To hell with crying, give me laughter

My firm belief is that, humor, by far, is the very best medicine.

Well, it’s been an interesting to start to the semester, to say the least. I started back to school 2 weeks ago, Jack had all his drama last weekend, and then this week I started my clinicals. My life is never boring, I can say that much. It seems that Jack had a horrible virus over the weekend.  So, when I went to get gas (in his car) on Monday, I must have inadvertently been exposed to that stomach bug. Although I never saw him and took pains to leave the food outside and pick up/drop off the car without even saying hello,  it never occurred to me, (yes, I KNOW, I’m a nursing student, but I was a little preoccupied) that the germs might still be in the car from Saturday. Guess what happened? Disaster struck!

Tuesday was fine. I went to school, life carried on, and I felt a sense of normalcy beginning to return. I was extremely anxious about the new clinical rotation on Wednesday morning and had butterflies in my stomach all evening on Tuesday.  I printed out the 35-page orientation packet for my instructor which outlined the work to be done for her and read over it (this is in addition to the orientation packet for all semester 2 students). I wanted to cry most of the evening because of the sheer terror and anxiety I was feeling after reading her expectations. If we miss even one day, we have to write a 20-page paper. Any more than that could mean dismissal from the nursing program with the only exceptions being for death in the family or surgery. I was not alone in my fears. Several members of my group were experiencing the same feelings. Some even cried the night before.  Determined to calm myself, I watched a favorite tv show and went to bed early as planned.

9:30PM. Lights out, I can do this

10:00PM Go to sleep!!

10:30PM sleeping at last

1:30AM. Eyes shot open, look at the clock… not time yet.  Relax, sleep.

2:30AM. Eyes shot open, look at the clock… not time yet. Relax, breathe deep, you’ll wake up. Relax, sleep.

3:30AM. Eyes shot open, RUN LIKE HELL for the toilet, smash leg on cedar chest, jump over baby gate #1, trip over dog bed, jump over baby gate #2, RUN, VOMIT, VOMIT, Vomit, vomit….. Quick! Sit! DIARRHEA!!! Take an immodium. Glass of water. Back to bed.

4:15AM Still time for sleep. Must sleep. 4 alarms set, you will get up.

Clinical Day #1

5AM First alarm goes off, repeat 3:30AM sequence, including immodium #2.  Diarrhea continues relentlessly until I leave at 6:30AM. I pack crackers, soup and 3 water bottles for the day. It’s only 8 hours, I can do this. At least we’re meeting at school first before heading to the hospital. Familiar territory.

6:30AM out the door with stomach grumbling and tail on fire.

7:00AM Get out of car,  walk into the school building and have a small accident on the way to the restroom. Not a good sign. Take immodium #3 in the bathroom while shaking and sweating profusely in the restroom.

The day continues in much the same way…. including a fire alarm, during which we have to exit the building and walk down 4 flights of stairs! Not fun! Lunchtime….Eat 3 crackers, water bottle #3 and immodium #4 in the car at lunch to avoid all smells in the cafeteria. No vomiting or major accidents. I can do this. By now, I haven’t been able to hide my illness, everyone is aware that I not well, including my instructor. She overlooks it and continues, thank goodness! Heading to the hospital…

12:30PM Arrive at hospital for preconference. Get report on our clients, names, dx’s, bx hx, sx, etc… Nausea is returning. Must have been the crackers. I can do this. 2 1/2 more hours. We have to sit in a sunny room. It is *very* warm in there. Chugging 4th water bottle, almost out. Not good at all. Move to the hall to be buzzed into psych unit to meet staff, get a tour and meet with clients.

1:00PM. Hallway is nice and cool. This is good. I can breathe. Nausea is subsiding a little, but stomach is very tight. We get buzzed in. Staff comes to meet us. We stand just inside the door, being introduced. The temperature is very high. It’s a geriatric psych unit. I can smell *EVERYTHING.* The room begins to spin. I am frantically looking for a trashcan. I know that here, every room is locked, including bathrooms. I start to sweat, all the blood is gone from my head, the feeling begins to rise in my throat I can’t stop it…. I interrupt the nurse who is talking and frantically ask for the bathroom – she unlocks the door next to her while she and my group stand right outside. I don’t even know where I put my stuff, I don’t close the door, I just find the toilet and VOMIT, VOMIT, VOMIT!!! It’s so powerful that I can’t stop the diarrhea from going. It’s running down my legs!!!!! OMG!!! Everyone is right outside. Here I am sick as a dog and all I can think about is how to recover gracefully and get the hell out of here! Those are my classmates, my instructor, and the people I am going to have to work with for the next 6 weeks!!! I gathered myself and my stuff as best I could and came out. Everyone was standing there looking at me. I just apologized and told my instructor I had to go. She just looked at me. I told her I was sick and needed to go. She asked if I was okay and I said I needed to talk to her. I pulled her in the bathroom and told her I threw up and “went” all down my pants. LOL How professional! Honestly, it was all I could muster at that point. She said, “Okay honey, are you okay to drive?” Oh yes! I just need to go home! I cried and begged her not give me a 20-page paper! LOL She said, “We’ll worry about that later. Just call me as soon as you get home. I want to know you made it okay.” Maybe I looked bad? I don’t know, but she was obviously concerned.  I apologized to everyone in the group in my humiliation and tried to run out of there. In the midst of the chaos a nurse came up to my instructor and said that the state inspector was right there at the nurse’s station behind us. DOH!!!

Okay, so now that I had escaped, it was time to walk my poopy butt down the elevator, through the hospital, across the street, through the other building, up the elevator, through the parking garage, and then drive it home. My life continued in much the same fashion with Immodiums #5 and #6, ginger ale, and 3 crackers until the next morning when I was up at 5AM to do it all again.

This is exactly how I felt during clinicals, especially when my friend kept telling me I needed to eat SOMEthing while she swore she’d eat her asparagus and hamburger a few chairs away from me… bluhhhhhhh (From the movie Bridesmaids **Spoiler alert if plan to see it)

Clinical Day #2

This was a far, far better experience. I was able to hold down chicken noodle soup and crackers for lunch and drank ginger ale all day. I felt quite a bit better. I still had a touch of diarrhea in the morning, but it had mostly waned by mid-day. I was finally able to meet with my client and had an overall pleasant experience throughout the day – and nothing was said about my humiliation from the day before other than wishes for a speedy recovery.  On an unrelated note, my instructor told me later in the day how relieved she was that I had a good experience with my client because, after she saw her prior interactions with staff, she was thinking to herself, “Oh WHAT have I DONE to Sandy?!” *gulp* That explains why she was hovering over me and wanted to be there when I interviewed with her (but was called away and couldn’t be present. She hadn’t done that with anyone else). Hmmmmm…. My client was here because she assaulted a resident, was aggressive with staff, and was d/c’d from her facility to this unit for posturing to assault staff. Nice. My experience was that she was initially resistant, but warmed to me and was open to working with me on her goal, “anger issues.” I’d say that’s on target. Now that I’ve learned to be more in tune, it’s interesting to see how I was able to reach her and get her to go from being resistant with her face turned and body pivoted away from me to facing me, making eye contact and seemingly open to working with me.  Should be a VERY interesting rotation. Um, suffice it to say that, with my current luck, if anyone will be assaulted, it will be me. BUT, here’s the beauty in the weeds…. I bet we have a breakthrough. LOL I have more crap happen in my life, but it seems like there’s ALWAYS an upside.

Actually, I have already learned so much from just 2 weeks in school and 2 days in clinicals! As I was studying this morning, EVERYTHING started to click. I realized how lucky I am to be one of the people with psych during the first rotation. Everything we’re studying for Tuesday’s test, I can already relate to my patient and the clinical setting. I was able to watch group therapy, observe various clients with different disorders and their behaviors both on an individual basis and their interactions together, sit in on treatment planning with the entire team collaborating, do a one-on-one with my own client, and a lot of other fascinating things in just one day!! I am now so incredibly excited about this semester. Yes, it will be intense and extremely labor intensive, but also very fulfilling and FULL of learning opportunities that I am ready to soak up like a sponge!

Beauty In The Weeds

So here’s to hoping you can laugh instead of cry too!

Just remember: always, always try to find beauty in the weeds,

~Sandy

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