I swear I have a life outside of nursing school.... well, on some days I do. I thought I would post a picture, and I think that this one is cute, so here it is:



We went rafting with some friends, and it was really fun. Cold, but fun.

Before I started nursing school, we went on a mini 4 day vacation. Here we are at the top of French's Dome with Mt. Hood in the background:

Today in class we were discussing urinary elimination and someone brought up sexual intercourse as a risk factor for a urinary tract infection. The patient we were discussing happened to be a 78 year old woman, and my professor made a priceless comment."Just because there is snow on the roof, doesn't mean that there isn't a fire in the furnace." I think it's good to remember sometimes that everyone is a sexual being. Even though we may want to pretend that some people just don't do that, they probably do. During CNA training, we were taught what to do if we found nursing home residents having sex. Give them privacy. I hope that someday when I am old, people will remember to give me privacy.

I started nursing school at the Linfield Good Samaritan School of Nursing on June 24, 2009. The adventure has begun. So far, it has entailed lots of reading and thinking about nursing. Right now, I don't really think like a nurse, but I am working on it. I hear nurses tell stories about saving (or not saving) people's lives, and I think to myself How did they know what to do? For example, my professor told us a story today about working in the emergency room. A kid came in with normal vital signs and she calmly redirected his mother, and as she wheeled him to a bed told another nurse to call a trauma code. Sure enough, the kid had a ruptured spleen and she saved his life. I keep hearing stories like this. Things seem somewhat normal to an ordinary observer, but the nurse knows that the patient's heart is about to stop beating. How do they do that??!!?!?!?! I guess it all comes with experience, and one day I will have that experience too. Just watch out, someday I may start calling 911 while we are having a normal conversation because I know you are about to need an ambulance. It's like Angela Landsbury and murder mysteries. I expect life as a nurse to be solving medical catastrophes all around me.

I have also been thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink. Experts have subconcious, intuitive knowledge that they trust. They know that something is wrong before they can explain why. I think nurses are like that. By the way, I really recommend reading that book. It's very thought provoking and you may want to quote it at parties or something. At least, I do.

Molly Elliott took this wonderful picture of me on my first day of nursing skills lab. You can look at her pictures on http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyelliott/

Yesterday, I was at the gym and I glanced up at a television showing CNN. The story was on North Korea, and an image of a famine-starved child flashed across the screen. It was the kind of image that hurts to look at. A child with bones protruding and big, sunken eyes. You could tell that the child could barely lift his head up from weakness. Breathing appeared laborious. I'll spare you and not post a similar picture here. When I saw this startling image, I immediately thought Oh my god, I need to go into pediatrics and save children. I know that working with children would be emotionally challenging because sometimes you can't save them, but right now, it's an idea that feels right. I think I will try to do my senior practicum in pediatrics to test out the waters. Hopefully, someday soon I'll be able to go somewhere in the world where children really need help. Just thinking about those children makes me tear up, and I imagine holding them and not wanting to let go. Maybe it's a bad thing to be so emotionally involved, but maybe it means that it is the right thing to do. To be passionate about making a difference.

This is Grandma Irene. She is 89 years old and bravely fighting breast cancer. Right now I am living with Grandma down in southern California, but that doesn't really explain the past few months about my life, so I will start with the beginning of the year.

In January, I finished getting my Certified Nursing Assistant, which is a certification that basically qualifies you to wipe butts in a nursing home. When I say it like that, it sounds sort of awful, but really it wasn't that bad. I thought that I would really hate working in a nursing home, but it actually brought out the caring side of my personality and confirmed by decision to become a nurse. After qualifying myself to clean up poop all day, I set out to get a job, and I got three. For anyone who is thinking of working three part-time jobs, I don't recommend it. I worked in an adult day care center, an assisted living facility, and a nursing home. On the optimistic side, I got to see how several types of facilities work. After working multiple jobs in Corvallis for a while, I found out that my grandma was going to have surgery so I quit all of my jobs. I flew down to California in mid-May before the surgery and have been taking care of Grandma since then. Well, she is a pretty independent lady so I help around the house, cook, and chauffeur. In the process, I get to learn interesting things about Grandma. For instance, I hear stories of traveling on a rickshaw in bad parts of Shanghai and nearly getting kidnapped until she was saved by a handsome serviceman or how her brother Tom was on a ship that sunk in the ocean and had to swim to shore. Grandma was childhood friends with Judy Garland and fell in love with my grandpa, a farm boy from Iowa, in Japan after WWII. There are many more romances and stories than I can begin to describe. I'm glad that I get to spend time here with Grandma before nursing school.

Nursing school starts on June 22!!!!!! After much deliberation, I chose to attend Linfield College and am really happy with my decision. In the next few weeks, I am going home and moving into my new apartment with Molly in SE Portland. I also plan on spending time with my nephews, playing at my parents' beach house, celebrating my birthday, and going climbing in Squamish with Jake. Then of courses, my life as a woman without a real career ends. It almost seems surreal: I am going to be a nurse. When I think of nurses, I think of real grown-ups. I tease Jake about being Peter Pan, but thinking about being a grown-up makes me feel like I am Peter Pan also. Honestly, I am truly excited about becoming a nurse and all of the amazing things that I can do in the world. Pretty soon, I will move up in the world from wiping butts to inserting catheters...

I know that I have been pretty awful about blogging, but yesterday I started writing in a journal again. Hopefully that will inspire me to start writing again. However, I am writing right now because I am screaming from the rooftops that I got into nursing school. Yes, I was accepted to OHSU's accelerated program. That's right. I will be a registered nurse in a year and a half!!!! I seriously am so excited right now that I might start crying.

What I love about snow:
• I love the way it sounds when you walk on snow and it crunches.
• I love how snow builds up on branches and seems to spread out to form a huge ball on top.
• I love watching our black cats romp in the snow. They look so out of place.
• I love snow flurries blowing in the wind so that you can’t tell if there is new snow falling or whether old snow is just blowing off the trees/buildings.
• I love the quiet noise of snow. It hushes everything.
• I love it when snow starts to melt and it falls from the trees in a big clump with a big thump.