Not just any school day...

I was in Adult II in the new nursing building, just like any other school day. We had just finished an hour of lecture and were on a 15 minute break.

A couple of hours earlier, I had looked at my pilonidal surgery spot (where there were still 8 stitches) and it just didn't look like I thought it should. "I should talk to someone experienced about this," I told myself.

On this 15 minute break, I decided to find my Adult 1 teacher and ask her about this. I found her in another nursing teacher's office and asked them if they were knowledgeable in the area of pilonidals. One of them had even had one and the other had worked with a surgeon who used to remove them. I told them what I had seen that morning and asked them if that was normal.

Their response?

"Oh, girl! You want us to look at it?!" (in a slightly southern accent)

Well, I didn't really know what to think of this. For them to see it, I'd have to take off my pants. THAT, I DID NOT want to do. At the same time, I wanted to make sure it was alright, so...

Off they went. Right there, in her office, in the new nursing building.

The result?

It was fine.

This just goes down as the most embarrassing moment for me this week. Hopefully it doesn't get topped.

Warning: this was written while I was on Oxycodone...

I have never been able to pee on command. The last time I was asked to do so, at a doctor's office, I ended up having to stay an extra hour. Nothing came out, even after the extra hour, and I ended up having to take the cup home with me and bring it back to the office the next day.

Today was no exception. I was scheduled for a 7:00 am surgery. This meant no food or water past 12:00 AM last night... so naturally, I became pretty dehydrated. This fact, mixed with the fact that I had urinated before I went to the doctor, and the fact that I get really nervous when told to pee pretty much doomed me for the upcoming urine sample.

As soon as I was called back to the pre-op room, I was given a cup and told to pee in it. This is a very standard pre-op procedure; It just assures the doctors and nurses that the patient is not pregnant... if there is no urine sample, there is NO surgery. I took the cup and walked into the bathroom... knowing I would be in there for quite some time. After sitting in there for about 15 minutes, I came out and told the nurse that I just couldn't go.

She decided to go ahead and start my IV to try and get fluids in me to see if that would help. I put on the nice little gown without a back and held my arm out... but I was so dehydrated, she couldn't even find a vein and had to get another nurse to start it. After about 500 mL had been put in me, she took me to the bathroom again.

I sat there... and sat there some more. I turned on the water to see if that would help me out some. Nothing. I put my hand in warm water to see if that would help. Nothing. 30 minutes later.... still nothing. The nurse came in and I asked her what would happen to me if I couldn't pee. She said "then, you just won't have surgery."

... SO... I told the nurse to CATHETERIZE me. I actually told the nurse to put a catheter in. What was I thinking? Not really sure at this point.

I will not go into the details of explaining just how the catheter felt going in... for my non-medical field readers. If you really want to know, just come ask me later. I'll just say that I can now sympathize with my patients when I put one in them. I have never been so excited to get a urine sample before.

The surgery went well. It was a removal of a pilonidal cyst. I will not explain exactly what that is either... it's pretty gruesome. Again, if you want to know, just come ask me.

I'm glad I went through all of this though. I believe it will help me become a better nurse. Would I do it all over again just to gain the same perspective?

Well I don't know about that... I'll sleep on it and say later.

He's got it.

I have extreme test anxiety. There has never been a test that I have not had sweaty palms, increased heart rate, or jittering leg for. Sometimes I even feel like I'm going to pass out. Finals are no exception to the rule. Finals are worse. I worry about them from the very beginning of the semester.

I tend to put everything on the back burner when that dreadful week comes. Exercise, eating, sleep, and devotions are the ones that I worry about the least. I suppose they should be the ones I pay attention to the most... but that doesn't cross my mind when I'm near a panic attack.

Devotions were definitely not on my "To do" list this week... but somewhere in between increased heart rate and gnawing on trail mix, I decided I'd just take a quick look. I got out my Steps to Christ book and this is what God reminded me of yesterday morning:

"If we would but fully believe this, all undue anxieties would be dismissed. our lives would not be so filled with disappointment as now; for everything, whether great or small, would be left in the hands of God, who is not perplexed by the multiplicity of cares, or overwhelmed by their weight. We should then enjoy a rest of soul to which many have long been strangers."
-pg. 86

I need to write this verse on my wall with bright paint so I'll never forget the thing that is the hardest for me to remember:

God's got it when I don't (and even when I think I do).

umm....

I have lack of sleep, crying brain cells, I have a test this afternoon... and I'm writing a pointless blog.

Fortune?

I have received some pretty good fortunes from fortune cookies in the past. I opened my cookie tonight in sweet anticipation, hoping for the best one ever. My mouth dropped slightly upon reading it... this is probably the worst fortune in history:

"Come back later... I am sleeping (yes, cookies need their sleep too)."

Unbelievable.

small talk

I hate small talk. I think it is necessary in some ways to get to know someone better, so deeper conversation can ensue, but I still don't like it. I wish I could just start talking to some stranger about their stance on an issue without having to ask their name, where they're from, what year they are in school, etc... first. I guess small talk is seen as the polite way to go about things in our society, and without doing so can be seen as rude, but sometimes I don't want to do it. There have been times that I just jump straight to a deep conversation right after meeting someone. A while ago, upon meeting one of my roommate's boyfriend, I said "so, what do you think about homosexuality?" I really wanted to know what he thought about the issue and didn't feeling like asking all of the preliminary questions I was supposed to ask to find out.
One of the typical versions of small talk I hate most is this one:
Person 1: "hi, how are you?"
Person 2: "Good, how are you?"
Person 1: "Good."
Person 2: "That's Good."
One embarrassing time, I repeated the previous conversation twice in a row with a person. Awkward.
Today, I almost had an embarrassing small talk conversation. I was washing dishes at the CK with a fellow worker. Conversation was starting to die and I almost asked "SO, where do you work?" Good thing I bit my tongue on that one.

The CK

I work at the Campus Kitchen ("CK"). Every so often, I get some customers that really make me chuckle. At the beginning of the year, it was the freshmen who had no idea what to order and would stand in line for an eternity asking about every single option on the list. There are those other people who change their order about a million times and still don't really know what they want. Then, there is a different breed of people who mean to say one thing, and it comes out the wrong way and it sounds absolutely hilarious. I had one of those people order from me this last Friday. This is how the conversation went:

Me: "Hi, What would you like today?"

Customer: "I would like to order, uh, Crap!"

Me: (laughing) "You would like to order what?"

Customer: "Uh, Oh no!"

Me: (Laughing quite hysterically by this point... it had been a long day) "You want to order Crap?!"

Customer: (Laughing and shaking his head) "no, no, no!!"

... Customer then looks a little worried and says "You don't serve that here, do you?"

Me: "I don't think we serve that here, but if and when we ever do, I'll let you know."