So I am finally finished with wearing my dumb white scrubs to hospital clinicals. Amen Hallelujah!! Which reminds me
Here are some blog topics inspired by my hot mess scrubs:
1) Industrial strength fabrics are not meant for human fashions. They are meant for making sails for pirate ships and trampolines. You should never wear fabrics that hurt your skin or mimic the qualities of cardboard. Just make comfy ones and replace them more. PLEASE!!
2) Unisex does not mean it fits both sexes. It means it is made for men and the chauvinist pigs are too lazy/sexist to make an outfit created with boobs and hips. Women are expected to suck it up and just look bad....and stay in the kitchen dammit. Unless you're on the pole. In which case they seem to care to design female form-fitting fashions. How self serving.
3) Isn't it nice to have a pair of pants or other clothing item that almost fit when you're in shape that you are forced to wear all the time as a bitter reminder that you are getting fatter.
Ok moving on from the scrubs to the hot TV topics I have to comment on.
Dancing with the Stars - Cristian de la Fuente's poor arm!! I am so disappointed he got hurt. I first saw him on my fave show Psych and thought he was hilarious. And after seeing him on DWTS he seems to be like the nicest guy ever!! I so wanted him to win. Actually I want everyone this season to win- and I want Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough to just publicly make out already.
The Gathering- so I watched this on Lifetime about a guy(Peter Gallagher) who thinks his wife has been kidnapped by a coven of witches. SO BAD. It's really hard to say which part I despised the most. The yummy noises while crusty old Peter Fonda made out with a woman he brought back out of a coma who was married to someone else. Yay. Old people making out! With sound effects. Or maybe the best part was when Peter Gallagher was confronted with the fact that his wife was a practicing witch and he was all......yeah.....I knew we had different religions but what's the big deal? Priceless. So true to life. Why should a person think twice before marrying a Methodist or a Wiccan. That just means we'll shop on a different aisle at whole foods right? Who cares??!!
The Office- the past two weeks of crappy almost proposals are KILLING ME. I just had to say it.
Law & Order SVU - I can't decide whether Robin Williams is creepier when he's funny or serious. I pick funny as more creepy. When he gets going at trying to be funny he makes me uncomfortable. Anyways, this week's episode raised an interesting topic. He was trying to empower people to make themselves me heard against the establishment. His wife had died in childbirth after the Dr. wouldn't listen to him about a C-section and he let the Dr. do what he thought was best. The bad part was that he was calling and impersonating a police officer to a fake Mc Donald's type chain and had gotten a manager to get a female employee and lock her in his office and strip search her himself while he waited for the fake officer to arrive. So of course the manager gets arrested for assault. The manager was Scott Adsit from 30 Rock and he was GREAT at his part. So funny when he found out how stupid he was to perform a strip search because he had phone permission. The other civil disobedience type silly stuff that Robin Williams encouraged was interesting and not criminal like that. They had a public pillow fight and a moment of freezing into statues at a train station. Silly but disruptive. He had a good point about not letting people walk all over you but went about it all the wrong way.
Ok - so that's about all I had to comment on.
Here's another current event- Go you Mariah Carey with the marrying Nick Cannon thing if its true. Rrrrrraow! True cougar style. After being with a much older man like Tommy Mottola you should get a young hottie! Although having watched Cribs I find it hard to believe that any man will move into your pad in NY. What person wants to be with someone with a Hello Kitty Bathroom and like 5000 sq ft of closet space and no room for his stuff? I'm just sayin.
A Brief View of the Latest Crap I Watched on TV
Thursday, May 1, 2008 | Labels: Celeb Gossip, Nursing, TV
So there were a ton of exhibitors and fellow students milling around and at one of the booths they were selling these memory study notebooks. They take info you need to know about body systems and certain diseases and make little drawings or mnemonics(ooooh...SAT vocab) to help you remember stuff for tests. A student from our school bought them and came to show me and I was like....AHHHH! (Disclaimer -This blog in no way is meant to mock those with a psychological disorder)
I turned to a page with a picture of a person with schizophrenia -a stick man crouched with his hands around his knees and like a few days worth of beard and crazy eyes. I was all- HAHA- I feel like that right now. My eyes are so red from sleep deprivation and I want to crawl into the fetal position.
Then I look at the dialogue puffy clouds around him. And it gets eerie.
Who am I - What am I doing here?? Check. I am confused.
Why won't you leave me alone? Everyone is out to get me. Check.
What is going on? Huh? Double Check.
I don't care. Check.
You are stressing me out! I don't want to be around people anymore! Check.
YIKES!! Lack of sleep is giving me some of the thought processes of schizophrenia....at least according to the memory book. In reality schizophrenia's way more severe than this and I have issues with the memory book, but anyways....sleep deprivation is WACK!! Hopefully I will sleep enough tonight to get myself back to my normal level of mental health by tomorrow.
It's scary to think of all of the stupid things I have done in my lifetime due to sleep deprivation induced moronic/impulsive decisions.
Most of the bad moments began with a trip to Walmart after midnight. I just shouldn't be allowed to get a cart after 12. If I would just walk in and get what I (or my friends) came for life would have many less scary memories.
Look! It's super-blonde Erica learning her spanish skills- no wait!!! She doesn't speak spanish! And yes the sun did that to my hair.But today- when there was no translator OF COURSE someone needs something more difficult explained. If anyone would like to know the words for swollen and thyroid they are hinchado and tiroides cause I had to look them up. But this is the great part. I walk in just to get another less complicated lady's vital signs and she is already asking for a translator. I was like WHAT?? I ask you if you know your own height and you ask for a translator? This shouldn't be a problem. Even if my accent were horrible(which it is not) the tape measure is one the wall and I pointed. I think that's the international signal for height if I'm not mistaken. Geez Louise.
SO I get all her vitals and ask what's wrong. No problems on my part but she keeps huffing and puffing because apparently talking to me is torture. So I leave her and the doctor takes me with her to translate later on. So we walk in the room and the lady is all NO WAY NOT YOU!! I need a real translator! (this is a free clinic lady- good luck getting the UN to provide an expert interpreter)So we manage to talk about all of her problems. Only at the point when the doctor wanted to know if her knee was still swollen compared to normal did I have a problem, but I explained around it and said "Your knee was big before so is it smaller now or still bigger than normal?" I think I did a good job frankly. I excel at explaining things when I don't know the exact word having experienced not being able to speak english for 18 months.
So she leaves and the doctor is all.....Erica you are amazing I wish I had you at my office. How can you think you only speak OK spanish- that was great!
So here is the frustration. Every time you feel confident in speaking a second language you meet someone who has issues who claims to not understand a word you are saying or who speaks
their own language muffled or with a speech impediment and you get humbled- harshly.
I mean let's get real. In my own language I have to ask certain people to repeat themselves all the time. Some people just don't enunciate clearly or speak quietly or under their breath. Or speak something that is not quite english...ie ebonics, valley, east texan. The point is that we shouldn't beat ourselves up for not understanding everything all the time. I now have enough experience to say that woman was a hose beast and was just being a pain. But she still made me feel bad. It was bizarre to have lovely pleasant conversations with everyone else today telling me I was so helpful to them and then her treating me as if I couldn't get Hola right.
I think everyone has experienced that lovely moment in Spanish 1 (or whatever language) in junior high where you finally know a few words so the teacher makes you listen to language tapes and you're all WOAH !! What language are they speaking??? Or the fun of living in Texas where you want to learn spanish but if you turn on the TV mexicans speak at 90 mph on the news or worse on the radio and are the WORST to try to listen to as a beginner. Which you don't know unless you until you meet people from other spanish speaking countries and you're all....OH.....that IS spanish!! What the Heck happened in Mexico to make them think they needed to talk like professional auctioneers?
Anyways. This is the kind of a day that makes me hesitate to say I speak spanish fluently on employment applications. And the minute the lady walked out of the clinic I had a light go off in my brain and I was all hinchado...the word was hinchado!!! ARG!!!!!!
Ciao mis amigos. Ya me tiene loca este blog.
La To
The other week at the hospital I took care of what we in the industry call a "pincher/biter". An old lady that takes every opportunity to act like a 3 yr old when her family is not around. If her daughters are there she is an angel. If not......watch out!! I decided to use my powers of persuasion and I only got pinched once and no attempted bites. Apparently this is like a record.
Two topics of conversation have come from this incident
1. As an old lady are you only a pincher/biter if you were one as a child?
2. How do you care for someone who tries to hurt you?
As to the first question......Apparently I will be a very passive old lady if this is true. I have never been prone to physical violence and due to my sister's surgeries when she was little I would literally sit there and let her beat on me so that I wouldn't hurt her. I do wonder about one of my cousins who was a notorious scratcher when she was little. We all got gouged by her claws at one point. I think I'm still a little bit afraid of her to this day. I would probably be less scared if she didn't have super long fake nails.
The second question makes me sad. As crusty as this old lady was....I kind of liked her. She was fiesty. I didn't appreciate being pinched but for some reason she made me laugh. Then I was at the hospital this week and taking care of other patients and I overheard some nurses talking about how they just couldn't stand her. It's totally understandable. Who wants to take care of someone who is not appreciative of the care? But at the same time.....it makes me feel for all of the elderly people with dementia who are probably pretty "unlovable" in the way they act. I know I've been very frustrated on occasion taking care of patients who try to fight you off while taking their blood pressure, etc. Actually taking the blood pressure isn't the worst part , but anyways... It's sad to think about. You really need your family to love you on the off chance you end up as a crusty old person. Cause if you end up as the hospital with no family....it's sad but true that you will probably get worse care.
Ok. Peace out. I totally have a fever today and this is the first moment I've been able to sit up and get to my computer. Literally. I feel too crappy to watch TV. Tragedy!!
See y'all on the flip side of the fever. Ick.
How do I love job interviews? Let me count the ways..
Friday, February 15, 2008 | Labels: Crazy People, Nursing, Woe is MeToday I had my job interview for the NICU at Parkland. It was not bad at all. They never even asked me what my weaknesses were or what were mistakes I have made and how did I handle it? So the usual point where my interviews get awkward and awful never even happened. But there are 50 people being interviewed for like 5 positions so my chances are probably awful.
The manger than was going to interview me was running late due to her duties in the NICU, so I was waiting at HR for like 40 minutes. What a chance to people watch!!!!
You would think people would dress their best and behave themselves when trying to get new jobs. Heheeeeee. It kills me to think about it even now. I just hope that the other applicants for my job are as amazingly misguided as the people I saw today.
1st - I just gotta say this as a member of the fashion police...Navy Suit, Navy Heels, WHITE ATHLETIC SOCKS. I'm not even kidding. She's probably a nice person but all I could look at were the sagging socks. Moving on...
So - a man we'll call Mr Homeless Looking Foreign Nursing Student, or HLFNS for short, came in and starts berating the secretaries because no one has called him to interview him for any jobs he looked at online. He is wearing a baseball cap and jeans and a dirty overcoat. They are nice to him and say sit down at a computer and we'll help you find jobs that are still open. So HLFNS sits down and he has no profile on the parkland site. IE- he could not possibly have applied to any jobs online. He must have looked online and sent good vibes as his way of sending his resume or something. So the nurses tell him- you are a nursing student - you can only apply for internships. So he picks experienced RN jobs. So then they pull up the open internships for him. He applies to none of them. Then he starts asking why a job won't let him apply- it is a Nurse Practitioner's job. They put him back in the intern category. He then tries to apply for a job opening for a doctor. He also asked the nurses what NICU and PRN meant. These are terms that if you don't already know them, you certainly learn within 5 minutes of being a nursing student. HOLY COW!!!
Case study #2 - a woman walks in(in a sweatsuit with a scarf wrapped around her head) and asks is this where I apply to be a Nursing assistant? And the secretaries say no - this office handles only RN's and LVN's. You need to go next door to the general HR office. So she says I already went there and they sent me here(In LOUD MAD VOICE). So the secretary says......Oh- you'll have to forgive us - the secretary next door just started 2 days ago and she still doesn't know the differences in Nursing jobs between general and specialized. Tell her to look up CNA jobs in her office. So the Lady SCREAMS at the secretaries YOU PEOPLE NEED TO STOP MESSING WITH ME AND GET YOUR STUFF TOGETHER!! And then she slams the door (seriously) as hard as she can. So the secretaries look at each other like whatever and keep typing.
Apparently this happens all the time. The secretaries were unfazed. WOW!
It amazes me (since most of the people I know are normal) how many crazy people there are in the world.
I told my friend Duyen, if I was competing with my fellow Collin County students I'd have no advantage at all in interviews, but if other schools apparently admit crazies....we might get job offers right away.
Sometimes I heart nursing school.
So I go in to the hospital this morning for orientation classes and I arrive like 10 minutes early in the location we are supposed to meet. Crickets. Tumbleweed.
I decide to go to a nearby classroom at the hospital on the off chance and TADA- there is my teacher and the other 4 students. And my teacher says "Erica we'd given up on you so we just came down." And I said, "Uh......you gave up on me ?? Isn't our meeting time for the lobby in like 5 minutes? Why would you give up on me?"
And teacher says "I don't know, everyone else came already so I figured you weren't coming."
Ok- on what planet do you get to abandon someone because everyone else in the group decided to be anal-retentively early? (They are all carpooling from McKinney incidentally so they DID arrive early together- duh) And the saddest part- I WAS EARLY TOO!!
So I ask my classmates in a whisper "Did she send an email about the start time changing again or something?" A chorus of no's. Of course she didn't.
Then our teacher asks me"Erica do you have plans you can't change right after class?" So I say no- cause I don't. Stupid Stupid Stupid. So she says "You know that Pain management class I talked about attending today maybe as part of class? Well they are having it an hour after we are supposed to get out of class and it lasts til 4:30 so I'll count you in to stay since you don't have plans"
So all the smarties who actually read to the end of the memo said they had a prior committment right after class when she asked them. And I -who just read to get the meeting time- HA- didn't have any idea I needed to play uncooperative today.
I spent an extra 2 1/2 hrs at the hospital watching a web seminar on managing cancer breakthrough pain. And I got to cry and try to hide it from the 3 oncology nurses who were there with their callused hearts where they won't cry at a stupid video anymore. I was unprepared for cancer sob stories. It was baaaaad.
And I have had my eyes all watery from having been sick recently so it looked like I was crying really bad long before the tears were actually of sadness.
UG.
Lesson learned- read all your email or your teacher will make you cry.
