Merry Christmas!
Here's some news items since I haven't blogged in like 7 years:

-I graduated. Now I get to put MSN after my name.
-I do not have a job lined up. I trust God.
-I am still living with my fabulous roommates until I find a job. We just got a 3rd roommate, actually. She's great. She makes me feel short. I like that.
-This is my 12th day at home with the fam. It's going ok. I miss my friends...and I'm irritated because my cell doesn't work out here.
-My Grandaddy is getting married in 10 days.
-I am redecorating Christie's old room, because I am sleeping in it while I'm here. It is fun. I highly recommend having a project to throw yourself into when you go home for Christmas.

Struggles

Well, I haven't written in a really long time because I've been busy and I don't know what to say, anyways.
Clinicals have been very hard and there's a chance I might not graduate on time, because I am not performing well at work and have only had 3 births so far this semester. I need way more than that to feel confident about my skills.
I am disappointed and afraid...but I'm trying to trust God and work as hard as I can.

My faculty has told me that they are probably going to change my clinical site, which means I'll be moving soon. But I don't know when or to where. So I'm just waiting to hear. So you should just pray for me if you want to.

Here's a roommate picture that Linda took for us while we flopped. 

Rachel, Ellis & April at the lake 

Nicky and baby James 

My throat's feeling really scratchy today too...

<---This is from when my new roommates took me out for my birthday. Olive Garden is really cold, that's why I'm wearing that dorky shrunken sweater.

Okay so on Monday I woke up with a mildly scratchy throat that turned into a runny nose and sneezing and a thousand-pound head, so I left work early and came home to sleep.
On my way out the door, I said to my preceptor, "If I wake up feeling worse than this I'll give you a call in the morning."

She said, "well, that's ok when you're a student, but when you're a real midwife, you come to work no matter how you feel."

I was like, "Oh. Well maybe I'll feel better in the morning."

Anyways, I didn't feel better yesterday when I woke up, so I left her a message and slept the rest of the day. Okay I didn't sleep the whole day: I woke up to eat a little and drink a lot and take Sudafed.
It was a pretty good day, in that I felt like I had made the right decision to not go to work. Linda came over and brought me tea, a Z-pack, arnica gel, Airborne, a plant, a get-well-soon card and some quesadillas. I was supposed to go to yoga with Christian, but she was feeling sick too, so she invited me over to watch movies and be sick on the couch together.

She gave me some chewable Immunorockyourworld tablets or something, and after I put it in my mouth she goes, "they're basically just colostrum and echinacea, so they're really good for you."
What the? Colostrum? I almost spit it out, but then she said it was cow's colostrum. I didn't know they made that, but since I drink cow's milk, I felt like it would have been hypocritical of me not to accept their colostrum. Well whatever. It didn't taste gross.

Today is my day off, and I'm planning on being better, because I want to go watch Wooster & Jeeves movies with Nicky and I certainly don't want to make her 3 month-old roommate sick. So I should probably go back to sleep now.

Slug thoughts

Today I feel like trash so I'm flopping around watching Cool Hand Luke and eating puppy chow. Paul Newman is in that movie, did you ever know that? He's my favorite, even though I have to try really hard not to think about salad dressing when I watch him.

On a less embarrassing note, I was noticing this week that I still get a little nervous every time I get ready to go in a patient's room. I mean, I always look in the chart to see why the woman's there and get an idea in my head of what I'm going to do before I go in, but I guess I'm afraid that they'll ask me something I don't know.

Sometimes I'm even scared of the prenatal visits, which are the easiest of all and take like 20 minutes. Those pregnant ladies, especially the first-time moms, have a LOT of questions. Occasionally the husband will come too, with his own list of questions.

<---that's me. I usually like it when I walk in the room and she's sitting on the table with a 12 page "tentative birth plan" and list of things to ask, because I can usually tell them what they want to hear and have it actually be the truth. That's something I really like about midwifery. They'll ask, "how many of your patients do you cut episiotomies on?" And I get to say, "we only cut if the baby's really in trouble and has to be out right away, which is pretty unusual." But other times they'll ask me stuff like, "I heard I'm not supposed to be eating fish because of mercury levels--how much is safe?" or "Where's my scar going to be after I have a tubal ligation?" and I have to go ask someone. Both of those fall into the category of things-I-should-have-memorized-by-now. But I love those patients, the ones who are curious and freaked out at the same time, but still want to try having an unmedicated labor. It's really brave of them, I think. Sometimes if I have really bad cramps, I yell in my head, "I am SO getting an epidural when I have a baby!! It's going to be so much worse than this!" and then I feel guilty like I'm not a true midwife or some crap like that. :) That's why I don't mind if my patients decide to get them. Especially if they're the kind who ask me if it's going to get worse after every contraction, because then I have to say, "Yes definitely. But you can do it." Of course, I like it better when they don't--because it's more of a challenge for me (epidural patients usually sleep a lot, which means I get to sit around bored until the baby comes down) and because they are so proud of themselves afterwards.

This week I really enjoyed myself in the clinic, even though I had to look up a lot of stuff and felt like an idiot approximately 50% of the time. I'm excited about the births I'm going to get this semester--last semester, I didn't get to see the patients for their prenatal visits, so I didn't know them as well. This time I'm going to have an idea of where they are in life, what their family dynamics are, how they deal with pain, and what they want from the birth. I mean, I tried to get an idea of all those things with my patients this summer but it's hard, especially if it's one of those stop & drop moms who've had like 6 kids. :)

Anyways, enough of that. I saw a cute little lemon tree for sale at Home Depot the other day, but then Christian pointed out that we'd never seen a lemon tree growing around here before, so maybe it would just die. Does anybody know? Also, if I were to get it, would it take like 50 years before it would actually bear fruit? Because it's only 3 feet high, and obviously I don't want to help it grow to like 12 feet and then have to leave it here when I move again.

P.S. on Cool Hand Luke: maybe not as good as I originally thought. Right now there's some skank doing a Paris Hilton Hardee's commercial imitation, and its totally gross. If she turns out to be a romantic lead, I'm switching back to Jeopardy.

Good reasons to eat Top Ramen...

<----That's Tico, in case you can't tell. Isn't he cute?
This weekend Linda and I drove to NC to switch my van out and see the fam.

Mom, Christie, and Tico are going to Israel for a couple of weeks with Grandaddy. And when they return, Tico will have aged enough to be allowed to trade in his learning permit for a real live unrestricted driver's license. Since the only extra car in the driveway at home is my Dad's shiny new Prius, and I'll probably be trading my van in for something that doesn't break every 500 miles in a couple of months anyway, my parents asked me if I'd switch with them so Tico could use the van for his teenage hijinks. Mom said it was good for a 15 year old boy's ego to drive around in a weird-smelling 1993 minivan.

So anyways, it is a brilliant car. It's a hybrid so it gets like 60 miles to the gallon and you get to feel like a hippie. When I walk up to it (with the key in my pocket) the door automatically unlocks, and then I push a button to start it. It has a GPS and you can type in where you're going and this girl will say, "turn right here" and you can rebel and it will reroute you. AND, the CD player is in the front, unlike my van, where the CD player was under my legs.
I've already made a decision not to fall in love with it because a) I would just be on the rebound, and more importantly, b) I don't think I can afford the monthly payments. Unless I make the decision to subsist only on ramen noodles and canned peas. If I did that, all my hair would probably fall out, and I'm too vain to embrace baldness at 24.

I gotta go get ready for church. I'll blog about my first week at work later.

Now I'm 24

On Thursday night we had our honoring of hands ceremony at my school, and one of the midwives who I worked with this summer gave this photo to me and said, "hey, one of the patients you delivered brought this picture of you and her baby to her 6 week postpartum visit." On the back of the photo is this awesome thank-you note from the patient, talking about how happy she was with her birth and how much she appreciated my help and encouragement during her labor!!! Umm, yeah. So I was pretty much thrilled and showing everybody and jumping around. I'm still pretty excited about it.

This morning I woke up and discovered that I was sleeping with several pine needles, dust bunnies, and black specks, so I decided to wash my sheets. My Mom tells me that normal people usually wash their sheets weekly, and I think I'm going to give it a go, as part of my preparation-for-being-out-of-school-and-being-a-real-person plan. That's actually all I've thought of for that plan so far.

Anyways who cares, because do you know what? We have cable! and wireless internet!! And my patients really like me! And it's fabulous, I'm never going to leave my house again. One time I met this guy who told me he was really lonely when he first moved to Nashville, so he decided to get satellite TV and TiVo. He said after that things got a lot better, because he had something to do after work.

This morning I was flipping through the channels during breakfast, when I came across Dean Cain, my old friend from 8th grade. When I was 13, my best friend Jennie & I used to watch Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman every Sunday night. I made a collage of him for my room and we both wrote him letters, to which he replied with a postcard that said something like "Super wishes!" --Dean. I saw every episode up until he and Lois finally got married, when the whole show totally went downhill.
Since that was ten years ago I was psyched to find him back on tv. Unfortunately, he was playing in some geeky movie on the SciFi channel where a giant dragon was flying around eating people, but he still looked exactly the same, and by that I mean he looked awesome.

So, I am fully moved into my new house and I LOVE it. I forgot how it was to live with people who are your friends: it's really great. When we get home from work we talk about our days and sometimes we eat dinner together and watch movies.

Last night for my birthday, Christian & Glenn & Linda took me out for dinner and then we went back to their place for a movie. We watched Memento, and then Glenn tried to explain what he wants to do his doctoral dissertation on, and by then I was so tired that my brain could only handle one complicated concept at a time. But it was all really fun. I got a big box from my family to open, and Christian gave me a candle, and Linda gave me an Amelie poster in Chinese, and Em sent a card and earrings that she made. I also bought myself a jacket, but that's a story I'll write about later.

Okay, so awhile ago I found this necklace I really liked on the internet for $120. Last week while I was bored in Nashville I decided to try and copy it. Since I hadn't looked at the picture for a few weeks, I sort of forgot what it looked like, so it's not exactly the same, but still close, huh? I was really proud of myself. It cost like $8 to make.

At the star

Welp, I've moved, and we have no internet yet. So just give me another week and I'll be back. Yeah. I have a lot to say, but I'm reduced to using coffee shops for email checking purposes only. So eat it.

Nothing ever happens on Mars

So Linda and I drove down south a few days ago to be with the family. She's alternately packing and stalking her friends. I'm flopping around reading Harry Potter with Christie and petting the cats and going to the dentist and getting my van fixed, in other words, I'm not very busy. In the evenings we've been watching movies "as a family." Last night Maria Elena brought over arroz con pollo and flan to celebrate Linda leaving and it was brilliant. Real food, not from a restaurant or the freezer: it's a good thing.

I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to move all my stuff next week. I've got 4 or 5 large pieces of furniture, and some of them won't fit in my van. I've already tried the whole batting my eyes at dudes with pick-up trucks thing, and it's not working. It takes 2 trips to get all the big stuff moved, and since I'm moving sort of far away, and can only move 3 of the 5 items myself, I can't just ask someone I barely know. I feel like I'd have to at least be dating the guy to ask him to help me with all that. :)

So I've been asking around about how much it costs to rent a trailer, but then, half of the drive involves mountains and the van is seriously struggling lately. And I don't even know if it's worth it. My couch is from Goodwill, but I have this awesome dresser from Pier 1 that I love. Maybe I should just sell it all on Craigslist, since there is a definite possibility I'll be moving again after this semester, and assuming I'm not dating a cowboy by then, I'd have the same problem.

I told my Dad after the van finally dies, I need a pick-up truck. He looked pained and mumbled something about bad gas mileage.

The current moving plan is to make my Aunt and Uncle drive up with me in their real (non-mini) van and load up and bring it all back and unload in one day. 10 hours of driving. They said they'd do it. Eek! Can you imagine? Should I tell them my room is on the 2nd floor? Should I tell them it probably won't all fit in one trip? Should I just sell my $40 Target bookshelves and buy new ones when I get there?

Moving always makes me feel small and grateful. I wish I could do it all by myself and not make really nice people get hot and sweaty. I guess I could if I slept on an air mattress and went back to entirely plastic collapsible furniture.

I told my mom that her van stinks, and she said "no way, YOUR van smells worse than mine!" and then we both said we didn't smell anything in our respective vans. Maybe car stink is like house stink, and you only smell it if you're not used to it. Because her van definitely smells like wet dog. I know my van doesn't actually smell fresh, but I didn't think it hit you in the face or anything. Anyways. I'm so glad the internet can know my thoughts on this issue now.

The last thing I want to say is that Lydia and Eric are married now, and it was a fun wedding. They memorized their vows, which impressed me. I've never seen that done before, and I don't think I'd be able to do it without messing it up, but they pulled it off. For the sermon the whole wedding party sat down, which made me nervous, of course, but the ceremony was over in an hour: perfect. At the reception there were different kinds of cakes she had friends bake and they were really good, like "oooh, taste this" good. Lots of the girls from school came, and Wim came, and of course everybody from church came, and I got to introduce them all to Linda, and it was so fun. For part of the reception I was the only link between the people at my table and I got to pick the topics of conversation and feel all popular. There was no alcohol, but on the plus side, the musicians they hired were attractive and sang songs that I knew.

Before the ceremony started Linda made friends with one of my classmates, and had loud whispered arguments about who was the most attractive groomsman. It was REALLY embarrassing, especially because they were still talking about it by the time we were in the receiving line. And they weren't whispering by then. Everyone heard them.

Okay I gotta go. Congratulations to Ben, who was also supposed to be getting married on the 13th!! I wish I could have been in both places at once. I hope it rocked.

Eric, Lydia, and I. 

Sophia the flower girl 

After breakfast at Pancake Pantry 

This is part of my new living room... 

Linda made us order this even though we were full. 

Lisa and I at graduation 

Me with my chai 

Stop it, Maddy...

Right now Linda's sitting on my couch talking on her cell again, using phrases like "oh my gosh they broke up again? No way!" But it's okay.
I've finished the summer semester, and she's been here for almost a week. It's gone by fast. We've been shopping, swing dancing, to the movies, cooking, highlighting, rock climbing, to the library, to church, a graduation, and out to eat at all my favorite places. Also we've been to Starbucks a lot because contrary to her personal belief, she is addicted to caffeine and a total slug until she gets some. Today we went to meet up with one of her new roommates, to see her room, and to check out my new house. It was fun. I got really excited to move in and took lots of pictures. Oh yeah! That's the other thing! I got a new camera. It rocks.
Well that's mostly why I haven't written, because I've been doing so much stuff. I'm a much more faithful blogger when I'm having a slow school life of boring.
By the way, I did really good on my final exams! I was happy. Even the oral. Even the presentation.
When we got back we went to Shakespeare in the Park and saw "A Winter's Tale" which was brilliant. We remembered a blanket. I was glad I lived here. Except that there was a couple on a blanket next to us eating some really garlicky Italian food that kept wafting. We were making faces about it when the girl in front of us went over to them and was all "I just want to tell y'all, I am totally inspired to bring my dinner with me next time I come to this! That garlic smells soo good!"
Okay so here's a bunch of pictures from our time so far. I got inspired by Em's big picture posting frenzy the other day and my new camera. I had lots more of Linda eating and of my house but I thought that might be overkill.

Back to classes

Here's a picture of some pregnant belly dancers. There were 3 of them at our Annual Meeting (of all the midwives) in DC this summer--it was really funny.

This week I'm back in classes. My presentation went fine, and there were a lot of other interesting presentations too. It is fun to be with my classmates again, and sleep at night and be awake during the day. My hours this week are 9-4, so no shameless requests for schedule sympathy this time.

I've been studying a lot because I've got my oral exam on Thursday and my comprehensive exam on Friday, then I'm done with the semester! I've got a few weeks off. My plan is to spend the first one with Linda, the second one at home, and the third one moving. Then I come back to Nashville for a week of classes and to get my hands honored. Honoring of hands is a ceremony that we have before going off to Integration, the last semester of midwifery school. It's put on by our faculty and supposedly involves lots of handholding, feminist blessings (not praying!), music and crying. All the husbands & boyfriends get to come watch and feel awkward. I like that I am going into a profession that requires me to learn hand skills, but I'm sure this'll be interesting.

I think my brief flirtation with lice is over, so you can just go ahead and relax Christie.
Linda's coming the day after tomorrow! I can't wait. I've got so much I want to show her. I might actually pick her up from the airport too if she ever sends me her flight info.

Yesterday I went to the pet store and looked around at the rodents, birds, and fish. It was fun, but I didn't want any. The ferrets were all flopped out on their backs sleeping and looked dead. There was a little girl there picking out pet mice. Out of probably 20 white mice, she picked out 2 specific ones and put her fingers on the glass to keep track of where they were in the cage. It was cute. I would like to have a cat, but I need to wait until I'm not moving around as much, since having a cat limits your roommate and housing choices a lot. Sort of like being a smoker.
I should probably go back to sleep now.

Let them eat cake

Ok, so I'm subtracting Dooce from my links, because she's been so nasty lately. So everybody go check it out. Just kidding. In her place I'm going to try Opinionistas, an equally sarcastic, less well-balanced blogger big-shot who pretty much only writes about work, which she HATES. But it doesn't make you feel sorry for her. It just makes you think, "I never want to be a lawyer. Why would anyone want to be a lawyer?"

I'm really proud of myself this week for doing those 5 shifts in a row. I keep trying to slip the fact that I worked 60 hours this week into conversation, but so far no one's (Em!) impressed. I can't think of anyone to call and show off to, although I keep considering those who laugh at my lamer jokes, like Susan and a couple of the Pribyls.

***Lice Update***
No more bugs noted. Itchy if I think about it. Mild dandruff vs. egg cases?
Working off suggestions from multiple advisors, I found myself in Kroger's self-checkout aisle, buying some hastily selected nit combs after work on Thursday. I combed my hair out for an hour. I didn't find anything.
Maybe it was a boy louse.
Next step: dandruff shampoo.
P.S. Guys, I can't cut my hair off. Don't forget about the Q-Tip of '03. Or the Mushroom of '02. I'm going for Pocahontas, without the tan. Or fringe-y dress.
***
Today I wrote a big bad research paper that's been hanging over my head all semester. I feel relieved but gross since I did nothing else today. You know that stay-homey, never get all the way dressed for the day, hungry every 2 hours thing? That's what I did.

It's a review of 10 research articles. I did mine on Depo-Provera and whether it REALLY causes irreversible bone loss or if the black box warning was just a freak out.
I concluded that it was a freak out.
It's not the most interesting topic in the world to research, but I am so over picking out controversial abstinence education or post-abortion syndrome stuff and then searching around for 20 hours (in the actual library, because it's not available on the internet) to find the 3 current articles that exist on the subject. Actually I've only done controversial once that I can remember. But I usually pick stuff that I care about more.

For my next trick, I'm going to do a presentation Monday about letting women eat and drink in labor. I'm excited. Because at our hospital the rules are: sips and chips for everyone, unless they're on magnesium sulfate. Then all you get are ice chips. That's it. Hope you don't have a 3 day labor. I can't imagine doing something so draining without having eaten at least something small and non-barfy. One time I heard someone (can't remember who) explaining to a patient that she wasn't really hungry because she was getting IV fluids. Haven's friend who had twins checked out of the hospital to go eat and then came back when she was done.

Listen, what people need to do is not ask permission. Don't ask if you are allowed to have your 6 best friends in the room for the birth, because then the nurse has to say "hospital policy is 2." Don't ask if you are allowed to have coffee, which isn't actually clear. Don't ask if you are allowed to get out of bed, or take off your blood pressure cuff that's been going off every 15 minutes since you arrived even though all your readings are normal. Don't ask if you can rip your IV out...ok just kidding. The last night I was there, this non-epidural patient asked if she could get up to go poop. The nurse said no and "I don't want you to push your baby out on the toilet!" She was 1 cm/50%/-2 and barely contracting. But okay, this was a wacked-out nurse. She was pretty unusual- like arguing with the midwife I was working with about when to give antibiotics, and telling really loud irrelevant stories to the patient at 2 am. Technically I think I am allowed to tell her to lay off but she would have made me pay for it. I guess I could have lured her away like, "Hey Z, come tell me more about your PMS, they're sleeping in there."

So anyways, that's how I feel about it. :)

I like getting worked up about it.
I think my body's still on nights.
Even though I took a hangoveriffic Unisom.
She was a really nice last patient.

Permethrin 1%

Before I go to sleep for the day, I have a confession. 2 nights ago I had just finished combing out my hair after a shower, when I noticed a tiny BUG on my comb. A nefarious, louse-y looking one. Whatever, I don't share brushes! I don't get my hair braided on mission trip beaches! I haven't been trying on fancy hats at JC Penneys! Of course, immediately I started feeling itchy and looking for bugs and egg cases in my hair but I couldn't find any. I contemplated taking the bug upstairs to ask my roommate if it looked like lice to her, but we're almost friends by now, so...nah. Instead I decided to test the insect, by giving a strand of hair and seeing if it was able to cling to it and walk along, hoping that this would reveal its identity. Well folks, it was able to cling alright. He was a clinger. I flushed him. But then I thought, that was a really weird looking louse...maybe it was a crab!! What if I have pubic lice on my HEAD??? (Right, I wouldn't want my parasite to be in the wrong place or anything) I should have saved him so I could bring it to work and ask the nurses! Then I remembered that crabs pretty much have to be sexually transmitted, and are usually darker in color, so I abandoned that idea. I haven't found anymore bugs since then, so they're either incubating in the back of my head somewhere, or I was just having a big prissy freak out. I'll just...keep you all posted. The world needs to know. Funny that I'm saying all this right after advertising my rather lax hygiene rules in my last title post, huh?

While I'm confessing stuff, let me say to Em's Mom and my Mom and any other Moms who will think me pathetic that I have never read Pride & Prejudice, only seen the movie. But I've seen it a lot! And I even know about that part where their heads move in slow motion during the dance! And I feel like I really get it! But I do wonder what Mr. Collins would have looked like inside my head if I had imagined him first. I mean, did Jane Austen really mean him to have such greasy hair or is that an artistic liberty? Did Victorians even talk about grease?

So anyways. Last night was brilliant. I had a birth, number 12, with my favorite midwife, who let me do everything, and it was so fun.
My main goal last night was not to be such a wuss like I usually am, and make decisions on the spot without asking everyone if they think it's a good idea first. I'm also working on noticing stuff outside of just the woman's bottom and how effective her pushing is. I tend to be really focused and ignore other important things like, say, the fetal heart rate. :) Other stuff I'm trying to keep track of at the same time: how long she's been pushing, if her bladder's getting full and getting in the way, her energy level, the vibe of the room, and whether I'm encouraging her enough or if I've gotten too distracted to talk out loud. It's really hard to make my brain do all that at once, but it's fun too, because I can feel myself getting better at it and that is exciting. I'm glad I'm going to be a midwife. God's good to me.

New subject. Guys, thanks for all the fun comments, I really like getting them. It makes this a lot more fun than writing in my journal. But let's just get this straight, "Susan" is not our terribly smashing, muppet-loving, commercial-making Philadelphian camp counselor, so don't be deceived. This Susan is the homeschool enthusiast, forestry major, clinique bonus time, chicken-lover from FL who passed on her genes to me. Unfortunately, she doesn't see Keira Knightley's clear skankiness as frankly as the rest of us do, but at least she doesn't think Sarah Michelle Gellar would make a good Jane. That was my particularly rotten idea. :)

If you haven't left your house in 24 hours, you don't have to take another shower

I feel better today, I guess I'm just getting excited to go back to clinicals, and I'm listening to Coldplay. I've knocked out a bunch of assignments in these days off, and today there's a TBS movie marathon with Only You, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, and You've Got Mail. So even if work is boring, I'll have something to do. Did I ever mention that I love Sister Act 2? Fabulous movie. Probably my favorite sequel. The first one sucks. But Rita Marie Watson is great. Only You is not particularly good, but I've seen it a lot, so it's like an old friend. I hate how she always has her mouth open.

Did anyone else hear that they are redoing Pride & Prejudice, with some unknown guy who isn't even cute, and tacky Keira Knightley as Lizzie?! (that's her in the picture) In a rare moment of shallow celebrity talk Em and I were trying to recast it the other day. We voted in Matthew McConaughey for Mr. Darcy...and then couldn't think of anyone else for Jane or Elizabeth. Okay I'm getting embarrassed now.
You know what smells gross in an immediately recognizable way? That smell when a vacuum cleaner sucks up water and gets all hot.

Night shift

Arg I woke up today at 3pm, and I don't like this sleeping during the day being up all night stuff anymore. Only 5 more days of nights and then I'm done with clinicals for the summer, and I'm going to start living like a normal person again. The only good thing is that I don't have to eat breakfast food when I wake up, I can just go straight to lasagna! Also I'm spending less money because there's nowhere to go in the middle of the night. But it feels gross. Okay back to studying.

Hans-Sellout

Okay last night on a whim I took myself to Wedding Crashers. It's been getting bad reviews, but I like Owen Wilson, generally disagree with reviewers, and don't want to do schoolwork so what the heck, right? I should've gotten the new Harry Potter instead, it was lame. One of those movies where the funniest parts were the ones you already saw in the trailers. Too many musical montages, one of them ending with lots of partial nudity and several sex scenes.
And okay, I believe that homosexuality is a sin, but I was uncomfortable with the way the movie represented the token homosexual character. He was socially inept, poorly dressed, artistic, and very sexually aggressive, a total weirdo with sticking-up hair. On the other hand, pretty much all the characters were cartoonishly portrayed: the crashers themselves are selfish guys seeking to deceive women into sleeping with them, the women are naive, clingy and foolish, the grandparents are crazy, the father is protective, blah blah blah. So maybe it shouldn't have bothered me that they caricatured the gay guy- it was just a shallow movie.

There was an article in the newspaper recently about an undercover operation that the police did to trap homosexuals that were trading drugs for sex. They had someone pose as a gay man on an internet dating site, and then told a guy who responded to bring drugs and meet him, and then it was really the police. The article was all about pointing out how they were targeting gays and not heterosexuals with this sting, and it wasn't fair, and how the cops were a bunch of redneck fundamentalists who arrested the guy with a lot of unnecessary force, you get their drift.
The next week, a gay guy wrote a letter to editor complaining about the way they were portraying homosexuals, like scary sexual solicitors who are all junkies. This was a little confusing, because the article actually made the guy sound like this totally innocent victim of police brutality, you know, just exercising his lifestyle choosing rights. But I think the letter-writer's point was, gay people aren't all about drugs and random hookups, why are you contributing to the stereotype?

Sort of interesting, right? I don't think stereotypes are something that are inherently wrong, I think they are built on our experiences, are useful, and that they happen no matter what. They are helpful in lots of cases. In medicine, we use assumptions to diagnose problems, for example, if someone has a temperature, they probably have an infection. That's what our experience has been. It's usually a physiologic response to bacteria or viruses. There are lots of other possible explanations, though (they just drank hot chocolate, they've been under all the covers, they think you're cute.) In the same way, if I'm in a parking lot at 2 am and I see a homeless-looking guy leering at me, I'm out of there. I'm not going to stick around and see if he's actually a cool guy who just needs to take a shower. I've never been attacked by a homeless person, but I've also had very few positive experiences with them. And more bad things happen at night.

So actually now I'm being inconsistent, because I started out by saying I didn't like the way Wedding Crashers trafficked in stereotypes. And now I'm saying that they can't be avoided and that I'm glad they protect me from drunken homeless dudes. Maybe I can separate it out, and say that I just don't like stereotypes in movies. But that's not true either, because I loved My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Well, whatever. Maybe I was just having a liberal moment. I'm hungry now. So like I said, Wedding Crashers isn't that good. Go get Harry Potter instead, but don't spoil it for me. I'm waiting till after finals and the halfway mark in Brothers K.

P.S. Here's a picture from a much better moment in Owen Wilson's career, when he did Zoolander.

A good night and a scary story

Well, I'm sitting around at clinicals waiting for my shift to be over. You know what comes on TBS in the middle of the night? Lots of Pauly Shore. And something called Mama's Family, which is not even entertaining. Sometimes I actually switch from Mama's Family to ESPN, that's how bad it is.
I'm not actually in a bad mood. I had 2 awesome births tonight. 2! 2 in one shift!!!! One of them was to a very heavy woman. Her baby came out with its eyes open and staring and it was a little scary looking, even though nothing was wrong. Suturing her was a real nightmare, I couldn't do it. It was like the needle wasn't long enough or something, it kept getting lost in all the tissue. And we were just using local anesthesia, since she had gone unmedicated, so there wasn't a lot of room to be messing around.
My next girl was skinny and popped out a 9 pound baby. Even the placenta was heavy. We got the residents to repair her, because she had a 3rd degree. Most midwives only repair 1st and 2nds. When you tear into the rectal capsule, a doctor has to fix it.

Hey! I haven't posted in awhile! Well, 2 nights ago the scariest thing ever happened, a cord prolapse. This woman's baby was really high and occiput posterior, and we couldn't figure out why he wasn't coming down. It wasn't a huge baby and her pelvis was normal-sized, it could've fit. Anyways, she had been laboring for a long time, like 2 days, and the head still wouldn't come down. We had just talked the husband into grabbing himself some food, and it was just me and and the other midwife in there. All of the sudden her water broke, and it was crazy, like a huge gush that kept coming. The patient started panicking, and she only spoke Arabic, and her husband was still gone. The midwife checked her and felt a hand and a cord in front of the head. I was struggling to find the heartbeat with the doppler all over her belly, but I couldn't so the midwife put a scalp electrode in. I pushed the help button and the room filled with people, which sucked because she was Muslim and didn't want guys in there. I doubt she noticed though. She was freaking out, pushing the nurses away as they tried to shave her belly and put the catheter in to get ready for the section. I was holding her hand and sitting on the edge of the bed, trying not to sit in all the amniotic fluid, and she was like grabbing up my arm and pulling my shoulder down and climb up me or something. I was talking to her and stroking her head and trying to get her to be calm, and then she said very clearly in English, "where is my husband?" and someone went and got him.
The other midwife rode the gurney into the OR because she had to keep the baby's head from putting pressure on the cord, and I got the husband in a mask and gown and explained to him what had happened while we ran down the hall after them.
They had to put her under general anesthesia because there was no time for an epidural. She went to sleep terrified, even when her husband was there talking to her. She had an artificial airway and her eyelids taped shut.
The only good thing was, we had talked to this family about the risk of cord prolapse a lot because the baby was so high. The husband had asked tons of questions, and I tried to answer them, and he translated for her. So they both understood why she was getting an emergency c-section.
Anyways, everything was fine, baby looked great. It was just really scary. I felt kind of paralyzed when it started happening, still looking for lots of direction from the midwife, like "uhh, should I get some towels?" as the fluid gushes out. I did start looking for the heartbeat on my own, but the midwife had to remind me to call for help. It made me nervous...I need to be able to handle emergencies on my own. After it was over I just thought, I change my mind, I am never doing homebirths! She had no risk factors or anything.
Okay I gotta go for now. Saved by the Bell is coming on.

Longer letter later. (when I have better stories)

Today's picture is of my ex-roommate Lydia, who will be getting married next month, to Eric here. She's my favorite person in midwifery class. Some things I like about Eric are: 1. He's helped me move twice
2. He's not awkward in a group of strangers
3. He introduced me to Qdoba's queso dip
4. He gets Lydia creative presents

This is an interesting interview with an African economist, who thinks aid organizations like the UN World Food Program should pull out of Africa. He says they do more harm than good, because they are undercutting the economy there, (i.e. local growers lose business when we send free food) and because corrupt politicians grab all the resources as soon as they're sent over. I wish I had taken one of those community development-style economics classes we had at Covenant.

I saw a doctor Tuesday, the guy who writes my prescription every month. He likes to actually see me in person every year. Here's what he asked me:
Any health issues? Nope.
Do you exercise? Yes. (this was a lie, which I justified by saying to myself, "I walk around a lot when I'm at the hospital" and "he didn't ask, do you get aerobic exercise?")
Are you up to date on all your Paps and STD screening? Technically, no. But thanks for asking.

Then he listened to my heart, took my pulse, blood pressure and weight. It was kind of fun but it made me nervous, like I was being tested, and I just wanted to pass and tell him what he wanted to hear. It gave me a new respect for the women I had in prenatal care last semester, who'd tell me they smoked 11 cigarettes a day, and I'd give them the speech, and then the next month they'd ashamedly tell me they still smoked 11 cigarettes a day.

Yesterday I got really far into the Brothers K. The first, oh, one hundred pages were not that interesting, but it's getting much better now. I need to make a significant dent in it before Harry Potter comes out.
I gotta go study for a newborn test. It's not that fun...don't be jealous. I'm working 5 shifts in a row starting tomorrow...the first 2 are days and the last 3 are nights. Eek.

math genius!

Your IQ Is 110

Your Logical Intelligence is Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Rocks and birthdays

Finally done with the paper!!! I am very relieved. If anyone needs me, I'll be in Starbucks with the Brothers K, celebrating.

Today I was in a gross mechanic's waiting room, trying to write the paper, and this really old man came in and tried to make conversation. I was nice but didn't offer any openers, because I was cranking the paper out. Then another really old man came in, and they talked about biscuits and gravy and blackberry pie until they realized that they used to play baseball together as kids. When old man number 2 left, the first guy leaned over and said, "I didn't want to say it in front of him, but they beat us almost every time we played, so we'd rock them pretty bad afterward!"
This didn't actually make any sense, so I asked him what he meant. He said, "throw rocks at em! Sure!! Well-I mean, they'd always throw them back at us too!" There's really nothing you can say to that, so I laughed inappropriately and then went to the bathroom.

In other news, our favorite Jackie's 24th birthday is today! So give her a call if you are her friend, it'll be a nice vacation from thinking about boxes and moving trucks. Also, if you forgot Tami, she might still forgive you if you can find her. Her birthday was Saturday. That's her up there in today's picture, with me eating my hair.

Last night i watched this great documentary on Russian brides--not mail order brides, but close. Apparently Russian men are scarce and lots have big struggles with infidelity and laziness and alcoholism, and so when 23 year old divorced-with-kids Ina met 55 year old John-from-LA who is geeky but kind and rich, everyone's happy. The documentary was kind of portraying it like, "oh, look at these sad beautiful Russian women, they are so desperate to get out that they'll marry these losers" but it didn't seem that sad to me. They were showing the women in these big fancy houses, painting pictures because they don't have to work, and going to sunny parks with the kids, the chubby new husband, and the au pair. I mean sheesh. It's probably just as much of a compromise for the guy, who has to wonder if she's only using him.

Of Course

So okay I feel better today, even though church was a bit strange. Lots of men crying, felt like I had missed something. The pastor said a lot of stuff about being late to church in the sermon, but that doesn't seem like something everyone would cry about.

Yesterday's clinical was really fun, I had my first unmedicated birth. When the pt. first called, the nurse said, "yeah, she says she's in labor, but she sounds too chipper. She's gonna get here and be like 2 cm." So never do that, sound chipper on the phone when you're in labor, or people won't take you seriously, and it'll be their problem. When the patient got there we checked her and she was 7. Ha! It was cool. She went fast, and had lots of family supporting her. More than I'd want, actually. Like 10 people. One of her relatives used to be a lay midwife, and she kept telling me to put olive oil on her perineum so she wouldn't tear when the baby crowned. That was fine but the smell was kind of unusual. The mixing of birth smell with olive oil smell, I mean. It's gonna be awhile before I cook with olive oil again. :)

Then after work I had lots of energy and I went to the park to see if anyone was dancing to the live swing music, and they were, which was medium fun. I learned a jump move. I was glad I had changed out of my scrubs, because the girls there mostly wear dresses and skirts. Jeans are better than scrubs at least. I attached myself to the same group of Vandy students that I saw at the other swing things, but they seemed less friendly than before. By that I mean that all the guys and girls I talked to, I approached first. But I don't know--making friends after college is just weird, maybe that's how it always is. I know I'm still technically in college, but it's not the same as living in a dorm and eating all your meals together and school events like in undergrad.

Still working on that hideous paper. Oh and I forgot! The best part of yesterday was when the midwife I was working with said, "great hand skills during that birth! You were like, a natural." So I'll be carrying that one around with me for awhile. :)

The funeral

Well, so, my Grandma died on Sunday night. I did get to see her and say goodbye a few days before, except I didn't actually say "goodbye" but instead "I'll see you in the morning," which turned out to be inaccurate, because I left the next morning. She was sort of okay then.

I just got back from the funeral yesterday in NC. My Grandma was in a silver pitcher on a table, beside it was a picture of her with her dalmations and a votive. There was a bishop with a staff and a pointy hat on, and the family had to process in, like a wedding. The end was kind of like a wedding too, because the family all walked out together and cried and hugged, and then the guests came out and we made a receiving line. Before the funeral started the bishop gave the family a little speech about grief being like cooked spaghetti noodles that you have to wander around in. I don't think any of us really got it, but it was sort of funny.

It was hard to see my Grandaddy cry. I saw an obituary that said she loved animals, nature, and travel. My Uncle John said once she found a dead bat and put it in the freezer to show Isabella, one of my little cousins, who later asked "is Grandma a witch?" Everyone laughed.
The good part was that I got to see my whole family except for Christie, and we all spent the night in the cabin together enjoying each other's company. I showed Linda my birth log, who got grossed out by the phrase "rupture of membranes." She showed me her pictures from her missions trip to Guatemala.

Now I'm trying to catch up on a RIDICULOUS paper I should have finished by now, and go to clinicals in the meantime. When I go to clinicals I never think about my Grandma, even if it's boring. As of this week, we are halfway done with clinicals. I've got 6 babies. We're supposed to try for at least ten this semester. I hope my next ones are unmedicated, so far I've only had epidural moms and I feel like I've had it too easy. I do very little labor support because they just get the epidural and go to sleep until we start coming in the room a lot to ask them if they're having rectal pressure yet, which is apparently what it feels like when you're totally numb and the baby's head has descended far enough in your pelvis to begin pushing.

I felt sad today, and I didn't want to get out of bed and write a stupid paper on the nursing shortage and clean my room. But I did anyway. I also watched this terrible news special about that Shasta girl, did you hear about that? So horrible. The story would have been less sad if she had died too I think. It is okay with me to be sad some days, I just have to keep telling myself that a.) I won't feel like this forever and b.) God is taking care of me and I can trust him.

The picture today is totally unrelated to this post, so I want to explain it. I'm proud of it because it's an art project that I actually finished, a coffee table with ballroom dancing illustrations all over it. It was really fun to make last Summer.

Back on days

Dude. So I'm up to 5 babies now, and I did another repair today that went much better! It helps if you change your delivery gloves after the placenta and before the suturing, so you don't have stickyness all over you when you start. Ohhh. Right.
Anyways, I didn't cry at the two births I had today. I guess I was just concentrating really hard. (I didn't let the arms fly out on either this time, but on one of them, she blasted the head out way fast, and I should have told her to slow it down.) I hope I'm not getting over it or something. I mean, it was still really great, but I can't cry every day I suppose.

So tomorrow I switched shifts with another tall skinny girl and I'm going to drive to NC to see my Grandma in the hospital, just in case anyone wanted to come rob my nice dark room while I'm gone. Actually we have this really fancy alarm system that will even go off if my fake window gets cracked, so don't even think about it, pal. My dirty clothes are SAFE.
Mom said Grandma has a lot of cancer now, and the docs are starting to talk about hospice, so that's why I'm going.

Tonight when I got home I talked with my roommate for a long time about why she quit being a social worker. She always says she started really young, and she got burned out. Makes me nervous. I kept trying to get her to nail it down, what she meant by burnout, even though I think I know. It's when you give a job your best shot and it ends up disappointing you over and over, right? And the rewards are not satisfying enough to make your investment worth it? I don't know. Do any of my fabulous commenters have a different definition?

Another interesting thing today. I read this article about making movies a part of medical students' education. It was in some hokey journal, and the author was saying that making future docs watch movies like the Fisher King, Wit, and The Philadelphia Story will make them more compassionate when they actually take care of homeless people, end-stage cancer patients, and AIDS patients, rather than annoyed or depressed. The theory was something like, these movies jazz up your idealism, and those good feelings make you more empathic with your patients. But the reverse wasn't true, like if you watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest all day you won't be motivated to be a jerk to your patients. If you read the article, tell me what you think of the conclusion; it seemed to say if you think of your life as noble and important then it'll probably be that way in the end. They called it the Don Quixote effect.

So, don't anybody tell Glenn Stegall about this, because I want to tell him and see what complicated film theory it reminds him of. That way I'll have something to think about in the car on the way to work.

Spiders

I think there are spiders in my lovely dark basement room. Well actually I've killed two tonight, I know there are spiders. Those were the only two though. There are some things that I am okay with lying to myself about. I have shallow taste in movies, but don't think I'm shallow at all. I shower once a day at the most, but generally consider myself cleaner than other people in the elevator. I never eat vegetables or do aerobic exercise and I think I'm very healthy. But it's ok.

And without a graceful transition I'll go right into saying that I found out yesterday that my Grandma is sick once again. Her ovarian cancer has returned and she had a round of chemotherapy last week. Mom says she stopped eating a few days later and Grandaddy took her to the hospital, where she was admitted. I'm thinking about the nurses who are taking care of her. I've imagined a nurse getting report about the patient just admitted in room 16, Mary (because they probably don't know to call her Betty, and I bet she wouldn't correct them) starting her IV, asking her to pee in a cup, finding out what medications are ordered. Before they actually start doing all that I bet they go through a long history like we do in labor and delivery, that includes asking people if they have electricity in their homes and if they have any spiritual needs. I'm not sure what "stopping eating" means is happening. I guess the goal of the hospitalization is just to get her eating again and restore her energy. Pray for her. I hope she's okay, Mom's driving up to see her today after she takes Christie to the airport.

Welp now it's 6:30 and I'm going to bed for the day. Today's picture is of an office prank. I think I read about it on Yahoo Odd News, which is usually great. Reminds me of a movie my Mom used to like, Real Genius, where they fill the house with popcorn. :)

Nights & Who's Line

So life is good, night shift is fine, and I've caught 2 more babies and done my first laceration repair. The repair was SO hard. I could hardly see what I was doing because of all the blood, and the suture kept sticking to my gloves (which I sure as heck was keeping on!), and I forgot to wear shoe covers and dropped a big clot on my shoes, and it took like half an hour. But the midwife helping me said it was a complicated repair anyways and said I did okay. I got to use a subcuticular stitch (sewing immediately under the surface of the skin) so it looked really pretty in the end, no visible stitches or knots. Well, relatively pretty.

This was all last night, it was a crazy night, we had 4 patients in labor at the same time. I only cried once, when I was wheeling a woman out for a section and I looked back at the Dad, who was shaking with sobs in the now empty, flourescent-lit labor room. Luckily everything turned out fine for them. She had been in a minor car accident and hit her belly, and we did a lab test that showed that she had fetal blood in her circulation, which means the placenta was starting to detach. But like I said, baby and Mom were totally healthy in the end. No one can tell you're crying if you're wearing a surgical mask anyway, as long as you don't let your eyes run over.

I really needed to debrief afterwards so I called Lydia, who was trying to sleep in preparation for her night shift tonight, and told her all about it. I felt a lot better afterwards. I'm so glad she's here and working at the same place as me.

So tonight I'm off, woohoo! I'm planning on watching my new favorite show, "Who's Line is it Anyway?" but only if the black guy Wayne is on it. I actually laugh out loud when I watch it. He's like a genius, especially when he has to make up songs. (Christie likes Colin best, the Canadian guy.) And I am comfortable with being totally sexist about it, because the women just aren't as funny. It's like when we used to have to do skits in college, guys are just better at it.
Yep.

Swing report

Swing dancing was medium fun. I ran into Jina and Laura there, two girls I sorta knew from Covenant who graduated from Vandy, and they introduced me to some people they were with. Then Jina and Laura left, and I went to ice cream and then a bar with their friends. The bar was one of those things where you can sit outside on the patio to hear the band play, not a gross smoky inside deal. They played U2 and Coldplay and I talked to (yelled at) a Chinese medical student who reminded me of Ken. He said his favorite book was The Brothers Karamazov, which I have never been able to slog through.
Okay now I gotta go get ready for night shift. Thanks for all the comments lately guys!

Addendum: when I was at the swing thing, this guy introduced himself to me by saying "I'm Joel. I'm a terrible dancer. Do you want to dance?" And I said "well uh, do you know how to swing?" and he said yes and then changed his mind when he saw me starting to walk out towards the floor. It was really annoying. Then he said he wanted to learn, but he didn't actually. Then he asked me some polite questions until I trailed off with my face and introduced him to Laura, and myself to the cute Chinese guy.

Alarm clock

Well, I bought an alarm clock. The alarm on my cell phone is woefully inconsistent all of the sudden; resulting in late wake-ups all 3 mornings I had to be at clinical this week. Luckily by the 3rd morning my ex-roommate Lydia was calling me to get me up. She's been on night shift all week.

I'm going to nights tomorrow, and I'm a little nervous about it. I'm sure I'll have trouble staying awake- one thing that probably wasn't communicated by my last post is that it's been REALLY BORING at clinicals other than that birth and an interesting preeclamptic yesterday. Lots of sitting around, hoping for a midwife patient to show up.

My fabulous sister Christie is leaving soon for her trip to Greece, Italy, and France, so I've been giving her my winning travel advice on the phone, like "don't take pictures of fields and buildings" and "throw your purse in the bottom of your sleeping bag at night."
Tonight there's a big band thing at the park, so I'm gonna go see if there's any swing dancing going on. I went to some swing thing last month that was so fun, I've been looking to duplicate the experience ever since. That's a pretty geeky way of saying it but I forgive myself because it is definitely what I mean. I wish I could have the same exact thing happen again.

Oh yeah, one other thing. My favorite Californian, Em Monty, has recommended the numbers game Sudoku. I downloaded it the other night, played it once, and got nervous about getting addicted--it's fun. I'm going to try to add it to my links list.

Christie