Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Hellooooooo nurse
This last (non-Spring Break) Thursday marked our final day on campus for our nursing program. Please, a moment of silence for classroom studies. ~~~. Thank you.
As part of wrapping it all up, we had a "skills lab" in which we moved from station to station refreshing our ever packed and bulging memories with all of the techniques we had learned over the last two years. Maybe it's the impending spring, maybe it's my complete lack of tolerance and patience built and pent up from each semester's brutal assault by my fellow very under-undergrads on my sensibilities . I was feeling punchy. (But really, when am I NOT feeling punchy?) Lab-Partner and I spent the time between stations goofing off. Why not? And what's worse, she had a camera. So we documented it.
It was mostly me being the horse's ass for the benefit of the camera. Sadly, I'd do it whether I was playing to the camera or not. It's all just part of my charm, really.
I firmly believe, in all honesty, that humor can heal just as fast as anything that comes in pill form.
This is our "Sim-man". He's entirely electronic and can, you guessed it, simulate, via computer command, medical conditions that we, as students, can react to. His blood pressure changes, he vomits (at least he sounds like he does -- and then, if you do the right thing, he says, "Thank you, I feel much better now!" Someone raised HIM right.), he talks and he's a terrible flirt. He and I have spent the last two years exchanging charged glances. It was about time I made my move on him. If loving him is wrong, then hell, I don't want to be right. And lord help me if the Lady of the Lab saw me doing this.
I understand that in order to get in with the Sim-Dad, I have to be in with the Sim-Kid. So Lab-Partner and I made a big attempt to make the Sim-Kid feel a part of our new blossoming family. Besides, I think Sim-Kid walked in on his Sim-Dad and I. Whoops.
Unfettered access to a plethora of latex gloves begs each and everyday for someone to blow it up and make it flick off someone else. I was merely answering that noble call.
Ahh, a dressing change of a fake-you-out abdominal gash complete with staples. While changing the bandages the instructor, in black, asked me, "Now what kind of dressing do you want to put on that now?" I waited a second, put on my most pensive face and said, "Probably thousand island." I know, I'm hilARIOUS.
Here's where I prove to you all that nursing school has honed more than my ability to make a funny joke out of someone else's medically and painfully obvious misfortune. Look at my concern! My caring! My body language says, "Yes, I'm your nurse. And yes, I care. Here. Have some oxygen." {Off to the left, in green. It's one of our class's "murses".}
The face says: "Ohhh, whoooopps." The reality was me making a swishing and sputtering noise to satisfy the instructor that I understood and observed the action in the absence of actual swish and sputter.
"Yeah, it goes in your nose. Yup. All the way to your stomach. Gross, I know. So hold still. I'll be aspirating your stomach contents through this hose in JUST a second. It'll be awesome. And don't mind that I'm doing this without gloves. They only had small-sized ones at this station -- which, on top of NOT fitting me, are cheap and make my hands smell like a gym sock."
Would any of this be complete without some raw, unadulterated money-shot pictures?
TECHNICALLY, this is me inserting a urinary catheter into the fake-man-is. {DO notice the fake-woman-gina just behind it. Male blog readers may suddenly wonder how A) they can go to nursing school with such a male/female ratio and B) how they can get the fake-woman-gina -- to practice. You're gross.} This is how the pros do it. I swear. Sadly, the fake pelvis' do so little for the general feeling of awkwardness when you're actually inserting these. Though I did have a woman in the ER once who, no lie, read a magazine, totally straight faced and spread eagle while I "cathed" her. And no, I haven't overlooked the fact that many of my friends call me "Cath" -- so "cathing" someone seems so much more of a double-deal for the patient -- a tube in the pee-pee and a really bad joke, simultaneously. What a deal.
So long as a camera is involved, I may as well make a funny face and grab-on.
Lab-Partner gets it on with fake-woman-gina.
And finally, Lab-Partner tries her hand at her best nurse-poker face. It's the face that says, "I can see what YOU can't see and really, it looks, uh, good. You're going to, uh, make it."
A word on the importance of hospital humor and humor in general from my favorite author, John Steinbeck (yes, I read Grapes of Wrath and yes, I liked it. I liked Of Mice and Men, too. Yes, someone likes Steinbeck. It's me.). He says, "A sad soul will kill you quicker, far quicker, than any germ." 'Tis true. Tomorrow I start my last 7-week session of nursing school. I will be working full time in an ICU, 40 hours a week. Though tomorrow is badges, tours and parking passes, wish me luck.
Be well, dear friends, be well!
As part of wrapping it all up, we had a "skills lab" in which we moved from station to station refreshing our ever packed and bulging memories with all of the techniques we had learned over the last two years. Maybe it's the impending spring, maybe it's my complete lack of tolerance and patience built and pent up from each semester's brutal assault by my fellow very under-undergrads on my sensibilities . I was feeling punchy. (But really, when am I NOT feeling punchy?) Lab-Partner and I spent the time between stations goofing off. Why not? And what's worse, she had a camera. So we documented it.
It was mostly me being the horse's ass for the benefit of the camera. Sadly, I'd do it whether I was playing to the camera or not. It's all just part of my charm, really.
I firmly believe, in all honesty, that humor can heal just as fast as anything that comes in pill form.
This is our "Sim-man". He's entirely electronic and can, you guessed it, simulate, via computer command, medical conditions that we, as students, can react to. His blood pressure changes, he vomits (at least he sounds like he does -- and then, if you do the right thing, he says, "Thank you, I feel much better now!" Someone raised HIM right.), he talks and he's a terrible flirt. He and I have spent the last two years exchanging charged glances. It was about time I made my move on him. If loving him is wrong, then hell, I don't want to be right. And lord help me if the Lady of the Lab saw me doing this.
I understand that in order to get in with the Sim-Dad, I have to be in with the Sim-Kid. So Lab-Partner and I made a big attempt to make the Sim-Kid feel a part of our new blossoming family. Besides, I think Sim-Kid walked in on his Sim-Dad and I. Whoops.
Unfettered access to a plethora of latex gloves begs each and everyday for someone to blow it up and make it flick off someone else. I was merely answering that noble call.
Ahh, a dressing change of a fake-you-out abdominal gash complete with staples. While changing the bandages the instructor, in black, asked me, "Now what kind of dressing do you want to put on that now?" I waited a second, put on my most pensive face and said, "Probably thousand island." I know, I'm hilARIOUS.
Here's where I prove to you all that nursing school has honed more than my ability to make a funny joke out of someone else's medically and painfully obvious misfortune. Look at my concern! My caring! My body language says, "Yes, I'm your nurse. And yes, I care. Here. Have some oxygen." {Off to the left, in green. It's one of our class's "murses".}
The face says: "Ohhh, whoooopps." The reality was me making a swishing and sputtering noise to satisfy the instructor that I understood and observed the action in the absence of actual swish and sputter.
"Yeah, it goes in your nose. Yup. All the way to your stomach. Gross, I know. So hold still. I'll be aspirating your stomach contents through this hose in JUST a second. It'll be awesome. And don't mind that I'm doing this without gloves. They only had small-sized ones at this station -- which, on top of NOT fitting me, are cheap and make my hands smell like a gym sock."Would any of this be complete without some raw, unadulterated money-shot pictures?
TECHNICALLY, this is me inserting a urinary catheter into the fake-man-is. {DO notice the fake-woman-gina just behind it. Male blog readers may suddenly wonder how A) they can go to nursing school with such a male/female ratio and B) how they can get the fake-woman-gina -- to practice. You're gross.} This is how the pros do it. I swear. Sadly, the fake pelvis' do so little for the general feeling of awkwardness when you're actually inserting these. Though I did have a woman in the ER once who, no lie, read a magazine, totally straight faced and spread eagle while I "cathed" her. And no, I haven't overlooked the fact that many of my friends call me "Cath" -- so "cathing" someone seems so much more of a double-deal for the patient -- a tube in the pee-pee and a really bad joke, simultaneously. What a deal.
So long as a camera is involved, I may as well make a funny face and grab-on.
Lab-Partner gets it on with fake-woman-gina.
And finally, Lab-Partner tries her hand at her best nurse-poker face. It's the face that says, "I can see what YOU can't see and really, it looks, uh, good. You're going to, uh, make it."
A word on the importance of hospital humor and humor in general from my favorite author, John Steinbeck (yes, I read Grapes of Wrath and yes, I liked it. I liked Of Mice and Men, too. Yes, someone likes Steinbeck. It's me.). He says, "A sad soul will kill you quicker, far quicker, than any germ." 'Tis true. Tomorrow I start my last 7-week session of nursing school. I will be working full time in an ICU, 40 hours a week. Though tomorrow is badges, tours and parking passes, wish me luck.
Be well, dear friends, be well!
# posted by Cathy @ 4:45:00 PM 
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I love everything about this, and even with all these pictures I'm somehow convinced that you will make an amazing nurse. Sim-man reminds me of the mechanical baby they made us carry around in high school to keep us from having premarital sex. The teacher could plug it into a computer and find out if we abused it. Not that I did.
# posted by 
: 10:45 AM
: 10:45 AM
I love Steinbeck, too! East of Eden is one of my favorite books ever -- and yes, I only read it because it was on Oprah's book club, but that doesn't make me a bad person!! But I've read Of Mice and Men many many times and it also ranks among the top five books ever - and that was never on Oprah's list!
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