November, 2006 Archive

the urge to read facial expressions was unstoppable, so that’s what we’ve been doing these past days. we are not professionals, we didn’t train anywhere, but these facts didn’t stop us from going full force on what we thought was expected of us.

our house has been on the market for a month now. slow as the market may be, people have been coming to see the house. although i think it is because they are itching to have a closer look at the gigantic reflection of the real estate agent’s photo that is in the “for sale” sign, i still give them the credit for being polite by actually going through the process of looking inside, despite their obviously uninterested facial reactions.

the ones who went back and forth to the backyard and the bedrooms, we thought were totally obsessed with the stairs. the ones who took exactly 45 seconds to walk through a 5 bedroom house with 3 baths, were politicians in disguise. they were in a hurry to go back to the senate or wherever it is they spend their time at, that they just went through the whole house with their eyes closed and their minds in some place more grand and exciting.

the ones who came twice was a bit tricky, but we soon figured out they wanted to have a date, and thought touring our house seemed like a good way to do it. the expressionless man who was aimlessly dragging his ass from room to room was probably forced by his wife to look for a house or else. his son, who was not really ready for his role, had this “let’s get out of here. now” look on his face that almost made me laugh out loud.

it was a lot of work. i mean, we didn’t realize people these days are more like actors and actresses. they could say they absolutely LOVE the house, but that does not mean they want to buy it. they could look so freakingly bored and apathetic and say nothing, and clearly mean they do not want to buy the house. bottom line is, their faces do not really mean anything. what it boils down to at the end of the day, is that nobody has made an offer, meaning, nobody wants to buy the house.

for those of you who are planning to sell your house, i do not recommend reading facial expression of prospective buyers. it is pointless, useless, and a total waste of time.

but hey, if you are boring, just like my husband and i, go ahead and peek when people have gone out of your house. secretly watch them from your window with your blinds almost completely closed, and start the discussion going. analyze every movement they make, especially if they turn their necks to face the direction of your house. get into every possible explanation why they are pointing to your garage or windows. reserve the discussion about why one actually came out of the car and looked at the front lawn again for 2 seconds, when you are having dinner. if you have time, learn lip reading, and be on top of every conversation they have, just before they back out of your driveway. it maybe a waste of time, but it sure is fun while it lasts.

my previous post was gloomy.

you, nice people out there, have no idea what it means to me that people i do not really know personally would actually take time to cheer me up or make me feel better. my thanks to all your words of kindness. it dawned on me that although it sucks to beat oneself up for stupid mistakes, it is equally disturbing to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. you know, when you make a mistake and don’t care one iota about your mistakes’ consequences. i suppose balance is the answer. staying in the middle is the solution. slowly, i will master that craft.

on a totally different matter, but a comment on that same previous post though, lori wanted to know how i got through it (meaning nursing school).

well, this is an interesting question to me. i know those of you who went through something as grueling, not necessarily nursing school, have your own unique story. after i share mine, i’d like to hear your versions.

let me start with a little background. i started taking a premed course initially, because my dad said “it would be good to have a doctor in the family…” he was working here in the US then as an LVN, and thought he had what it financially took to send one child to medical school. after two years, it was revealed to him in a form of a dream that he can’t afford the whole medical school thing.

i quit premed and concentrated on selling charcoal, hoping that business could save me form eternal poverty and starvation. it didn’t really matter that my face was unrecognizable at daytime, and scary at nightime, because of the black make up the charcoal left on my face, i was just glad i had something to do. i remembered i wanted to be a nurse since i was a little girl, but there is no way i can go to nursing school with my charcoal business income.

to make the short story long, an aunt who was working as a nurse here offered to send me to college, on two nonnegotiable  condition: that i took up nursing, and that i go to a christian boarding school of her choice.

i don’t know with you, but there is something very intimidating about being sent by somebody else (other than your own parents) to school. i lived in fear. fear that if i mess up my grades, she will just stop paying for my tuition, and then, what will happen to me? selling charcoal was a decent job, but it was not really what i wanted to do for the rest of my life. to me, having this fear constantly nagging in my chest meant that i was not entitled to fail, and i had to do everything within my power to finish nursing school with flying colors.

i had to study, study, study! and that is what you need to do too.

first, know what works for you. do you absorb more inofrmation if you are alone, or when you study with a group? do you learn more if you are listening to soft music, or when it is dark and quiet? do  you understand the lectures more if you take notes and study them on your own later? does having an inspiration, real or imagined, motivate you to study more?

although i love reading, nursing textbooks didn’t really excite me. they are thick, heavy, and impersonal. but guess what, i had to read them! i am not an introvert, but i am more productive if i study alone, surrounded by the beauty of nature, and silence. just before dinner, i would go to this secluded place, sit under a tree, and read, read, read. if i had big exams, i would read morning and afternoon one day of the weekend.

there is no way you will not get overwhelmed. the human body is one of the most amazing yet complex things to study. take each day at a time and focus on what you are discussing in your class that day. do not make it your goal to be an expert in anatomy and physiology just because you are tyring to learn about it. the more you study about a certain body mechanism, the more you realize how much more there is to learn.

i must admit i knew more theory when i was a student than now that i have been working for a few years. if you asked me back then why a patient with liver cirrhosis have jaundice and have ascites, i can tell you without flinching, the accurate scientific explanation with confidence that i know exactly what i am talking about. ask me now and i might end up mumbling some crazy sounding words, because really, it is not everyday that i need to explain things in a scientific way. on the other hand, ask me to insert a foley catheter to a 500 pound woman back then, and i might  have ended up crying in frustration because there was no way i would be able to pull that off then. now, it would be something i am able to do without much anxiety.

if you are committed to finish something, for whatever motivation or reason, you will. when you finally graduate, you are going to look back and say “i can’t believe it’s over!”

when you start taking care of patients with symptoms you’ve only seen and learned in class before, the nights of reading those boring medical-surgical textbooks, will eventually pay off. then yeah, slowly, it will sink in.

i do not know how this post started with some note of thanks, to a revelation that i was a charcoal dealer about 20 years ago, to how fear have motivated me to study religiously, to giving away some advice like i really have the authority, but that’s how it went.

if you got dizzy trying to make sense of whatever i said, go grab an ice cold diet pepsi, run the can through your forehead, till you feel relieved. when you finally get the chance to drink it, close your eyes and imagine you are in the bahamas, lying in the sand, just watching the water, with brad pitt (or angelina jolie) next to you, depending on who makes your heart beat faster. 

when you come back from dreamland, and realize that brad or angelina are nowhere, finish up your diet pepsi, and let’s hear your own stories of how you got through something difficult.

there must be a reason why i beat myself up this much when i make stupid mistakes.

i won’t elaborate on the error, but i will say i am the only one who considers it a big deal. i called the doctor, who did not even want to do anything but observe the patient. i told the charge nurse that i will write the incident report before i clock out, but she shrugged the idea by saying it was not necessary, especially because the doctor didn’t want to do anything anyway, and clearly, the patient is fine.

i just called the unit to check on the patient, and the day RN nonchalantly informed me that everything is okay and the patient is doing great.

at the back of my mind i know this is true, i did not do something terrible that could possibly kill the patient. but i can’t get it off my mind and i am beginning to hate the idea that i sadistically punish myself by magnifying minute, unimportant things just to activate my guilt center.

it’s not as if i have this overwhelming desire to be perfect and be given the plaque that says i am being recognized as the superwoman who never makes mistakes, because believe me, i know the truth, and being perfect is not how i want to be remembered.

i want to stop beating myself up for stupid, little mistakes. i want to be nicer to myself, but it seems that as i get older, it is getting harder. is this a normal phase in a woman’s road to growing older, or should i consider professional help?

i just bought horse shampoo. there’s probably nothing very unusual about that. except for the fact that i do not own a horse. not even a picture of it.

four nurses at work swear by it, and believe it or not, their thick, shiny hair made me really green with envy. for weeks now i have been bugging them to tell me they were kidding, but they won’t budge.

i circled the shampoo aisle three times.  i picked and returned the bottles a few times, that people buying people shampoo were probably thinking there was something wrong with me. i must admit that’s what i think about the whole thing, but the desire for beauty knows no reason, and an envious spirit defies logic.

so, yeah, there is horse shampoo in our bathroom.

and oh, just so you know, to double my chances of having thicker, shinier hair, i got the conditioner too. wish me luck, and cross your fingers that using a horse’s shampoo will make me run faster, and sexier too. the foamy, copious drool on the horse’s mouth, that’s another story.

check on me in a couple of weeks, i might need your recommendations on where to get those really fancy horseshoes.