercising, doing necessary house work, or running errands.

I'm determined to work some writing time into my schedule, just so I can feel a little more in tune with myself. Nursing school has already consumed me so much that glancing over all the posts and Blogger and Twitter, and seeing how they're all about writing, already feels odd. For so long my world was focused on writing, and now it's so not that it seems microscopic in retrospect. Funny how things easily become consuming.

Anyway. Right now I have three kitties demanding food and love and such, and I've got the bad shakes from too much coffee and not enough food.

But today's goal is to try to write at least a few hundred words. And get outside! Our weather has been phenomenal since Lee breezed through, and I'm hoping fall is here to stay!

Nursing School--week 2

This is only my second week of nursing school--technically my first full week.

And all I have to say is this: Zzzzzzz...

Seriously, though--this has only been one week? I would swear each day has felt like its own week.

I don't want to sound complainy--I'm just still trying to settle myself into a decent schedule. Really, until after the 1st test, I'm not going to have a good feeling about how much/what I need to study. Until then, I'm erring on the side of over-abundance.

My brain already feels full just from Anatomy & Physiology, like there's no room for the nursing. I think it's partly because I have nursing lecture on Mondays and lab on Fridays, while A&P has lab AND lecture on Tuesdays and lecture on Thursdays, so those are closer together and feel infinitely more imminent.

Wednesday is my weekday off, and of course this being my first one I was all prepared to study and get ahead and BAM! Some construction crew cut the main lines providing internet to the university servers, so there was no accessing any of our online materials for 35 hours! That doesn't seem like a big deal, but ALL the classes put everything online, from lecture materials to homework and stuff you need to print out, blah blah. Major wrench thrown at everyone. Lesson learned: plan way ahead.

So. I'm studying like I've never studied and learning tons and tons. It's pretty cool. Next time you might think "s/he's just a nurse," go ahead and slap yourself.

And just so you know I'm still down to Earth, I got to spend the precious first half of my lunch break today cleaning up projectile cat vomit! Woo! Also, poor Monty (who's been sick for weeks, but slowly getting better) has been snotting green snot everywhere in the house. On the walls. On the brand new beige carpet. In your FACE. Lovely. Poor kitty.

*sigh* *yawn*

Tonight's my one night to relax, so I think we're having friends over to hang out. Which means I get to clean house!

Those of you in hurricane Irene's path, be safe! Remember--you can drink your own pee if you really, really have to! ;)

(Nursing) First Week

I've successfully completed my first week back to school. As a life-long lover of learning, I've always enjoyed being in school, having education shape my routine and structure my days. And though I've been out for over three years, going back was like slipping into an old, but favorite, pair of shoes.

There are differences this time, of course--my undergraduate time was spent as an English major with a heavy dose of art and theatre courses. For class, I bought a hundred bucks' worth of novels and maybe some lit theory essays. "Homework" consisted of reading the text and being prepared to analyze and discuss during class. I grew tremendously as a writer during those years, both academic and non-academic, and I learned to think critically and analyze anything written. Those are skills.

But now I'm learning skills. As I told my brother on the phone yesterday, it's a crazy, amazing feeling to walk into class knowing nothing, and walk out 4 hours later knowing how to do things. Like, take vital signs, including blood pressure with the cuff (which has always been mysterious and interesting to me). Getting CPR-certified was another eye-opener. You suddenly have this weight of responsibility--if you see someone go down,  more than likely you're the only one who's going to know how to respond. That's a lot of pressure. I constantly think about giving CPR, different scenarios in which it might happen, and run through the steps over and over in my head.

Learning a skilled trade is a whole different ballgame than getting a liberal arts degree. I wouldn't give up my degree for anything, and if I could do it over again, I would--every single time.

But nursing school is already drawing on a different part of my brain.

This weekend I have to write a paper about Why I Chose Nursing/What Nursing Means to Me. I have so many feelings about this subject, some of which I'm not sure belong in that paper. Such as: I like knowing things. I like having facts in my head like secrets the rest of the world doesn't know. When someone asks a question, I like to know the answer. I like being asked for an opinion because I'm the most qualified to answer.

Anatomy and Physiology makes me giddy. I'm going to know the name and function of every part of your body. It's like a secret language, an In club that only certain people are part of.

It's amazing.


Also, we're going to have a cadaver lab in mid-October and I am so excited.

These are all my nursing books--a cool dozen. They weigh about a thousand pounds. Mack for size reference. 

On Soulless Things

Do any of you fans of The Office recall the episode "Safety Training"? The one where they have the first aid instructor come in, and Dwight ends up "harvesting the organs" of the dummy and then wearing its face like Hannibal Lector? One of the funniest scenes of the show, in my opinion.

Well, today it's my turn. I'm getting some hot dummy action. 

I Googled pictures of CPR dummies, but they were all so creepy in their own ways that I couldn't bear to bring them into this safe place. I have this fear of dolls that kinda links with my fear of clowns (my cousins had a doll clown that was pretty much Satan in the batting). With that fear in mind, I'd kinda like to let a couple of the dummies die, but I doubt the instructor would see my point of view. 

Even worse, today is basically the last feasible day for any of us nursing students to get this CPR certification, and the instructor said the class is really full. So I'm going to be stuck in a room full of dummies for about four and a half hours. 

Oh, boy. I can't wait. 

Speaking of soulless things, Evan and I started watching The Walking Dead this week. Besides the obvious interest, it's also filmed in Atlanta. And it's always fun to watch things filmed near where you live, right? We've only finished the first half of season one, but so far I give it five stars. The creepiness of the first episode was on par with the best zombie movies, which made husband uncomfortable at the prospect of an entire show like that, but the good news is that it focuses more on the characters and their situation after the first episode. I highly recommend! 

In other thoughts, I somehow managed to let the household run out of both milk and bodywash. Those aren't related. 

Happy hump day!