Nursing (not the kind with a baby)

Well folks I did it. I got into the nursing program and am in my second semester which is focused on Gerontology (the older population). I have learned mounds of information about the human body and continue to compile an inhumane amount in my brain. A few experiences that I have had:

Being the "dummy" for one of my labs and having my nursing instructor percuss (tap) over my abdomen to find that I was full of gas. Big shocker there.

Buying my scrubs and sewing my patch on myself to save about $3. Of course one sleeve is now shorter than the other but who ever said adding a personal touch was bad.

Taking blood pressures and heart rates of boys and feeling their pulse quicken once I touched them, making them all pre-hypertensive and tachycardic.

Listening for, no joke, five minutes straight to my partners heart and blood pressure trying to figure out why I couldn't hear a darn thing and then realizing the end of my stethoscope was in the "no sound" position.

On a more serious note: Wiping away the thick, discolored mucus from my patients mouth while stifling the urge to vomit, telling myself to remember that this woman had been a teacher for 30 years and loves her sister as much as I love mine. Trying desperately to remember that just because her Alzheimer's causes her to not remember me in 5 minutes doesn't mean I should treat her like she doesn't matter. Each time I visit her I am reminded of how quick and emotionally draining it is to watch, and I'm sure experience, human deterioration when the end of a long life approaches.

Sometimes I wonder if in 50 or 60 years I won't remember who my children are and there will be some student nurse wiping my face, dressing me and telling herself over and over again that this woman was once a nurse herself.