Today I woke up from a nap with the unmistakable feeling of heartache. I don't know exactly why, but I'm guessing it's a dream I had. It's rare that I don't remember my dreams, since i dream so incredibly vividly. I'm not sure why this is or what caused it, but I have always had these lucid, intricate dreams that are sometimes so realistic that when I wake up, there is a period of a few minutes where I wonder if it was real. I've found myself feeling for the stab wounds that I sustained, or the new piercing that I got.
I've woken up screaming before, I've woken up crying, tears running down my face. I've woken up laughing, smiling, singing. It's all very bizarre and also embarrassing if there happens to be someone sleeping near me. It seems to happen more often than not when I'm alone though. When the dreams are good, they are fantastic. When they are bad, they are really bad.
On a totally unrelated note, there is a mouse that is in my bedroom somewhere that I have been trying to capture for about 4 hours. So far, no dice. At first, I vowed not to sleep in there until I caught him, but I've got to get to bed soon...this is getting ridiculous. Apparently this particular mouse doesn't like peanut butter as much as other mice. I've tried to make it very clear to him that I don't want to hurt him, I just want to catch him so I can put him back outside, but I guess it's difficult for him to understand that while I am wielding a giant spatula in his direction.
Wish me luck.
Also, I started running again yesterday...I am very sore. But! It felt fantastic. More on that later. I'm going to go again tomorrow. Probably. If not tomorrow then Monday.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
GRAWWWWWUUUGGHH
This is the exact noise I made as soon as I reached maximum capacity for information at the orientation today. It was a kind of guttural and savage cry for help that I'm sure my cave-women ancestors made every time they got beat in the head with a large club or attacked by some sort of saber-toothed cat. This, my friends, is apparently the sound of complete and utter submission to the fact that you are totally fucked.
After the initial meet and greet with the instructors, the orientation to the Nurse Practitioner Master's Program started with a calm explanation about what to do when you begin to have a panic attack. It started off as a light-hearted joke, and then quickly became "no, seriously...when you start hyperventilating and throwing up, just sit down and breathe. We need to take this one day at a time. Don't look at all your text books when they are stacked up all in one place" etc. (I looked at my text books all stacked up in one place and had a panic attack last week).
So, then we got an 8 hour lecture describing what we were expected to do. As all of us were reviewing the syllabus (for the ONE class...out of FIVE) and furiously scribbling notes and highlighting important dates, I glanced around the room. I could tell that people were starting to lose it. I'm glad I wasn't the only one, but at the same time, it was a terrible sight. People were chugging their coffee, grimacing, tearing up, breathing too fast. I even saw people at some points just drop their pens on the desk, slack-jawed and blank, and put their heads down on the table. I'm also 95% sure that one person ran out of the room to puke. I was somewhere in between feeling like laughing with insanity while shredding my notes into confetti, and sobbing uncontrollably while I scream "I-JUST-DON'T-THINK-I'M-GOING-TO-G-GET-ENOUGH-CLINICAL-HOURS! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING!"
During the lunch break, we all huddled in the cafe at the library shivering like we were going through delirium tremens, even thought it was about 100 degrees outside. Nobody said too much. We all just bought some coffee or tea (for me a giant-ass iced tea, which always seems to cheer me up. Today it just barely got me through).
After lunch, we reviewed the assignments, in addition to the clinical hours we were to do. The weekly write ups, the on-site evaluation by clinical faculty, the complete history and physical paper, the episodic papers, the patient logs, the text books that we need to consult nightly and whatever else there is that I'm forgetting. At the end of the day, Dr. Professor says "OK well, that's the clinical portion, I will see you all day Tuesday to have the orientation for the didactic classes. Those will be challenging compared to this".
And that's when I, along with most of the class, made the noise.
After the initial meet and greet with the instructors, the orientation to the Nurse Practitioner Master's Program started with a calm explanation about what to do when you begin to have a panic attack. It started off as a light-hearted joke, and then quickly became "no, seriously...when you start hyperventilating and throwing up, just sit down and breathe. We need to take this one day at a time. Don't look at all your text books when they are stacked up all in one place" etc. (I looked at my text books all stacked up in one place and had a panic attack last week).
So, then we got an 8 hour lecture describing what we were expected to do. As all of us were reviewing the syllabus (for the ONE class...out of FIVE) and furiously scribbling notes and highlighting important dates, I glanced around the room. I could tell that people were starting to lose it. I'm glad I wasn't the only one, but at the same time, it was a terrible sight. People were chugging their coffee, grimacing, tearing up, breathing too fast. I even saw people at some points just drop their pens on the desk, slack-jawed and blank, and put their heads down on the table. I'm also 95% sure that one person ran out of the room to puke. I was somewhere in between feeling like laughing with insanity while shredding my notes into confetti, and sobbing uncontrollably while I scream "I-JUST-DON'T-THINK-I'M-GOING-TO-G-GET-ENOUGH-CLINICAL-HOURS! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING!"
During the lunch break, we all huddled in the cafe at the library shivering like we were going through delirium tremens, even thought it was about 100 degrees outside. Nobody said too much. We all just bought some coffee or tea (for me a giant-ass iced tea, which always seems to cheer me up. Today it just barely got me through).
After lunch, we reviewed the assignments, in addition to the clinical hours we were to do. The weekly write ups, the on-site evaluation by clinical faculty, the complete history and physical paper, the episodic papers, the patient logs, the text books that we need to consult nightly and whatever else there is that I'm forgetting. At the end of the day, Dr. Professor says "OK well, that's the clinical portion, I will see you all day Tuesday to have the orientation for the didactic classes. Those will be challenging compared to this".
And that's when I, along with most of the class, made the noise.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Day One: Success
Well, today marks the first official day of grad school. I haven't started the didactic portion yet (Wednesday is coming awfully fast...) but I went to my clinical rotation at the Women's Health Clinic. I'm just observing to begin and by observing I mean staring down at a whole lot of cervixes. I got to look at BV under a microscope and was able to diagnose it, so I find that to be a plus. Basically by the end of the day I was just making bets with myself about whether the carpet would match the drapes on particular patients. Mature, I know. You can take the girl out of the scene, but you can't...you get the point.
In all seriousness though, I can tell I'm going to love women's health. I mean, it's not all sweet pregnant women...trust me, things get pretty gross. However, as an ICU nurse, I'm pretty sure it won't be THAT gross. I have a really high tolerance for gross, by the way. Like, I literally cheered when I saw BV under the microscope, and I vocalized that I wished it was trichomoniasis. I'm one sick fuck. Which is why I feel like I can really excel at this job.
So tomorrow it's off to the hospital for inservices all day (yay). Wednesday I'm on campus all day, Thursday it's back to clinicals, and Friday...either clinicals or I have off. So, yeah. As long as I get my shit together (ha) I know that I can balance a social life (HA) and school and work from time to time. I just have to get on top of things and grind it out (that's what she said). Ok-give me a break, I had to wear professional clothing and a lab coat all day and pretend to know what I was doing. I'd really like a Guinness right now, but I can't have one until Thursday or Friday...boo.
Time to do the dishes, read a few chapters of my book, and go to sleep. Ah, living the dream.
In all seriousness though, I can tell I'm going to love women's health. I mean, it's not all sweet pregnant women...trust me, things get pretty gross. However, as an ICU nurse, I'm pretty sure it won't be THAT gross. I have a really high tolerance for gross, by the way. Like, I literally cheered when I saw BV under the microscope, and I vocalized that I wished it was trichomoniasis. I'm one sick fuck. Which is why I feel like I can really excel at this job.
So tomorrow it's off to the hospital for inservices all day (yay). Wednesday I'm on campus all day, Thursday it's back to clinicals, and Friday...either clinicals or I have off. So, yeah. As long as I get my shit together (ha) I know that I can balance a social life (HA) and school and work from time to time. I just have to get on top of things and grind it out (that's what she said). Ok-give me a break, I had to wear professional clothing and a lab coat all day and pretend to know what I was doing. I'd really like a Guinness right now, but I can't have one until Thursday or Friday...boo.
Time to do the dishes, read a few chapters of my book, and go to sleep. Ah, living the dream.
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