Cobwebs? What cobwebs?

I'm pretty sure any readers I did have gave up long ago. I can't blame them, seeing as how this blog has been left all forlorn and outdated. It's like the online, self-indulgent version of a foreclosed house with nests of squirrels in the rumpus room, or possibly Eden Prairie Center, circa 1996--I hear it's been somewhat revitalized now, though.

I won't even pretend that I've been busy. I've been a freaking housewife for the last two months. Not a bad gig, really, save for the humiliating poverty and the guilt of watching Kevin commute 45 minutes each way to work a stressful job with crappy pay. But hey, he hasn't had to vacuum or wash dishes in two months, so it's been a tradeoff for him.

Somehow, in the midst of all of my floor-scrubbing and laundry--okay, and gardening, reading, developing a half-assed workout regime, and dicking around on the Internet--I found time to attend graduation ceremonies, study for and pass boards to get my RN license, and, oh yeah, GET A JOB THAT USES MY DEGREE!!!

A big part of me didn't think it would really happen, at least not this quickly. But it did, it totally did, and I'm so excited. Actually, getting this job is a big honor and I'm really lucky in a lot of ways. It's here in town, which in and of itself is huge--I was prepared to have to commute to Duluth, which would have sucked a whole lot. I will be working at the cancer center, a satellite clinic of a large Duluth-based medical center. Among other things, this means that I will get really good at starting IVs. I will also be working straight days, no weekends, no holidays; this is practically unheard of in nursing. And, best of all, I get to develop relationships with my patients and play an important role in their treatments and, hopefully, remission. I start in two weeks.

Not everything has been sunshine and butterflies. A friend died in April. I lost a friend, my wonderful friend and mentor lost the love of her life, and the community lost an incredible leader. It's been hard and we all miss him a great deal. He was one of those people who truly inspires you to be a better person, and everyone who knew him is a million times better for it. He was very involved in our doula group--not as a doula, but in the role he played for so many of us, as a spiritual and cultural adviser. Our doula group is also incredible, and we have been able to support each other through it (especially the people that particularly feel the loss), remember and honor him, and will continue to do so.

That was the big one, but there are always little things that keep everything from being perfect. Despite that, I am ridiculously happy right now. I have a kick-ass husband, really great friends, gainful employment, an awesome family, and I get to live in this gorgeous area where I can see the big lake every day. Because I'm me, a little part of me is wondering when the shoe's going to drop. But I was talking to a friend today and mentioned this, and she very wisely told me, "Yeah, I think it's inevitable to feel that way. But all you can do is enjoy it while it lasts." So I will.

YOU FAIL!

It has not been a stellar week here in Nursing Student Land.

A little background: without trying to sound like an arrogant prick, I've developed, in the last year and a half of school, a reputation as "The Smart One". School has always come relatively easy for me, and nursing school has not been an exception. I have also worked pretty damn hard to learn as much as possible and develop my skills and knowledge base, because I want to be a good nurse. Would you want the nurse who skated through school taking care of you? Me neither. So I've pushed myself.

Clinicals have been stressful, but I've always gotten through them with relative ease and honestly surprised myself a little with how comfortable I've gotten. But. Now, in the final semester of school, clinicals are all business and intense and we are expected to be getting to the point of professional nurses in this 8-week rotation. And guess who made some significant fuck-ups this week?

Yesterday I went home early, after getting an hour of sleep, doing half-assed assessments, and informing my instructor I was not up to the task. I knew I wouldn't make any med errors simply because she was watching me and would stop me if I was about to do so, but I also knew I wasn't learning anything and she offered me the opportunity to make up the time instead of sleepwalking through the day. I was ultra-professional about it and cried. I cry over literally nothing when I'm trying to function on an hour of sleep.

Today, after ten hours of sleep, I felt great. I got my assessments and meds in on time, helped get one of my patients who was being discharged ready to leave, had a successful IV start, etc. My instructor explained to me the charting that had to be done for a discharge and I nodded and took notes. Then completely forgot to do it. I went home feeling pretty confident about my performance and the day I'd had, until checking my email and finding a note from my instructor. She had reviewed my charting after I left and wrote to tell me that since I hadn't completed the discharge charting that she had specifically told me to do, and had additionally missed some of the "safety" charting (hourly rounds completed, bed in low position, etc.), I would need to go back and do it, and I'd be getting an unsatisfactory grade for this week's clinical in documentation. Can't really argue with that.

So after swearing at myself a little, I went back to the hospital tonight to make the required entries. This misstep bothers me a lot, both on the personal-disappointment-in-myself level as well as just being embarrassing. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge deal. No one was in danger because of my charting inadequacies. But it still needed to be done, and it should have been done, and it was simple carelessness that it wasn't done. And it's not the part about getting in trouble that bothers me the most, but the fact that my ego, and my confidence, takes a huge hit when I fuck up. Which probably isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it blows nonetheless.

I'm not going to fail clinicals because of this, and I'm not in danger of failing clinicals generally. There are working RNs who work like this all the time. But I don't want to have another week like this, and I have to figure out how I'm going to organize myself to make sure I'm not missing assessments and charting and feeling like a flailing idiot. And I think the best way to start that, at this moment, is with a big glass of wine.

Navel-gazing

It's time to compartmentalize a bit. I've been thinking about my blog lately, and I realized that I spend a lot of time talking about how things were "back in the day". And while there's nothing inherently wrong with this, I'm feeling like I need to try to focus myself more, and somehow that led to a second blog. So now I'm one of those people, with a blog for every individual purpose. But I like the idea of a blog dedicated to backstory, to all the swirling crap that has made me the person I am this very minute, all the good and bad. It's here. Which means if you're sick of my "back in the day" rambling, you can theoretically avoid them by not reading my other blog. Because I'm totally going to stay on topic from now on. Totally.

So here I am, four months from graduating nursing school. Holy shit, has it ever gone quickly. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I feel like I'm ready to be done. I know I'm ready to have a reasonable income. But sometimes I get overwhelmed by how much I still don't know. Which is really par for the course and to paraphrase a doctor I met recently, any graduating or new grad nurse who isn't overwhelmed by how much they don't know has their head up their ass. There's an awful lot to learn.

I'm still not worried about finding a job. I should be, but I'm not. I don't know if I'm hopelessly naive or determined to be an idiot, or if I'm right in having that faith. A lot of other people in my class are freaking out about it, they don't want to have to work in a nursing home but those are the best options around here. The hospital in town is small and rarely hires nurses. Rather than struggle for the few jobs in town, I've decided to just start my search in Duluth. It's an hour commute, but I'd get a lot more experience with more critical patients (regardless of my field) and learn a ton. We'll see how that pans out.

I'm so happy that I walked away from my degrees and my previous dreams. I was joking with someone recently that you turn 30 and have to choose money over your dreams, but in reality, my dreams have just changed. The life I thought I wanted, submersed in politics and foreign affairs on the East Coast, sounds so unappealing to me now. Fancypants academic discussions about conflict resolutions, complete with terms like "consociational", have moved to passionate discussions about whether and how we can get a birth center built in the area. I've gone from wanting to influence foreign policy to wanting to catch babies. It's such huge shift to have made in such a short time: just over five years ago I was a PhD student in Washington DC, and now I'm preparing to graduate technical college in Ashland, Wisconsin. And even if I wasn't totally satisfied with the way my life has turned out up til now, there is no denying that Lake Superior kicks the Tidal Basin's ass any day of the week.

All nursing school, all the time

Returning to the abandoned blog. It's been busy, although less stressful than last year, I think. Somehow we're already over halfway through the semester and I'll be done with this program in 7 months. The supposed class from hell, Complex Health Alterations, has proven to be not all that bad, as long as I do the reading. My lazy ass has managed to get it together enough to do quite well, which has been a nice surprise.

Clinicals have been a million times better than they were last year. Especially during first semester, I dreaded clinicals. I was thrilled when they were done for the semester. But we've had several weeks of them now and they haven't been too bad. Okay, I should clarify that. We finished our acute care/med-surg clinical last week and, apart from the pain-in-the-ass-ness of having to go to a hospital over an hour away and be gone for two nights a week, it was great. Learned a lot, got called "an angel" (HA!) by a patient, got to start my first IV. It was a successful start on the first try, but it wasn't a particularly proud moment. Mainly because once I got it into the vein, I started shaking and completely forgot what to do next, and ended up with blood on the floor. Hey, it happens. The very nice RN who was overseeing me quickly took over and got the saline lock on, and I taped it up. This clinical really was a good experience overall.

Now we're in mental health, and I'm surprised at how much I don't like it. It's not like last year, I don't dread going back next week and I'm learning a lot, but it's getting to me. It's hard to go home and set it aside, and I haven't been able to do it. I just keep thinking about it. It's kind of horrifying to be faced with live evidence of just how much psychological damage one person can inflict on another human being.

Before we started this rotation, I thought I would really like it and might be interested in working in it for a while, but not so much. I think you have to have a certain combination of empathy, excellent communication skills, and an ability to care about what happens to people, but not too much--be dispassionate. I can do empathy, I can do communication, but I have a hard time with the dispassion. It's probably something I should work on in general, but I doubt I'll ever get it enough to work in mental health.

Blargh post

I have been wanting to write, I have stuff to say, but I'm exhausted and over-worked beyond all reason at the moment and can't even really justify the time spent on this little whine. This is the week from hell and I had to exercise all of my "Oh no you di-int" muscles last night when a fellow student finally crossed the laziness tolerance line (which I don't do unless pushed really really far-- I'm Not Always Nice, but I don't do a lot of confrontation, as most people familiar with me know), and I'm counting down the hours until I get a chance to drink an extra glass of wine.

Just, ugh.

Apple Polisher

When we started this semester, there was a huge amount of information, foreign to just about all of us new students, being thrown at us. Everyone in my class had a pretty much continuous slightly glazed, panicked expression. The instructor assured us it would all start to drop into place, and damn if she wasn't right. Now, six weeks in, it's starting to fit together and it's a really good feeling. I've always enjoyed school and this is no exception. Plus I've discovered that I really really like pharmacology--I had no idea it was so interesting. Wow, I'm getting even dorkier as I get older.

This weekend is Apple Fest in Bayfield, but I don't think I can take the crowds. 75,000 people packed into a town with a population of under 1000 is ridiculous. I'm not going unless they allow cattle prods.

Pleasantly confused

My first day of clinicals went okay. There's a lot of paperwork we have to do, and I don't know that I'll ever be fast enough at doing the various cares, though that's not a huge problem as I don't plan to be working in a field that would require me to give bed baths; giving a laboring woman a bed bath is generally a waste of time, not to mention probably a good way to get punched.

It wasn't complicated, but it was hard work. Speaking of which, a word about natural deodorants: they are insufficient when one is doing anything that breaks the slightest sweat. I apologize to everyone who was subjected to my rankness yesterday. After a lifetime of using Degree and its ilk, I had no idea I could produce that kind of smell.

As per usual, I'm worried about money. I'm applying for part-time jobs this afternoon, but Kevin will have to wait until we're done building the new garage and deck before he starts looking. The lack of student loans for either of us has been a problem. I think this classy lady is on to something. I don't know why neither Kevin nor I thought of exchanging sex for tuition money! I mean, no, we're not virgins, which obviously drives the price down, but then again it's only tech school.

I See a Stroke in Someone's Future!

We checked each others' blood pressures in our nursing skills class yesterday. Mine is 30 points higher than normal. I think I might be a little bit stressed.

Lesson 1: "Stethoscope" does not have an "a" in it

Wow, nursing school is hard. It may just be an associate degree, but I'm already putting in waaaay more work than I was while in school for a PhD, even before I abandoned it. I do like it, which is a good thing because I wouldn't have a lot of options if I hated it. Clinicals start next week and I'm nervous. I don't have to walk in there Thursday morning and start an IV or anything, but it's still nervewracking.

Kevin started school too, for the only marine repair program in the state, and it's kind of nice for both of us to be in school at the same time. We have similar schedules and can encourage each other instead of getting resentful that someone always has to be studying when the other person wants to go out or something. Not that we can afford to go out.

Living with my parents has been an adjustment and it's not always easy, but we wouldn't be able to do any of this otherwise. They've helped us out enormously, and although I would really really rather not have to be relying on my parents at the age of 32, it is what it is. We're extremely lucky to have their help.

And, yeah, I love Ashland. It's great living up here. There are some really nice beaches and we've been swimming several times since we got here, though I think the beach weather might be over for the year. Lake Superior isn't what you'd call warm even in the height of summer. We've also been blueberry picking and went to the Bayfield County fair, so I feel fairly confident that we're getting the full northern Wisconsin small-town experience.