It’s Been a Lot of Life
Hey guys, its been a minute!
The time since I arrived to the South in late July has absolutely blown by. At the end of my first travel nurse contract in October in Chattanooga, I caught myself thinking about the quality, variety, and quantity of sheer life experiences that had been packed into that few month span. You already know about the start of van life, so here’s a sampling of some of the other things I’ve seen/done/learned/experienced…
Milk and molasses enemas! Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. When I first saw the order written by the doc, I thought CERTAINLY that it was an order for milk of magnesia, a common liquid laxative, taken, you know, by mouth. Nope, guess again! I was told by the nurses on my floor to order a bottle of molasses from the cafeteria, mix with two small cartons of microwaved milk, pour into an enema bag, and “shake, shake, shake!” Administer, you know, like an enema. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Nursing in the South!
I’ve been a nurse for 8 years, and I had never done CPR on anything but a CPR class dummy…until the other day. It was not at work. A new acquaintance has a problem with opiates that I was unaware of, and although they had been doing great for awhile, apparently they fell off the wagon. Fortunately, there was a pulse when I got involved, so I just had to do rescue breathing; also, the paramedics got there VERY quickly, gave Narcan (you can give it intranasally! Who knew?!) and, voila! Problem solved. Well, sort of. The entire next day, I thought about how I was pretty sure I would never get the taste of stale cigarettes and death out of mouth. (Anybody wanna make out?). So, I cried hysterically, bought a pocket valve mask off Amazon Prime, and decided that Fentanyl is ACTUALLY the devil (I used to think it was meth , but I have CHANGED MY MIND!! Recreational fentanyl takes the cake, kids! Just say no!). In all seriousness, addiction is a very terrible and sad disease, and I hope they get the help they need.
Unionized hospitals: you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone! Oh.My. Gosh. I remember thinking that I was running my ass off taking care of 3 to 4 patients on a med surg/ step-down floor back at my old job in Portland. Try 5 patients. Or 6. Sometimes they have 7, on night shift. The staff nurses down here get crap for pay and they work SO DAMN HARD. I have had such great co-workers so far at both my contract jobs and seen teams that work together and have eachother’s backs. It makes me angry on their behalf because they are working just as hard as me, and as a travel nurse, I’m not only making WAY more money, but I have the freedom to pop back over to Oregon and have better working conditions AND better pay even if I go back to a permanent, non-travel position. It’s been very eye-opening, to say the least.
Southernisms. My favorite is “I might could do that”. Hee hee hee! It’s sooooo cute! I’m really going to try and incorporate that into my daily vocabulary. One that I was initially very confused about is “I don’t care to_______.” Example: I asked a CNA in TN if she had time to clean up a patient who had been incontinent, and she responded, “I don’t care to clean her up.” To me this sounds like, “Um, no, I’m not doing that.” For the record, I am certainly not above cleaning up gross bodily fluids, and it is NOT just the CNA’s job to attend to these matters; nurses wipe butts, too. :) However, I thought she was being kind of rude and I finally said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, I’m not from here and I don’t speak Southern.” So, it turns out that “I don’t care to” = “I don’t mind doing that.” Huh!
Dating! This year, I’ve had my heart broken 1.5 times. The 0.5 was not a 1.0 because I’m learning things and growing as a person, dammit. Regardless, I continue to be a sad sack of hopeless romantic Delicate Little Flower. Any minute now, you’ll probably find me huddled under my covers crying my eyes out over some dude. I’m sticking to my guns, though, and fully plan to stand my ground and remain an Unrepentant Overly Sensitive Pisces until the day I die. So, there. Ninny ninny.
Just to cheer you up after that last one: I have mastered the art of peeing into a Nalgene bottle WITHOUT the aid of one of those cool female pee funnel things. Without spilling a drop. You’re welcome.
