I am NURSE, hear me ROAR

Yes, Calvin is back... After working 53 hours over the last 5 days and biking 16 miles in the middle on my day off (see MJ's blog for pictures) I'm exhausted. Last night I was so tired I think I must know what it feels like to be drunk: brain in a fog, can't come up with words, tongue feels very heavy, feel like you have to overly annunciate everything. Sunday was quite possibly the worst day of my nursing career because I had 6 patients all day, was on two halls, and had very difficult patients to boot. I had two patients our floor dubbed "the midnight screamer" (in restraints), and the flustered crazy man. In an effort to see the funny side (or maybe not so funny side) of my career, I've made the the following list: (all of which I have done in the last 5 days)

You know you're a nurse if:

- You are a master of smalltalk while giving shots, suppositories, and putting in catheters
- You are a master of keeping a smile on your face while seeing/doing the most disgusting things a human being will ever see/do
- You know the precise recipe for soup al la PEG tube
- On some days your best friends are demerol, morphine, ativan, valium, haldol, and geodon
- Shoes are the most important part of your wardrobe
- (if you're a cardiac nurse) CABG with LIMA to RCA and R EVH means anything to you (figure that one out Carrie)
- Doctors can either be your best friends or your worst nightmares
- You know 5000 ways to coerce somebody to take medications, get out of bed, stay in bed, take a bath, and stay on the floor and not go outside to smoke
- You wish you could put some of your patients out of their misery and others you would give your right arm to make them well
- Running and crash carts mean BAD NEWS
- People do not have names, only room numbers
- Your Pathfinder knot honor comes in handy when tying a patient up in a Posey
- You have seen every body fluid in every possible color usually shoved in your face by a patient with a proud "LOOK at this!" (but you keep on smiling)
- A code red does not mean "FIRE!" to you, it means, lets round up everything in the hall and put it in a room just so we can take it back out again
- You have forgotten what it feels like to sit down
- You talk about bodily functions over lunch break
- You have forgotten what it feels like to take a lunch break
- You wish your superiors would get the "I did it, so you can do it" attitude out of their heads and adopt a "Because I did it and I know how bad it was, you won't have to do it" frame of mind
- You skip entire holidays every year
- You feel like you are responsible for everything but have control over nothing

Since everybody is getting new Crocs for Christmas, I decided to get some for myself. I bought a pair of the Mary Jane's to wear to work and they have been a bright spot in my otherwise crazy awful days this week.
Can I just say how ready I am to GO HOME! But alas, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day loom ahead. Fortunately, Tara's house is a feasible substitute and I get to go there for the next 3 days!

Reflections on graduation

Since I knew a few people graduating tonight, I decided to attend; Hollie's sister's boyfriend (aka future brother-in-law???), and Kristy Nelson (my carpooling RN buddy) being the main attractions. I sat with the Eirich/O'Brien clan and I had the time of my life. Nataniel Reyes and friends were sitting over our left shoulder with a cow bell, cap gun, and various other noisemaking devices including loud voiceboxes. Gayle (or is it Elizabeth? this would be Hollie's mom) decided she wouldn't be outdone by their cheering. Once she found out that Hollie and I knew them she wanted us to go back and enlist their support for Dallas (the future son-in-law) but when we wouldn't she decided to ask them to cheer herself. From then on our groups were going back and forth telling each other who to cheer for and then standing up and yelling. Who knew graduation could be so much fun? (By the way, the other picture is Hollie's grandparents, Pop Pop didn't want to be outdone when I took the picture of me and Hollie.)A random graduation attendee. I included this picture because pictures of Buddha are so rare. Obviously he doesn't want his picture taken... hee hee

Kristy and me, now she has an MSN, FNP after her name
(she is trying, unsuccessfully, to convince me to acquire these letters too)

We graduated with our AS degree together, got jobs together, and have shared the stressful drive to work for almost 3 years. We've "grown up" in the world of nursing together and now she's leaving me to head on into the world of doctor's offices and writing your own orders. It's a good thing though because I think she's been going crazy being restrained to RN duties when she has all this new knowledge.

As I sat in graduation tonight, I realized that I graduated with my BSN one year ago. It seems like so much longer than that. Maybe it's graduate school but I feel like a different person now. When I first started my BSN classes I thought they were easy and pretty useless after the volume and intensity of the AS program. But now from the other side I realize what the BSN (and now my master's) did (is doing) for me. Higher education is about cultivating the mind; making you into a thinking professional, getting beyond tasks and facts into thinking, acting, believing. It's liberating. I feel like I can converse professionally with other people both through speaking and writing. It's not just about my nursing classes either. All those other things I took have made me into a well-rounded person. This even comes in handy when you're taking care of a history professor or a lawyer or a teenager going through developmental issues. Education is useful. And while I'm glad the semester is OVER and NOT excited about 4 more which loom ahead, I'm satisfied that I'm doing the right thing. I can feel my brain growing and my paradigm enlarging by the minute!

Fluff and stuff

Saturday night we took a break from the pre-exam week crunch for a Christmas party. I learned that marshmallow fluff is quite possibly one of the stickiest things on earth and that GoldBond powder doesn't make a good baby powder alternative.

Santa and his elf

Our Redneck mobile-sleigh gingerbread house complete with toilet driver's seat and gingerbread reindeer

And when the reindeer gets tired there's always the jet pack

The winner of the contest: the log cabin complete with indoor lighting and outdoor hot tub. (The 3rd entry will not be shown due to severe plagerism by certain participants, er... participant.)

The Grinch and his reindog

We ended the night with a white elephant gift exchange. I was lucky number 1 so I got to pick the first present and take the last one from somebody else. I ended up going home with one of the things we brought: the movie Hitch. Ryan ended up with the GoldBond powder. Unknowingly the person who wrapped it had stapled holes in the bottle so when Ryan squeezed it a little bit I got a small menthol-scented shower. Memories of my nursing home days came flooding back to me...

Homemade fun is definitely the best!

Friday night: of all the week the best!

Friday afternoon Ryan and I went to get some movies for sickly Stephanie and then decided to watch one with her called Duma about a cheetah raised by a boy in Africa. It's a "righteous" movie as my dad would say and has lots of pretty landscapes and the cheetah is amazing! Since Ryan had already been exposed to Stephanie, he just decided to enter the sick ward. We thought she was getting better because her fever broke in massive proportions right before we got back with the movies but... she's been spiking a low grade one all night and then sweating it off so... maybe it's trying to die a slow painful death. I would put a picture of her on here but I'm too nice despite what her blog may say about me.

Ryan gets the last of the cookie dough with a teaspoon. . . (We're going to a party on Sat. night so that's what these are for.)

And does the dishes! What a gentleman. . .

After vespers Ryan, Stephanie, and I sat around the living room with the Christmas lights on and talked about memories from our childhood and what it's like to be a PK. Ryan really has some good MPA faculty dog stories, to add to the Pekin, Bob, Josie, Napoleon, I won't name them all... stories (some of which we would rather forget).

200 miles, paint, 4 movies, a headlight, 2 key lime pies, and best friends

All of those things are a recipe for a good weekend (well, except for the 200 mile part). I've been feeling a little low on my Carrie quota lately so I took a spur of the moment trip to Highland for the weekend.

Carrie, the birdwhisperer, talking to a white-throated sparrow on our Sabbath afternoon walk.

So the real reason I went was to help her paint her living room. (Since when did we get to be old enough to be picking colors to paint rooms in faculty houses?) Here is pre-chemicially-induced headache Carrie eyeing the primer.

We took a break for some graffiti...

Post primer at 12:30 AM

Mostly done with the paint the next morning. We felt a little like we were swimming in an acquarium.

We made pizza for lunch, Carrie changed my headlight in the freezing cold, and we took some time for a few self-portraits as test shots for the Christmas banquet pictures in the gym. Then I was on my way back to Chattanooga for one last project and a week and a half until break!