Conquering the Mountain

Awhile ago B, her friend A and I did the Grouse Grind. For those of you who don't live in Vancouver the Grouse Grind is like the outdoor stairmaster from hell. It's somewhere between 3 and 5 kilometers depending on whether the person you ask is a tour guide (3) or someone who just finished the hike (5), and it's STRAIGHT UP. Really. No joke. It takes a fit person an hour or so to get to the top.



As you hike up this massive hill, cursing yourself for:

a) deciding this is a good idea

b) getting drunk anytime in the previous 2 weeks and

c) eating anything, ever,

you start to notice something. People are passing you. And not just a few crazy fit people. I'm talking lots of people. Some of them look about 80 but have the calf muscles of Nepalese sherpas. Others RUN past you up the hill, barely breaking a sweat while you begin to seriously contemplate going on all fours just to pull yourself up the next set of stairs. Just as you are beginning to harbour feelings of homicide towards those that can run up this thing you will look up and see the same person that ran past you 15 minutes ago running BACK DOWN THE HILL.



This happened to us as we climbed up the hill. And as the guy who had passed me back at the quarter ("We're not seriously only a quarter of the way up, right?") mark ran back past me at the 1/2 way ("I hate stairs. And nature. And you.") mark I turned to my friends and said "Dont' people like that just make you want to trip them?"



The thing is I kinda miscalculated how far voices travel in cool, damp westcoast air. Also, I may have possibly been breathing too hard to control the tone or volume of my voice. I'm pretty sure that he heard me because as he ran past he looked at me with a shocked expression on his face and gave me a whole lotta space on the stairs.



What DOES make me a bad person is the joy that I got from the looks on the faces of the two old folks that shared our gondola down the mountain afterwards. 40 people, 38 of whom just did the Grind in one gondola car? Those old fogeys didn't stand a chance.

Mille TheNurse Has Taken A Facebook Quiz and her result is: Confused

I am tired of Facebook quizzes, I really am. It used to be that I would sign on to my Facebook page and be greeted by pictures and updates from my friends, actual information that I might actually care about. Now everytime I open up the ol' FB my entire wall is covered with endless quizzes taken on topics I don't care about by people I sometimes just barely know.

Now, I'm all for taking stupid quizzes to amuse yourself/procrastinate/zone out boring classes, but do you REALLY have to put them all on display? I know our culture is getting more and more self absorbed and most people have an inate fear of being forgotten but I'm not 100% sure that this is that way to go.

Just for illustration purposes I went back 24 hours through my wall posts. In that time this is what people have found out about themselves:

-5 people are prego- 1 of whom is a boy. Not totally sure about the science behind that one.

-2 girls should name their first child Vanessa, 1 should name hers Sara (apparantly she will be a tomboy)

-Someone's Filipino name is Esperanza (don't worry, I still like you, even though you did a quiz)

-3 people are passionate kisses, one is a lip biter.

-Someone has schitzophrenia. That one might actually be true.

-1 guy is the element light and the periodic element Neon, Hitler, the pink Power Ranger, Codename V, chocolate ice cream, a rainy day, an oatmeal cookie, England, a member of the Psi Delta Fraternity, a beer bong, Conan O'Brian, blue, heavy metal music and an elephant.

I just don't get it. Add to all the quizzes the endless "Favorite 5 lists" and "Fan of" postings....does anyone have a private life at all anymore? I just learned through a friend the other day that if someone in a relationship changes their relationship status to single, FB changes the other person's status too. That means its possible that all the people on your friends list will know you've been broken up with before you do. How effed is that?

I want to know what drives people to answer and post those quizzes.

(You will all please ignore the fact that I just ranted about oversharing on a blog, the homeland of self-indulgent public displays of emotion.)

Dear 2009: 2008 Still Wins (But You're Doing Better)

Dear 2009,

So, my last letter was a little harsh. To be fair to me, being with you up to that point had been 2 months of icy chill. You didn't warm up anytime soon after that either. You taunted me with a bit of warmth and sunny demeanour and then snatched it away. I have to say, '09, that until recently I've still been pretty upset with you.

You may think I'm being unfair but really, you made liking you difficult. Do you realize I haven't sat in a class 5 days a week since my ill fated relationship with '07? After that ended I ran away to Asia and '08. It's actually kind of impressive that I stuck around you as long as I did. Especially when I think of the people I had to hang out with. '09, your friends suck. How did you manage to find so many stupid people and put them all in one class? While I will admit that there were one or two winners in there the majority of them would have benefited from a good 10cc of air IV. The friends that I brought with me from previous years were really the only things that kept me going.

But things are finally starting to look up for us I think. There is maybe, just maybe, a chance that we can pull this relationship out of the nosedive that was the first 5 months of the year.

You've really come through with this move thing, first off. Who knew that there was a nursing job that I would like THIS much anywhere in the world? While it might not be everyones cup of tea talking down people that do so much crystal meth their brains are so fryed that you have to trick them into taking their pills in the manner you would a five year old (come on, they taste good!) I really love it. I guess you knew me a little better than I thought.

And living on the coast is working out pretty well too. You've really started to come out of your shell '09. Partying in downtown Vancouver, getting so drunk that we get lost on the way to the beach, chugging gin and grapefruit pop out of a 2 litre bottle while sitting on a log and watching the sunrise? That's something I never saw us doing together. I mean, sure, you still have a long way to go to catch up with '08, but you're really starting to hold your own now. You're starting to let me stretch my legs a bit and it's making all the difference.

So, '09, I think it's time I cut you some slack. Sure you were boring in the beginning, but at least I got to spend a lot of time with Treesh and Meg and Robin before I had to take off. And maybe all we did was go to the gym and pretend to pay attention in school, but at least I got fit out of the deal. Maybe you just knew what I needed at the time. I still don't understand why you ever thought Tian was a good idea though.

Keep things headed in the direction they're going now and I might stop wishing that you were last year. Someday.

Millie

Confidential Smonfidential

Over the past two weeks many funny things have happened to me. They've caused me to bust a gut laughing and, as I like you guys, I'd like to share them with you.

But I can't.

Nursing is the kind of world where things happen that people don't want their friends and family to find out about. For (a totally made up) example cute old grannies go loopy post surgery and spend two days in a "gerichair"- basically a big highchair that only Houdini could wiggle out of. Respectable, stable, adult people defecate in their clothing, projectile vomit from one end of a room to the other and go so cucko for cocoa pops on morphine that they have in depth conversations with their bedsheets. People yell, scream, curse, bawl like babies, throw tantrums like teenagers and basically act in a way that would, in any normal situation, have other people doing the "don't look at the crazy person" eye shuffle. Alot of the time it's annoying, as crazy people take up way more time than the totally sane ones. But sometimes it's so freaking funny, I just want to share.

But I can't.

One of the major ethical things in nursing is confidentiality. It's not as simple as it seems at first. I mean, there's the obvious stuff. If Joe Brown comes into the hospital with a raging case of genital warts and I let it slip to Mrs. Brown that she may want to be getting some testing done herself, that's a big no-no. Pretty basic. But it gets a lot more intense than that. If I am at a coffee shop talking to someone I work with and I happen to mention that I know one of my clients has got the crazys big time and the sister of another patient overhears and recognizes me as a nurse from that facility and now knows that someone on her brothers ward is a psychopants and freaks out and takes her brother off the ward......yeah, that's a breach of confidentiality too.

It's not really fair. I know that it's important to protect people's privacy and stuff but really, what am I supposed to gossip about? When I was travelling I had no such boundaries. What I saw, I could blog. Even when I was in school I mocked the heck out of people on here. But now I'm on my own. I'm the only student in the whole facility and since I like my preceptor and don't yet feel confident enough to make fun of the rest of the staff the only thing left to gossip about is the goofy clients we have.

But I can't.

If I can't talk about things like (hypthetically) watching someone making an apple bong to smoke their medicinal marijuana and then, when stoned and forgetful, eating the apple and asking why it tastes so weird, what am I going to blog about? Is this the end of Millie?

Ewwwww

Today someone's toe fell off in my hand.

IN. MY. HAND.

I love my job

Disclaimer: I actually do love this job. And, disgustingly, doing dressing of the sort where there is the potential for toes to fall off. But it was still gross.

Nursing: Killing Perfectly Healthy People Since God-Knows-When

I took one of two pharmacology exams I have to pass in order to be a nurse today. It was open book (yay!) and written by my least favorite instructor. Below are two actual questions from the two exams. Don't worry, I know not everyone that reads this is a nurse, so I'll explain.

1. What IV solution would the nurse most question giving to a woman on potassium-sparing diuretics?

a) Normal Saline
b) D5W
c) NS with 40 meq K
d) water

Ok, here's the breakdown. Normal saline is just what it sounds like. Normal. A-OK. D5W just has some extra sugars in it. As long as she's not diabetic it's also par for the course. I would be seriously cautious giving normal saline with added potassium (K) as the meds she's on makes your body hold onto potassium like an OCD hermit holds onto tupperware. Apparently that was the right answer. Which at first makes sense. Giving extra potassium makes your body do fun things like have major seizures. Not cool. The only thing that makes this 100% wrong is that you also have the option to choose d) water. Giving extra potassium= possible bad things. Giving WATER through an IV line makes this happen:

That's right. Injecting water into the blood stream makes your red blood cells swell up and BURST. Your blood sees the water and guzzles it, frat party style. And then dies.

So, of course, when the world's smartest teacher (from here on in referred to as TWST) announced that the answer was C I put up my hand and asked why it wasn't D. Her reply?

" We wouldn't use tap water"

Oh good. We may make their red blood cells explode, but at least we won't give them sepsis. I feel better.

That was on the first exam. The next gem is from today's.

2. A mother asks an RN who gave her child a vaccination "How do I make her feel better?". The nurse should answer
a) "Don't be so weak, she'll be fine."
b) "Put a cold pack on the injection site"
c) "Give her baby aspirin"
d) "Put a warm compress on the injection site."

Ok, this one isn't QUITE as stupid. But still. I'm thinking that in response to "How do I make her feel better the nurse should, perhaps, answer "What is the matter". Because C (the official correct response) may make a slightly swollen injection site feel better, but it's not going to do a whole heck of a lot for anaphylactic shock......sorta a majorly scary adverse reaction to being vaccinated. When I asked TWST what I was expected to make of this question I was told

"It's right there in the question. She's got a swollen injection site."

I copied the question word for word. Does anyone else see any mention of a swollen injection site in there? I didn't think so.

You know what makes me extra lucky? I, and I alone, have TWST for a practicum instructor. Think of all the individual attention. I can't wait.

Dreams, Goals and Other Imaginary Beasts

I went to my friend A.M.'s wedding this weekend. Her, me and B all lived together in 3rd year. We did things like taping signs to B's back while shopping in Jysk, making casseroles out of whatever we happened to have in the house, and hosting parties that you had to dress up as a fake superhero, complete with a unique superpower, to attend. I was The Plague, B was Passive Aggressive Girl and AM was Master Debater. Also in attendance were such greats as Corporate America (a supervillan), Crazy Tennis Playing Guy and The Highlighter. AM's car used to break down about once a month and I remember using the fact that her battery constantly died as an excuse to talk to the guy I liked who lived across the parking lot.

B and I wrote a toast to give at the wedding and while doing that spent about an hour sitting around and reminiscing about that year and the rest of our times in nursing school. It all seems so long ago, but really first year was only 2004. Its weird that some things have stuck so much and others have faded out. I only remember parties at "The Party Quad" these days when I am consciously thinking about them. But I still call T Treeesh, and spell it out with 3 E's every time. B and I still involuntarily quote Jimmy Falon whenever we walk past the leather store in the Kamloops mall ("Eeehhhllleather).

What are this reminiscing boiled down to was one thought: just how much we all have changed. How weird is it that someone who taught me all I know about applying smokey eyeshadow and picked me up from work wearing a dress shoes, Pj pants and a towel on her head just got married? It's definitely strange that the girl who's fish tried to die every time you looked at it just bought a house, with spare rooms that I can stay in if I ever pass through town. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with the fact that the world is growing up around me. Every time I turn around another of my friends is getting married. Everyone I know seems to own a house, a dog and a new car. I can list off 5 people that I went to school with that either are pregnant, are trying to get pregnant or have had a kid in the last year.

Sometimes all this change gets a little overwhelming and starts to get me questioning my choices in life up to right now. It seems like everyone else is going the regular "mature adult" route, while I seem to be hacking my own path through the underbrush. Yet I never doubt that what I'm doing is right for me when I'm bouncing along a dusty road in Cambodia in the back of a pick up truck, holding two Cambodian babies and sharing coconut rice out of a bamboo tube with a toothless old lady. Even when I'm upside-down in a river in Nepal and semi-convinced that I'm about to drown I know that each near-death experience is going to be something I will never regret. The only thing that makes me question myself is sitting in a room decorated with tulle and fake ivy, twinkle lights and a cake on a pedestal, surrounded by people that are so happy that someone else in their lives has reached this adult milestone.

I guess it turns out that aspirations are kind of like perfume. If you spend enough time surrounded by someone else's dreams (especially when they are on display as conspicuously as a wedding, kinda like dumping a bottle of perfume over your head) you start to wear it, and for awhile it almost seems right for you. Then you get back out into the open air and realise: I smell like a rose garden. When in my life have I ever wanted to smell like crushed gardenias? The scent of vanilla pods and lilies may seem grownup and classy, but what if I really like smelling like raspberry body mist?