A (late) Nurses' Week post

An old man walking along the beach at sunrise came upon a young man sifting through the debris left by the night's tide. Every now and then, he would pick up a starfish and fling it back to the sea. The old man asked him the purpose of his efforts. "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach. They will die unless I throw them back." The old man looked around at the miles of beach. "There are more starfish than you could ever save. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference." The young man bent to pick up another starfish. As he sent the starfish sailing back to the water, he said to the old man, "It made a difference for that one."

This week we had our New Grad Pinning Ceremony, basically to mark the fact that we've been nurses for almost a year. I can't believe its been almost a year! It seriously has flown by! Sometimes I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. In honor of the near-year mark, this is the list of things I've been able to check-off my Nursing Skills To-Do List:

• foley insertion (on both a male and female)
• NG tube insertion
• administer certain chemo drugs
• had a patient go crazy on me and therefore put him in 4-point restraints
• accessed and de-accessed a Mediport
• wound care (GROSS.)
  
• changed multiple ostomy appliances: your standard one, double-barrel stoma, loop stoma, stomas with a bridge, etc
  
• enema (not necessarily something I was all that excited about crossing off)
• postmortem care (also something I wish I never had to do)
• Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis
  
• coded a patient

Things left to do:

• witness/deal with a seizure patient (i'm absolutely terrified of this)
• suctioning / trach care (also WAY, WAY GROSS. ...but i gotta do it some time)

"Right now there is a nurse helping a woman become a Mom, a nurse holding the hand of a dying man, a nurse inserting an IV in a child, a nurse listening to an Alzheimer's patient tell a story, a nurse missing her family while caring for yours. In the minute it took you to read this, nurses all over the world are saving lives."

I love my job. :)

quarter life crisis

Ok, so its not really a "crisis" but recently I've been re-evaluating things. For one, EVERYONE is engaged/married. Seriously? And the ones who do not fall in this category are in serious relationships that will probably be taking the next step soon. When I was younger I pictured myself married at 27 or 28 and then having my first child at 30. If that were still going to be the case, then I would have to start dating my future husband, oh... last month. That's not to say that I want to be married just yet, because I dont. I cant picture myself as a wife right now or think about possibly having kids in the near future. But I'd like to be a step closer than I am. Because I'm not close at all. Not even a little bit. And dont get me wrong, I love my life. I love my friends. I have a great time and enjoy single life, etc. But sometimes it just gets old, you know. (Plus boys are stupid and frustrating, but thats another story)

Second, so many of my friends are going back to school and furthering their degrees. I know I just graduated and I'm still a new nurse, but people keep asking me, "what's next?" "When are you going back to school?" I have no idea what's next. I know I'll eventually go back to school but I have no idea when or for what. I know I need to do it relatively soon because I'd really like to be done with school by the time I'm 30, but at this rate I dont think that's going to happen.

Finally, my friend is going to Haiti with her mom (they're both nurses) and doing volunteer work. I want to do that. I want to make a difference. I want to make something of my life.

Mreh. I just feel so unaccomplished right now and I feel kinda lost since I dont have all these big life plans like everyone else does.

Scrubs

I dont understand the fascination boys have with girls in scrubs. I get the whole sexy/slutty nurse fantasy, but we dont dress like that. EVER. And they know that. This one guy says to me, "I'd kinda like to see you in your scrubs one day." And he's not the first to say that to me. But dont people (read: boys) realize that the scrubs we actually wear are not sexy. In fact, I dont even want to begin to imagine the kind of grossness that covers my scrubs. Also, I've seen what I look like at the end of a 12 hour shift. It is not attractive. Hell, I am not attractive at the start of my 12 hour shift. I literally roll out of bed, throw my hair up, and throw on scrubs. I run around and deal with MRSA infected patients who have poop coming out of them. I'm not gonna bother to look pretty. But for one reason or another, boys think nurses are hot. Its a mystery to me.

And scrubs absolutely look better on guys. I dont find scrubs to be a "turn-on" but I must say, there are definitely some guys who make the plain green standard hospital scrubs look good. Siiigh. ;)

sweet tooth

California Pizza Kitchen's Chocolate Banana Royale Cake = heaven. I'm not even that big of a chocolate cake fan but this was absolutely delicious. So moist and rich, but not too sweet, which was perfect. (I know, I'm such fat kid) Any other day, I would've taken one glance at the menu, seen the Red Velvet Cake dessert on their menu and been sold. Red Velvet is my faaaavorite. I'm talking, I'm 90% sure thats going to be my wedding cake, although this new cake poses some serious competition. And now, thanks to CPK and their heavenly dessert, I will probably get diabetes. :-p

Anyway, look it up. Try it. Love it.

what would you do?

One of my friends thinks she may be pregnant and she's pretty concerned about it, understandably. She's not in a relationship with the guy, they've just kinda been "hanging out" for a while but their status is undefined. More than anything, they're just occasional hookups I'd say. So she's not sure if she's going to keep the baby but that just got me thinking, what would I do? I'm Catholic and we all know where I should stand on the issue, but I had a minor scare in college and the first thing I thought was, 'there is no way I'm having a baby at 20'. But that was then, this is now. Sure, we're done with college, we all have jobs, somewhat financially stable, we're older, hopefully a little wiser, but me personally, I'm still not ready to have a baby. And neither are most of my friends. We all say we would never do it, but what if you were actually put in that situation? Would you really raise a baby on your own? OR, if you decide you're not gonna keep the baby, would you really be able to go through with it?

Anyway, like I said, my friend and this guy are not married. Hell, they're not even officially dating, which definitely makes the situation stickier. If they were married or even in a relationship, she may think differently about the situation. She's enjoying single life, going out, drinking, getting ridiculous on weekends, etc. -- your typical mid-20s lifestyle. :) So if she is in fact pregnant, she's pretty sure she's not going to keep it. But she doesnt know if she should still tell the father about it. There's the whole "what you dont know cant hurt you" mentality... But he has a right to know, I mean, he's the father. ...But what if he wants to keep it?

Heavy stuff. Granted, she doesnt know for sure if she is pregnant, so all her worrying could be for nothing, but it got us all thinking... Should she tell the father? ...What would YOU do in her situation?

night shift entertainment

Last night was a relatively calm, slow night shift (up until one patient went INSANE and started thrashing ans screaming. Seriously, i've never seen anything like it). During this slow night shift I found this lovely order written by our intern:



"cc" is no longer an appropriate term in the medical field; we now use "ml" instead. I'm assuming our pharmacy (pain in the ass that they are) made him write a clarification order and he decided to be a smart ass about it. LOVE IT. :)

Party! (aka dude-fest)

We had another party this past weekend and it was SO much fun! Totally random crowd, but it was great. AND there were so many guys! Usually when we have a party it ends up being all girls except for DJ and our friend Matt, but this time it was a total dude fest! We had about 25 people, only 8 of them were girls. Tons of cute single guys, 4 of whom are doctors? Awesome. ;)

Here are some of my fave pics from the weekend...

The ridiculousness / silliness pretty much sums up the entire party


Everyone loves jello shots. Just look at the expression on Dave's face!


Landon loves them so much, he tried to sneak some out and save them for later.


Georgetown's Finest Interns.


LOVE this pic. I burst out laughing every time I see it.


Approx 10:30am the next day: Mimosas.

St. Patty's Day Highlights

Carbombs at 4pm. Obv.


Approx 5pm: already getting silly.


6 Bles nurses!


Roomies!


Dave had a little bit of a rough afternoon. This is what you get when you work a night shift, sleep for only 3 hours, dont eat, then start drinking.


Only cool people wear sunglasses at 10pm while out at the bar


I love this picture. Silly urologists... :-p


I love us.


Starting the drinking day at 4pm, managing to not blackout or get sick, AND not lose anything? Not too shabby. Although I did call it a night relatively early (11:30pm) and I did almost lose my cell phone -- almost. But whatev. All in all, I'd say it was quite the successful Irish holiday. :) Hope everyone else's was good too!