Here we go

We received our clinical assignments for the first five weeks. I am in post-partum for the first two days, then labor and delivery, then the nursery, and back to labor and delivery for another day. The last few weeks will either be picked by me, or assigned by my instructor.

Our orientation to the hospital is Saturday. I’m really excited about this class. My instructor is the real deal. She has a laid back personality (despite her reputation, which I suspect originated with less than stellar former students), but she expects us to know our sh*t. It’s been a while since I’ve been challenged, so this should be interesting. The only thing that will suck is the 50 minute drive at 0500. Of course, it’s totally my fault. Brian told me not to change my life to be with him.

I am a little worried about my usual week seven breakdown, but this time JC has my back, and his support may be all I need to get through the languor. What synchronicity! Days after I was lamenting about never having that one, truly epic love, JC comes into my life, and he loves me so completely that it should be suffocating and even a little creepy, but instead is liberating.

Just kidding. Not about the love. He loves me all right, and I love him. I love him more than I thought I was capable. But synchronicity? More like apophenia. Not that I am complaining. I am a huge fan of random coincidences. Sometimes I like to think of all the little things that had to happen for JC and I to find each other like we did. I think of how complicated our lives are, how neither of were “ready” for a relationship, yet still we looked for someone. I think of how many little choices that brought us together could have steered us apart.

A friend asked my yesterday what JC is like. All I could think to say is “perfect.”

“That isn’t very descriptive.”

But what else could I say? If I elaborated, she would only say, or at least think: “What is so perfect about that?” It’s funny, because I would go on and on about Brian, almost as if I was trying to convince myself as well as my audience that he was something special.

A fundus among us

My first breeders lecture went surprising well. I love, love, love my instructor, which was totally unexpected. I should know better than to listen to the gossip. She’s going to be tough, but she is so passionate! I need that to keep me motivated. She’s also our clinical instructor, and I know she’ll make sure we have some great experiences. She also has a bit of aphasia that gives her this really charming vulnerability. She moves really fast through the lecture (but always takes time to answer questions) so I don’t feel like zoning out. We start clinicals this weekend, and even though the hospital is a 45 minute drive away, I am totally excited to get in there and start poking around. Literally, I guess. Eww.

fountain, fountain

we are the same

you with the water and me with the pain

turning it over again and again

don’t you wish you could throw your pennies back at them?

fountain, fountain

we are the same

It is so beautiful how you remain

don’t you wish you could throw your pennies back at them?

-unknown

Small favors

Despite everything, I managed to get an A in Foundations, nudging my GPA back up to a 3.83! I need the good news, because although I am doing my best to be enthusiastic about Breeders class, every time I open the book all I can think is eeww!

Then there is baby-daddy, who has launched a full-on passive-aggressive attack (if there can be such a thing) by scheduling his work hours so that our son will often be home alone while I’m in clinicals. At thirteen, he can stay by himself, but that was never the agreement. BD likes to pretend he had no idea my school schedule would change up like this when my clinical courses began, but he has known for years.

Thankfully, JC has been incredible. Despite the almost unbearable crap he is enduring in his own life, he remains my soft place to fall. He is my hero.

If it makes you feel better, call it love

love [luhv] noun

1.	a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

2.	a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

3.	sexual passion or desire.

4.	a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

5.	(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?

6.	a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.

7.	sexual intercourse; copulation.

8.	(initial capital letter) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.

9.	affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one’s neighbor.

10.	strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books.

11.	the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love.

12.	the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.

13.	Chiefly Tennis. a score of zero; nothing.

14.	a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter L.

When a word is thrown about so casually, when it has so many definintions, do any of us know what it really means? I thought I knew. I thought I had been in love before. I even thought I was loved in return. But if those trivial affairs were love, than what in the name of science is this?!

To the wire

I finally finished clinical. Because I missed my first day, I got the expensive but cool opportunity to work one-on-one with my clinical instructor. I didn’t do as much as I would have liked, but I did get to give out my patient’s 15 oral meds and do dressing changes on her venous statis ulcers. My instructor is really great, and the whole experience was a much needed recharge to my motivation.

Next stop, OB, or as I like to call it: Breeders. Should. Be. Fun.

if we knew each others secrets, what comfort we would find

Depression manages to creep in and dull the sharpest pleasures. But it is not sorrow that plagues me, but her cousin, apathy. This apathy is a physical entity, heavy, cloying and hot like tar. It weighs down my limbs and dulls my senses. I am feverish and impossibly drowsy under its influence.

Not even my boyfriend, who, sensing my distress, runs immediately to my side, can elicit more than the faintest angst in my ravaged emotional state. Thing is, he doesn’t care if I’m happy all the time. He doesn’t tell me to cheer up. He listens as I wallow in self-pity, not agreeing with me, but not arguing either. His simple acceptance of my mood is counter to my lament, and I have to fight the urge to push him away, to shut him out. I know I don’t deserve such unconditional love. Thankfully, few ever really get what they deserve.

More than anything, it is embarrassing. I shouldn’t be so weak, not now, after all I’ve accomplished. But even when I am at my best, I feel like I am always just barely making it. Just barely holding on, barely coping, narrowly avoiding disaster after disaster.

Morte Las Vegas

I arrived in Las Vegas with my son last night. I should be having way more fun than I am having, but I am missing my man so much I can hardly enjoy myself. What is up with that? There are plenty of distractions, human and otherwise, and I’m nothing if not easily distracted. I wish I could say I still smell him from our kiss goodbye at the airport, but our room reeks of stale smoke and dead prostitute.

Hotdog Party

This is why drugs are bad boys and girls

Hotdog Party

Unprofessional behavior revisited

Our instructor made a speech last night about “professionalism,” and how as adult learners, we should behave in class the way we plan on behaving in our careers. She went on to point out how those groups of students who supported each other, who helped each other, were much more successful than those who split off in to divisive “cliques.” It was a vague enough diatribe that it caused a lot of speculation as to her motivation, but one thing was obvious. There are those in the class who do not feel part of the group; those who are resentful. Frankly, it breaks my heart. Every one of us is there because we have something special to offer the university and nursing as a profession. There is no one in that class who I would not go out of my way to help succeed. There is no one I wouldn’t count on to do the same for me.

I was a little disturbed that whomever had a problem could not deal directly with the parties involved, but if I was one of them, I am mostly disturbed that I seemed so unapproachable. It was a bit of a reality check for me. I have been pretty caught up in my own shit lately, and I haven’t been checking in with people the way I used to. I forget how, when I’m struggling, I need to make a special effort to reach out or I can come off as cold and uncaring.