Back to school!

This weekend I was wishing for another month to play, and honestly not looking forward to going back to school. BUT! Now that I've had one class and my clinical orientation, I'm feeling really good about what this semester has in store for me. I've been assigned to the Trauma and Emergency General Surgery unit - which is where patients go after they clear the ICU following their surgeries. It's far off my mamas-and-babies track, but I knew when I started that I'd be taking a longer road. I'm excited about my assignment. And truthfully, I'm relieved that I wasn't assigned to an elder care facility. I hear they are the hardest to cope with as a brand new student. I don't really need anything extra on my plate right now, you know.

Crater Lake

I climbed down a bit off the path to this nice little perch. Check out the forest fire past Mt. Scott in the distance.

take it easy

School starts back up again on Monday, so The Beau and I escaped to the woods of Crater Lake for a bit before things get hectic again. It was Wonderful! Beautiful, peaceful, quiet, sunny, woodsy loveliness. The Beau doesn't have much camping history, so I had fun introducing him to things like pizza mountain pies. MMmmm mountain pies.

We stayed at the Natural Bridge campground, which was right ON the Rogue River just upstream of the 200 feet section of the river that is diverted underground! into a lava tube. It was a small "primitive" campground that we LOVED.

Before we even arrived in Rogue River National Forest, we spent a few hours on I-5. I discovered an interesting change in myself. When I lived back east, my average highway speed was 80 mph. I zipped from here to there, racing the clock. On this trip I was content to drive 65. Back east, someone going 65 would have to stay in the right lane because everyone else would be flying past. But I found myself passing on the left going 65.

It's something about the laid back nature of the West.

It has rubbed off on me.

magical migraine cure?

I've been at the mercy of Headaches of Doom for over a year now. Two months ago La Doctora started me on meds for migraine prophylaxis. Though they come less frequently now, they're not gone. So I begged La Doctora for something to deal with the headaches that aren't prevented. She prescribed sumatriptan. I've taken it three times now, including once today.

It takes nearly an hour, and being incredibly uncomfortable by the time I swallow the little white triangle, I usually try to nap until the pain subsides. Each time I sleep some, then wake up after an hour feeling, well, strange.

My head feels great. But my stomach, oy! The nausea passes after 30min or so, but for the rest of the day I have acidy indigestion and burping. But that's not the strange feeling.

I actually feel strrrrraaaaaannnnge. Floaty, spacey, giddy.... out of my element. My landlord came over to let me know new neighbors are moving in next week and I was embarrassed to be so loopy. I was afraid he would think I had been taking drugs. Well, I guess I had been. I'm afraid for the day I have a migraine when I have clinicals. I'll have to work extra hard to focus and not appear stoned, as well as hiding my horrible acidic burps. Yuck! Better than my puffy, leaky-eyed, agonizing headaches, I suppose.

makeover!

bangs, skinny jeans, boots... what is Portland doing to me!?

I don't know, but I like it.

Student Nurse: End of First Term

Whew! Sorry I dropped the ball on all human contact for the last month plus. After midterm exams, the heat really turned up and I am NOT talking about the weather. It suddenly became much more time and energy-consuming to keep up with my studies. When I wasn't in class or studying, I was sleeping, eating, or guiltily watching tv episodes late at night on hulu.com. I'm glad the Best Gal Pal is out of town because she would have felt quite neglected by me.

I LOVE school. I have never felt this way about school before. I've heard that adults that go "back to school" are much more motivated and better students in general. There's really something to it. I feel driven. Laugh if you must. But I only missed one -ONE!- question on my pharm final. That's right, folks. This baby-catcher-to-be got STRAIGHT A's in her first term of nursing school! Booyah!

how to get out of signing a petition

The Beau and I tabled for PP at the State Fair last week. Our main goal was to get signatures for a petition for the Heathcare for Every Community campaign - to remind congress that reproductive health care (from mammograms to birth control and more) must be included in the new health care reform bill. We had to ignore all the timid feelings and really get in peoples faces, since as soon as they spotted our clipboards, fair-attendees averted their eyes and scurried past. I practiced my best public health confidence and got three pages of signatures! This experience showed me how truly red my state would be without my city, though. The State Fair was in the capital and people came from all over. Many of them were very upset that PP was there because apparently their goal is to kill babies. Most of the people that didn't want to sign ignored us or told us they didn't support abortion. But we did get some creative excuses as well.

My favorite: I asked a man if he was registered to vote (only registered voters count on the petition) and he replied, "sorry, I'm a convicted felon." We volunteers debated whether it was true or his excuse to get away from us.