Why I Went Into Nursing- Reason #752
My "work" attire is essentially monochromatic pajamas, drawstring pants and all.
And while I'm in the mood...
Good freaking heavens. This country is in dire, dire need of a grammar overhaul. I refuse to wade into the "lie, lay, lied, laid" waters (although I'd say that at my age, I've finally mastered who and whom), but a simple grasp of the proper use of "your" and "you're" would make things easier to read.
I realize that I just got done railing against people thinking it's all about themselves. While the proliferous abuse of you're/your bugs the @#$%! out of me on a DAILY basis, I know there are many that share my view. So therefore, this not about appeasing me and my grammar fetish. This is about being a literate member of society.
So, for the record, since about 98% of Facebook users miss this 99% of the time:
Your- is possessive, as in "your poor use of grammar", thereby highlighting you possess a poor use of grammar.
You're- is a contraction, a lovely English way of shortening words because "you are" is apparently 1 syllable to many to say, as in "you're an English language killer" which is 1 syllable short of the amount in the phrase "you are an English language killer". (In defense of the contraction- I do it all the time. I talk fast, contractions are almost a speech defense mechanism of my muscles trying to keep up with my thoughts.)
Bad days at work drive me to this.
Until next time, when I will tackle the egregious misuse of the triple whammy their/there/they're...
The 173rd edition of "It's Not All About You".
If I ever find out that someone I know is one of these pathetic imbeciles that calls 911 for something totally benign (yes, ALWAYS benign) like the sniffles, a headache or a toothache- I'm going to smack them across the face on both cheeks, kick them in the shins, verbally abuse them and then disown them as even an acquaintance- thereby giving them almost, ALMOST, plausible cause to utilize the 911 system.
The following are absolutely unacceptable reasons for using 911 for things similar to those listed above:
1) You don't have health insurance. 911 is not health care reform on speed dial.
2) You have the sniffles but you have a hot date/party/fishing trip/(insert totally unmissable event here). Try washing your hands more often if being sick interferes with your social life, because shockingly enough, hand washing is pretty effective in stopping the spread of infection. Who knew Semmelweis knew what he was talking about way back then?
3) Your tooth hurts? Call your DENTIST. Chances are, in this economy, he or she has some open spots in their schedule and can fit you in. Tooth pain may be excruciating, but it's NOT AN EMERGENCY!!!!!!
You may think something like these little things is the biggest emergency of your life. But when you're clogging up the system because you just think your sniffles are the most life-threatening case ever but some poor soul having a heart attack can't get through because your sorry ass can't handle snot- you're an idiot.
Dear 911-caller with a minor health problem: Let 911 save some real lives, while you go out and wonder where in the hell you left yours and how you can get it back. Signed- the shrinking minority of rational thinkers.
I'm not OK with this.
After 3 glasses of white, I feel I'm ready to spill my guts on church last night. It didn't settle well with me and 3/4 of the way through I shut my Bible and did the cross-armed stonewall.
I'm a little leery of guest speakers at church anyway, mostly because I'm noticing a trend towards only having speakers of the Master's College kind, and while that doesn't mean they're bad, I sense a fear of anything BUT Master's people. Just a little hint, people that go to those "inferior" places like Fuller and Talbot have some pretty good things to say, but I think that may be lost on this crowd.
So, last night was on the rapture, using the last chapter of 1 Thessalonians as home base. I was hanging in there until I was given the distinct impression that if I have any sin in my life that is being worked on, if it isn't resolved than I am not ready for the rapture.
And it was at this moment that I shut my Bible and crossed the arms. I was done after that.
I recognize that if I have a sin in my life, like, oh say, my IMPATIENCE, and I was not actively bringing it before God and eliminating it from my life, then yes, I agree. But to tell me or anybody that if they have something that they struggle against and bring it before God and do daily that if this is a problem then they are not "ready" for the rapture... I have to disagree. And I don't like it.
I thought I was alone until I mentioned it to a friend tonight and she let me know how she felt on that. It felt good not to be alone on it. Sometimes, I think my misgivings on some of these sermons is me being convicted of things in my own life and I'm just fighting it. But not on this one.
I've been feeling very rebellious (for lack of a better term) when it comes to things that are being said at this church sometimes. I chalk it up to me being slightly rebellious in all things and that this is just yet another item in a long list of things I need to work on. But I can't shake this. Not this one.
This church is awesome and I really, really enjoy the lead pastor. It's the "other" speakers that make me do the "golden retriever". You know, that look goldies give you where they prick their ears up, look at you all serious and cock their heads to one side.
If I'm way off base, somebody please tell me. And show me where in the Bible, because I need to know. But after all my years of Christian school, church and youth group, this just isn't resonating as familiar.
I go to church to learn, drink it in and occasionally get a butt kicking. I don't like walking away wondering if I heard something right.
What if that was my first night? What then?
The sunlight bores the daylights out of me.
Mick Jagger sang it many, many years ago and in about 3 weeks, it will apply to me. But not in an overstimulated, strung out rock star sort of way.
Unbeknownst and but much to my skin doctor's delight, I will starting night shifts a whole 2 weeks ahead of schedule. The week following Labor Day Weekend, I will be starting my first night job ever. I'm a little worried about this.
As someone who values her sleep and is physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, religiously attached to her sleep- this is going to be a tough one. I'll still be sleeping, but it will be in the middle of the day, in a house that is used to being lit up and active during the day when I'm home. Instead, when I'm home sleeping, this place will have to be stone silent.
This should be interesting. Especially when the Stair Slayer decides I should be paying attention to him when I should be sleeping. I will prevail. It's me vs. dog and I will win.
WIN!!!!!
Christian Buzz Word Overkill.
Sigh. Perhaps I'm just a little punchy after back-to-back day shifts but I have another astoundingly cynical observation to make.
Just so you know, if you include more than 3 Christian/churchy cliches or buzzwords in your Facebook update, I'm over it. Can't even finish the update to the end. No joke, I came across one today that had 5 of them. FIVE!!!
The cynic in me just doesn't see the need to be so... effusive. I'm all for giving all glory to God and it's more than due. But excessive combinations and wordings of things like, "brother/sister of the faith" and "example of Christ's love" don't come across as glory to me. It comes across as trying to sound super duper Christian-y and pious.
One or two? Awesome! In the spirit of things, Praise the Lord (or if you're into murdering the written English language- PTL)! But more than that? I think you're compensating for something. Say it, but don't go on and on and on. Because usually, you're not making sense because you're trying to force multiple cliches into one cohesive thought.
So in conclusion, I am not mocking your praise unto the Lord. I am appalled at your abhorrent sentence construction and wordiness. It exhausts me.
Crap, I need to sleep.
My first 2 weeks of real life nursing.
I love my job. How many people get to say that?!?
My first week was orientations and computer classes. Each day, we got out earlier than scheduled. By far the best day was the first, which was hospital orientation. They told us all about the hospital, its history, things like that. Their mission statement goes like this: "Our mission is to extend the healing ministry of Jesus in the tradition of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange by continually improving the health and quality of life of people in the communities we serve. Our vision is to care for the medically underserved, to create healthier communities, and to alleviate conditions which limit access to basic health services."
How's that? Their mission is to extend the healing ministry of Jesus?!? And I get to work here? So this is why no other hospitals were calling me or interviewing me. I'm supposed to be here.
Since I have a whole 2 days under my belt as a true RN (yikes!), I've learned a few things the last couple of days, but I realized a whole lot more. I give you the highlights:
-magically attached to my license (which is curiously the same size as a credit card, but without the benefits) is, I think, the ability to remember to do things when you're supposed to, like rotating boots that prevent foot drop and cleaning out someone's mouth every 4 hours when they're on a ventilator. I always wondered how I would remember. All I have to say is it's in the plastic.
-apparently, when everyone pitched a fit about BPH in plastic and they took it out, IV bags went from being nice and pliable and quiet to squeaky, loud and crinkly. Thanks a lot, like my patients needed something else to wake them up. Oh wait, they're heavily sedated and totally unresponsive... you're lucky on this one, that's all I got to say.
-in my first conversation with a doctor on the floor, it was a neurosurgeon, he was nicer than nice and when I told him my patient was swelling like a tick because of his excessive IV intake and could I take his IV fluid rate down a notch, he wrote me orders to fix it. I was scared to do this in school?!? Which leads me to...
-as soon as you're not in freaking all-white nursing school scrubs, you are seen in a different light. Almost like you're part of "the club". It's awesome! I've had 2 doctors just talk to me and ask me questions about my patient and not only did I answer them correctly, they believed me! I'm not kidding you, this is just amazing.
-I look HOTTT (yes, with 3 T's) in all navy. So slimming. So bootcut. So the exact opposite of all white and tapered ankles. Hallelujah.
-after giving my patient 5 different things to make him take a crap (including 2 enemas within 5 minutes of each other), he unloaded about 2 liters of poo. The way I described it to the Tall One was like this: you know on those trauma/ER shows where the dude comes in with a gunshot wound and blood is just dripping onto the floor into huge puddles? That was me yesterday. With poo. I can safely say that the 2 liters is a good guess because we used a suction catheter and a canister to vacuum a lot of it up to make it easier to clean up and that was at least a liter there. It took 3 of us 45 minutes to clean up, but when we were done, it was like nothing had happened in there. But we knew...
-I watched CSF (the nice, sterile, clear fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord) burble out of a lady's incision when she coughed. A nurse said let's clean the area with sterilizing solution and then put a clean bandage over it. Um, I'm pretty sure I learned that is the WRONG thing to do, but since it wasn't my patient, I'm new AND a grunt, I kept my mouth shut. Nobody likes an overeager new grad spouting textbooks. I still don't know if that was the right decision.
-checking a patient's blood sugar and then giving insulin based on the result is so much easier than when I was a student! Before, I had to do the test, show the nurse, get the insulin, show it to my nurse, get ANOTHER nurse, show her, then give it. Now? I AM the nurse! I show one other nurse and bam!- give it to my patient. Nursing school is so complicated.
-two days on the floor, and I'm already going home with medications. In my shift report, I told the oncoming RN that I hadn't given a 5mg tablet of a med because the order called for 10mg and the pharmacy had only sent me one 5mg tablet. They never sent me the second tab, so I put it back in my patient's med drawer. Or so I thought. I raced home a half hour late, showered and we were off the the OC fair. Before leaving, I took all my nursey stuff out of my purse- and that included the 5mg tablet. Pissed. So I dropped it off on the way to the fair.
I like nursing!! I love my job!!!
My first week was orientations and computer classes. Each day, we got out earlier than scheduled. By far the best day was the first, which was hospital orientation. They told us all about the hospital, its history, things like that. Their mission statement goes like this: "Our mission is to extend the healing ministry of Jesus in the tradition of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange by continually improving the health and quality of life of people in the communities we serve. Our vision is to care for the medically underserved, to create healthier communities, and to alleviate conditions which limit access to basic health services."
How's that? Their mission is to extend the healing ministry of Jesus?!? And I get to work here? So this is why no other hospitals were calling me or interviewing me. I'm supposed to be here.
Since I have a whole 2 days under my belt as a true RN (yikes!), I've learned a few things the last couple of days, but I realized a whole lot more. I give you the highlights:
-magically attached to my license (which is curiously the same size as a credit card, but without the benefits) is, I think, the ability to remember to do things when you're supposed to, like rotating boots that prevent foot drop and cleaning out someone's mouth every 4 hours when they're on a ventilator. I always wondered how I would remember. All I have to say is it's in the plastic.
-apparently, when everyone pitched a fit about BPH in plastic and they took it out, IV bags went from being nice and pliable and quiet to squeaky, loud and crinkly. Thanks a lot, like my patients needed something else to wake them up. Oh wait, they're heavily sedated and totally unresponsive... you're lucky on this one, that's all I got to say.
-in my first conversation with a doctor on the floor, it was a neurosurgeon, he was nicer than nice and when I told him my patient was swelling like a tick because of his excessive IV intake and could I take his IV fluid rate down a notch, he wrote me orders to fix it. I was scared to do this in school?!? Which leads me to...
-as soon as you're not in freaking all-white nursing school scrubs, you are seen in a different light. Almost like you're part of "the club". It's awesome! I've had 2 doctors just talk to me and ask me questions about my patient and not only did I answer them correctly, they believed me! I'm not kidding you, this is just amazing.
-I look HOTTT (yes, with 3 T's) in all navy. So slimming. So bootcut. So the exact opposite of all white and tapered ankles. Hallelujah.
-after giving my patient 5 different things to make him take a crap (including 2 enemas within 5 minutes of each other), he unloaded about 2 liters of poo. The way I described it to the Tall One was like this: you know on those trauma/ER shows where the dude comes in with a gunshot wound and blood is just dripping onto the floor into huge puddles? That was me yesterday. With poo. I can safely say that the 2 liters is a good guess because we used a suction catheter and a canister to vacuum a lot of it up to make it easier to clean up and that was at least a liter there. It took 3 of us 45 minutes to clean up, but when we were done, it was like nothing had happened in there. But we knew...
-I watched CSF (the nice, sterile, clear fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord) burble out of a lady's incision when she coughed. A nurse said let's clean the area with sterilizing solution and then put a clean bandage over it. Um, I'm pretty sure I learned that is the WRONG thing to do, but since it wasn't my patient, I'm new AND a grunt, I kept my mouth shut. Nobody likes an overeager new grad spouting textbooks. I still don't know if that was the right decision.
-checking a patient's blood sugar and then giving insulin based on the result is so much easier than when I was a student! Before, I had to do the test, show the nurse, get the insulin, show it to my nurse, get ANOTHER nurse, show her, then give it. Now? I AM the nurse! I show one other nurse and bam!- give it to my patient. Nursing school is so complicated.
-two days on the floor, and I'm already going home with medications. In my shift report, I told the oncoming RN that I hadn't given a 5mg tablet of a med because the order called for 10mg and the pharmacy had only sent me one 5mg tablet. They never sent me the second tab, so I put it back in my patient's med drawer. Or so I thought. I raced home a half hour late, showered and we were off the the OC fair. Before leaving, I took all my nursey stuff out of my purse- and that included the 5mg tablet. Pissed. So I dropped it off on the way to the fair.
I like nursing!! I love my job!!!
The end of the proverbial rope...
...can be found at my house because the freaking dog managed to, within the first 10 minutes of me coming home from working out, grab all 3 of my new scrubs and roll around with them on his dog bed and rip tags off. I haven't even worn these, and now I have to wash them again.
I've been trying really hard to be diplomatic and understanding and compassionate. But I can't hold it in any longer.
The dog is on my freaking nerves. The last one to be exact.
People look at him, remark how cute he is and then ask me if I just love him. And since 80% of south Orange County has a dog (to go along with their SUV's and 2.5 kids), it's therefore out of the question to really speak my mind and reply with, "No." I can't even really say that beyond making sure he has water, food and a warm place to live, there is no attachment.
Do you realize that with company over last night, he decided that he had to pee and started on the patio and then came inside and peed from the patio door, across the living room and to the front door, a distance of at least 15 feet? While everyone is hanging out, I'm mopping up dog piss and Swiffering the floor with wet mops.
I have to go put my scrubs back in the wash now.
OVER IT!!!
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