vacation

I'm done with my critical care term! I not only passed, I got high honors and I got the highest grade on the final! This is one of the advantages of having no social life to speak of, all I did was study, go to the gym, and rent movies. By the way can someone tell me what the end of Inception means? I have a feeling it's sort of like the end of Momento where I'm left wondering about the reliability of the film's narrator. I actually got a really nice final clinical evaluation too, where my instructor was proud of me considering how far I'd come this term what with dealing with my anxiety (she did tell me the first time she was my clinical instructor, way back in week five, that I should take a valium before coming to clinicals). I finally got to a place where I not only didn't cry but actually started feeling comfortable in the ICU setting. I loved the ICU in the not so great neighborhood, commute aside I'd love to work there. The environment with the nurses was really wonderful. I had two nurses thank me profusely for my help, the one I worked with the last week said it would be great if I wanted to work there. Oh and I got to change my patient's surgical dressing last week, she had gone to surgery on Tuesday for removal of a PEG tube due to infection (necrotizing fasciitis). I removed the original dressing, there's a pretty distinct odor that comes with an infected wound, but I felt like Jodi Foster in Silence of the Lambs when her fascination overcomes her initial squeamishness at seeing a dead body fresh from the water. The smell didn't bother me because I was fixated on treating the wound properly. I pulled out the original packing, which was purulent. I saw another piece in the patient and my instructor said, no that's her insides (because, yes, you could see her insides) but it turned out to be more packing, it resembled a shoelace, so I took a hemostat and pulled that out as well. And then I cleansed her wound and repacked it with gauze and an abd pad, using sterile technique. And I absolutely loved doing it, like I could totally see myself enjoying being a wound care nurse. When a wound care nurse came to speak to our class, way back in Basic II almost a year ago, I could never imagine doing that as a job because wound care nurses work quite a bit with ostomy patients which, when I first learned about ostomies, I didn't know how I could handle that, I had a hard enough time bathing patients and not feeling invasive. But after you have cared for a patient that has a urostomy or colostomy, well, it doesn't freak me out at all. And this tough as nails female surgeon once told me I should consider becoming a wound care nurse, that it pays well and you get to establish long term relationships with your patients. I have no idea why she told me this last summer, when I showed interest in an abdominal X-ray of my patient's that she was looking over.

One thing I'm puzzling over is that all my instructors write about how kind and caring I am in my clinical evaluations and I'm always wondering, do they really mean that or is that just the nice thing to say about someone who doesn't seem to have much else going for them in the clinical environment, aside from a propensity for tears? It makes me think of when I wanted to work for a magazine, back when I was twenty-five. I met with Marin Hopper at Elle (somehow my Dad knew her) and she was like 'You seem like a very nice girl, why do you want to work at a magazine? You are too nice for this business.' Sometimes I get that same feeling reading my clinical evaluations and then I'm like 'What the fuck am I suited for?' and, alternately, 'I'm not that nice. Just ask my kids or anyone who pisses me off while driving.' I still want to do psychiatric nursing first and foremost. But for PNR, my practical internship where I shadow a nurse for 120 hours before graduation, I'm not allowed to do psychiatric nursing (or, for that matter, OR or ER nursing ) so I'm thinking of the neuro ICU or possibly the NICU, I'll have to see what that's like this coming term. I'd almost like to work in the ICU just to prove to myself that I am capable of that type of nursing. And it's the best experience if I ever decided I wanted to become a nurse anesthetist (and if I became a nurse anesthetist I might finally be able to stop worrying about money). In terms of critical thinking, ICU nursing is the best specialty out there. Okay, but I'm officially done with thinking nursing school until May 1st. It should be a blissful couple of weeks. Hopefully I can sleep away the bags under my eyes that have been a fixture since October.