Surgery Wrap-Up Part I

Remember this tear-jerking part from the movie, Marley and Me? It perfectly captures how all of our trivial ordinary daily moments quickly add up to our whole lives, don't you think? Did this, did that, went there, saw them, ate this, laughed about that...

It's like you're going about your little life and making plans for the future and desperately wanting the future to get here and all of a sudden-- you're living in West Palm studying for the MCAT, wondering where the heck the time went and why you didn't enjoy the moment more.

Anyway, that's how this blog post is gonna go. Just some snapshots of the last six months of my surgical debut taken from all of the blog posts I started and never finished. (Bad.)

IT JUST WENT SO FAST  but was such an incredible experience and changed my entire life that I have to memorialize it on my little blog. My passion for medicine has been forever stoked...

Watching people's bodies being sliced and pried open became routine. Witnessing disease and sensing impending death and watching smoke billow from cauterized human flesh became just another day in the OR.

Putting still-warm cancerous tissue that would have meant certain demise for a patient into a path cup and sending it away, watching Death fade into the shadows and a happy ending emerge-- a daily reality.

An organ in my hand, warm blood on my shoes, racing heart, shaking hands, the smell of hope and disinfectant in my nose--this was my life on the Surgical Services Unit. And I loved every second of it.

.................................

Wake up to my phone alarm-- screaming for me to get up. It's dark outside and my feet ache and my back groans. Pull on my v-neck, faded blue OR scrubs from the hospital. The fabric is three fibers thick and perpetually cold as metal. Know this is as warm as I'm going to be today. Scrubs are wrinkled to hell and my shoes have blood red and Iodine yellow stains on them. Knuckles are cracked from scrubbing with harsh antiseptics all week.

Disheveled and grumpy, yet excited and nervous. Repeat every morning for six more months. Indoctrination into the OR world: complete.

Get pumped for the day listening to this song on repeat, speeding along the dark, cold highway in my white coat.

Dancing happens during this time. Catch other people on the highway dancing in their cars. Feel like starting an Ungodly-Early Morning Commute Club.

Skip eating breakfast. Regret mid-thoracotomy, mid- mastectomy, mid-knee replacement...wonder what kind of person can be hungry amid cutting and cauterizing. Worry.

Send Kevin a quick text picture of my locker or the sunrise or my lunch because I miss him.

Have my hand jammed in a very-ill, lung cancer patient's fifth intercostal space by surgeon I'm assisting.

He asks me what I feel. Time slows as my fingertips rest on something beating. It's his heart. I'm touching his heart. I watch the patient's blood dry on my glove for the rest of the surgery. Contemplate life.

Asked during surgery if I want to feel an elderly patient's cystocele before it's repaired.

Outside Self: Well, yes, of course! Thank you so much Dr. B!
Inside Self: (Arghhh I put my finger where?!)
Hesitantly and awkwardly put my finger into a vagina and try to feel this woman's bladder. Told that I'm like all the med students- BAD, not confident. Made to do it again, find the bladder, actually pretty cool. Still scarred.

Handed a scalpel over a sleeping woman awaiting her abdominoplasty (tummy tuck). Told to make the incision...

Hold scalpel wrong. *Palm to forehead* Taught how to hold it, then taught how to breathe. Take deep breath and put knife to skin. Skin is tougher than I thought it would be. Power through like a Pro. Told I'm a natural. Don't want to give scalpel back.

Sit on a stool gazing into a remarkably 3-dimensional screen with my fingers through robotic hands. Clamp a woman's uterus 8 feet away. Decide surgery is the coolest thing ever.

Walk Tyson...

Exhaust Tyson...

Spend time on Labor and Delivery floor. Not very excited because I don't think I like babies or vaginas. Hold a woman's leg back as she squeezes a baby out while watching TV. Hold a woman's stomach muscles apart during my first c-section. Unfazed, I pass instruments to the surgeon.  Baby's head pops out. I cry. I bawl.

The Circle of Life song plays theatrically in my head-- I cry harder.

Continue passing instruments to surgeon. Can't see through tears and snot. Baby Daddy catches me on family video. Become a laughing stock around the OB floor. Record-setting number of c-sections while I'm there. Cry. every. time. -- yet also get offered a job :) Hold a newborn for the first time.

Get the whole baby thing.

See a just-delivered, 16-week-old stillborn in a bucket. Pro-choice beliefs waver slightly. It looks like a mini baby. Deliver "contents of conception" to pathology in a red bio-hazard bag. Contemplate how I define life.

See Dad cutting up watermelon. Make him put on surgical gown. Call him Dr. Watermelon.

Perform emergency brain surgery on Elmo. 

Tyson is relieved and thankful to have his best friend back. He promises to be more gentle. 

First solo surgery-- success! 

Fast-forward to today-- read chapter in organic chemistry for third time, curse my professor to hell, eat an avocado, sign up for $50/hr orgo tutoring with a guy named Armin, eat a bowl of cereal, write-up workout plan for me and Kevin, pat myself on the back and eat a gummy worm (seven) from my stash, call Dad, memorize sexual life cycle of mushrooms in the Phylum Basidiomycota for bio class.

Basically variations of eating, studying, driving to Boca and sleeping. Oh, and stressing. Oh, and missing the hospital life :)

Up next: Surgical Tech Wrap-Up Part II! Thanks for reading :)

My Dad is Awesome.

So, my dad and I have our moments. Moments that truly make me question the validity of my lineage and my capacity for love. But, today my father is my hero.

I was just driving home from the car place with my dad in tow after getting a new...umm...cable...wire...electricity thingy when I saw them.

Two of the most sad, scared, pathetic black orbs I've ever seen.  Cowering against a palm tree in the median of one of Ormond's main drags- Nova Road- was a newborn baby raccoon. It was a busy street tonight, with many people whizzing by on their way home, on their phones, tunnel vision--not paying attention.

But not me.

This tiny fur baby whimpered at me through my 45 MPH window and in that split second of eye-to-eye connection, my heart sank.

Oh, hell.

I swerved my car around a No U-Turn and circled back around like the crazy animal lady that I am. Putting my car in park next to the median, I flicked on my emergency lights and rolled down my window. The little raccoon reached out its freakily human-like hand as if it were a tiny passenger on a sinking ship. Someone blared their horn as they raced by and the fuzzy coon startled and clutched onto the palm tree.

Alone. Terrified.

So freaking furry I can barely stand it.

Like this but about half its size and 3x's fluffier

My heart absolutely broke. But what to do?

And then--my knight in shining Acura pulled up behind me, forcing many Ormondites to slam on their brakes and swerve around him.

My dad.

Thinking my car had broken down, he gets out and strides up to my car. People are really honking now due to the fact that my dad has not yet figured out how to turn on his emergency lights and is just parked in the middle of a major roadway.

I point out the ball of fur with scared, sad orbs and instead of my dad telling me that I'm being ridiculous, he devises a rescue plan.

(Cars still swerving. Cars jamming behind us. A honk now and then.)

During the planning phase, a small shady motel across the street has patrons out front playing a rousing game of shuffleboard.

Soon, a small crowd of white hairs are standing around the palm and baby raccoon in the middle of the road. A husky masculine woman warns us of the possibility of rabies. Her small, cloudy-eyed friend comes up really close to my car and conspiratorially says, "Ya know young lady, it could have rabies. And then you may get rabies. And then your kids will get rabies."

Uh huh. I think you may be talking about HIV...I slowly roll my window back up.

The white hairs return to their shuffleboard across the street, while watching us through cautious, sideways eyes.

My dad and I decide to move our cars to Buttleman's parking lot right off the street.

Safety, peace and serenity is restored to the small suburbanite Ormond Beach area.

The one thing about my dad that used to embarrass the heck out of me as a kid (and sometimes still does) is that he has no shame. The normal part of people's brains that say, "Dear God, that was really embarrassing/awkward" does not exist with my dad.

Which is why you could find him at 6:30 this evening standing on a median in the middle of a busy road trying to coax a baby raccoon into a cardboard box borrowed from a guy that works at Buttleman's.

I admit it, I was hiding from embarrassment in my car.

Kind of like I did my entire childhood...

Miraculously, my dad effortlessly lured the baby coon into the box and closed the lid. During all of this, another crazy animal lady in a Prius had been waiting with open arms to take the animal to safety.

Bye bye! Please stay far away from our trash cans!

So, it was an excellent day and I'm so thankful to have my amazing, raccoon-rescuing father.

There is truly no one else like you...

 And please, note the shuffleboard game in the background...it's never a dull day in beautiful Ormond Beach!

Send Help.

Do you ever get the feeling like you just swallowed a brick?

And it just keeps rolling around in your stomach and whenever you think of something else you have to do or someone else you have to call or anything else even remotely stressful, your stomach clenches around the brick and it makes your heart beat really fast and your throat close up?

No? Just me?

Oh, it's not a brick, I just have the beginnings of an ulcer? Or a fledgling panic attack?

Well today I totally played hooky from OR clinicals. I worked late last night at the hospital and when my alarm went off at 4:45 this morning I remember peeling my eyelids open and squinting at my blinking obnoxious phone. My finger hovered over the yellow "Zzz" button for about half a breath until its devilish side took over and quickly swiped the big red "X" button. A mental health day! my finger boldly declared. The decision was bad, but I eagerly went with it. I burrowed my head under my pile of pillows and pulled the covers up. 

Silence. 

Darkness.

Bliss. 

I woke back up around 7:30 and I have to tell you, there's something so beautiful and sacred about waking up on Wednesday when it's bright out and birds are chirping and I'm supposed to be somewhere else. 

However, it's extremely disconcerting and most of myself feels guilty and paranoid. (Oh God, who realized I wasn't at morning meeting? What if my teacher calls? What if I miss a really big case? What if I get kicked out of the program?!) 

But, it's weird because the other (mentally/physically exhausted) part of me feels like...well, it's kind of hard to articulate it, but it feels kind of like, 

"F**k it." 

So I anxiously lounged around in my scrubs for 2 hours this morning. I don't know how many other people can be anxious whilst lounging, but I was and I do it well.

Me at 7:45 am: wrinkly scrubs, playing FreeCell, eating grapes, furiously contemplating life and my next move. 

So, after furious contemplation/ a 5-game losing streak, I called Nova to try and register for my classes this Fall. 

Oh, I've decided to become a doctor. I'm extremely excited and nervous and happy. And stressed. And overwhelmed.

And I think Kevin would break up with me if I changed my career plans again, so this is it! Erin's journey to the O.R. just became much longer.

Send help.

Anyway, I have to take Organic Chem I and II and Physics II before I apply next year...

Bahahahah the thought of these classes makes me crack up. It's all just so ridiculous that I, Erin Barshay, plan on taking (and doing well in) these classes. 

Take THAT, Mr. Myers, my 8th grade algebra teacher who didn't think I could pass! I'll show you. Hmph.

Square root of -1 anyone? 

Anyway, my life is currently very convoluted and confusing. It's like all of the things I need to accomplish are puzzle pieces and I'm trying to fit them all together. While juggling 52 hours in clinicals or work at the hospital a week. And there's a 2-year-old that keeps grabbing the pieces off the table and stuffing them into his mouth so that I can't find/ recognize them anymore. 

Wahhhh

Ok, enough complaining! I love being busy! I love having a plan! I love being in the hospital! I love chem! (Err...maybe not love.)

But, ya, my plan is to move with Kevin to Stuart this August, take my last pre-reqs Fall/Spring in Fort Lauderdale and apply for med school June of next year. But, as usual, there are many hurdles to jump over and this video totally captures how I feel right now...

(I feel really bad for laughing...but it never gets old.)

So, my mental health day wasn't all that relaxing...actually I just laid on the couch in the fetal position with the phone up to my ear while I was on hold with Nova (crying) for most of it...and I didn't really accomplish anything...and I have to work tomorrow night and...um...hmm.

Well, it's Burrito Thursday at the hospital cafeteria tomorrow! There! That's something positive to end on.   Life is Good.

A New Job and a Pee Cup

I don't wanna grow up!

(Summoned from the depths of my childhood...)

Anyway, it's not exactly that I don't want to grow up--I do. I want my own house decorated how I like, with an actual garage to pull in my own car. I want a real bank account that has more than $47 in it at a time. I want a refrigerator filled with food that I picked out and a kitchen that I can call my own. I don't want to report to anyone or be asked inane, parental questions every time I walk in the door. (I.e. Are you going to walk the dog? Where'd the cash go from the kitchen table? Have you eaten already? What are you doing tonight? Are you going to feed the dog? Argh!)

Dog.

However, I'm not so sure that I want to actually be an adult. I've just recently had my first foray into "Real Job" territory and I am not pleased.

A large hospital in my area was in dire need of OR staff after recently "cleaning house." They contacted my surg. tech teacher, who in turn asked a few of us from class if we wanted to interview for a job. She pulled me out of the OR last week with an application in hand and told me to get to the hospital as quickly as possible if I was interested. And because the other option was staying in the OR for 3 hours holding an elephant-sized leg up for a total knee replacement with Dr. Asian Prick-

Spacesuits and all- I hate ortho, I hate ortho, I hate ortho...

I decided to go interview for the job.

So, I interviewed with the Director of Surgical Services and felt pretty good about it. It was kind of nerve-wracking due to the fact that I've never had a real job interview, but I felt positive. A few hours later, even though I told them that I'm moving from the area in 87 days (not too early to countdown!), I was notified that I had indeed gotten the job and to meet with HR.

Oh, HR. Oh, the red tape. Oh, the forms. Oh, the signatures and dates. Oh, the HR women who seem to believe they've been cast in a Dolly Parton re-make:

Women of HR- Shoulder Pads are Out. 

I hate feeling like I don't know what I'm doing. It's the worst feeling to me. And that's how I felt trying to fill out the 59 pages of forms today, sitting in HR for an hour, with their greasy pens and itchy upholstery and HR people that freak me out.

While I was sitting in there, scratching out my last name and putting my first name and then my last name for the 40th time, a middle-aged woman was also filling out papers. She asked me how to spell "receive" and then a few minutes later, asked me how to spell "environment" and later, "clothes." So, in the middle of pulling my hair out, I'm being put through a spelling bee while also questioning our country and how it's possible that an adult doesn't know how to spell these words.

With all of the small font and big words on the forms, I really needed parental guidance, to be honest. But, I think I managed. Or I accidentally signed to opt into some hospital scam 401B or deferred my pay checks until 2050 or am now claiming 13 children via my W-2.

W-2.

401k.

401B.

W-4.

OMG.


WTF.

After that form-filling, stress-inducing debacle, I was dragged to another Office of Red Tape with another creepy, bouffant-style HR woman.  She demanded my drivers license, my social security card, my tag number, my immunization forms, my diploma, a voided check and my packet forms. I proudly handed everything over to her, patting myself on the back for remembering to bring everything.

She feebly held my FSU diploma still in its cardboard casket (which had been lain to rest under my bed last August) like I had just sneezed all over it.

"What is this?" Beady, HR eyes squinted at me.

"Oh! Well, the paper said to bring in my diploma, so...um."

With her eyes still focused on me, she let out a scoffing sound from her powdered nose. She dramatically flopped it onto her desk. I still don't know what the deal was with that. They asked for my diploma, so I brought my diploma. Whatever.

After more scoffing and heaving and squirming and sighing, I was released from HR and sent to do a drug test. I had exactly 10 minutes to get there or else the results would be void--and the world would cease to exist. I skidded into the parking lot and burst through the doors of the seedy little drug test place. And then proceeded to wait on another itchy upholstered chair for 40 minutes.

Finally, a blonde chihuahua of a woman barked at me from behind a glass window to come back.

Not exactly this, but just as 3rd world-ish. And Un-sterile-ish. 

...The blonde chihuahua leads me to a room and is like, "Go in the bathroom. Wash your hands. Don't throw away the paper towel." I oblige like the crack whore I apparently am. I come out with the towels- she inspects them. I stand there with my decently above-average IQ and try to figure out how I would cheat a urine test with a paper towel. Hm. She elbows me back into the bathroom and hands me a bucket-sized plastic cup. "Fill the cup to this line. Do not close the door. Do not flush the toilet. Bring it to me when you're done."

So, okay. I'm cool with medical stuff and bodies and the like. But, if Kevin's within a mile of the bathroom, I close the door. And we've been together for 3 years. So I go in and am trying to maneuver this large embarrassing pee cup and of course I can't go. I just can't. And I'm freaking out even more because I don't want her to think I'm taking so long because I'm trying to whittle a drug-free bag of urine out of paper towels. Many awkward minutes pass until I finally succeed. I hand her my cup, wanting nothing more than to get the heck out of that place.

"Sit on that chair. PPD." She motions to a dirty gray doctor chair.

Ugh, seriously? I've spent time at many different health facilities and each one has demanded a 2-step PPD, or tuberculin skin test, to make sure you don't have TB. Today, I had my 7th TB test. In two weeks, I'll have my 8th.

This test is every hypochondriacs worst nightmare because one- if the little pocket of TB they inject into you swells at all, they decide you've been infected with TB and ship you off to Sorok Island: The Last Leper Colony--or something like that. And two- if said hypochondriac develops any feelings of malaise or difficulty breathing, it is decided that the TB injection was not fully purified and now this person has TB. This said psychotic person will periodically check the arm lump every minute for the next month. Said person's stress level is already tipping the charts.

*Deep Breathing*

The next hoop I must jump through for my 4-month long, $12.58 job ($17 on the weekends!) is All Day Orientation on Monday. Business casual is required. Ughhh...give me scrubs or give me death!

SCRUBS.

DEATH.

I'm currently not sure how I'm feeling about being employed. I'm also currently juggling a million things at once. Overload.

But regardless, Erin to the OR in the AM!

3 Months to Live

So, I know I previously promised my experience at The Butt Hut, but I forgot about my first OR week in clinicals so I will just go through the highlights...can't leave any riveting moment out!

As a tech, we're responsible for setting up and opening the supplies for each surgery. This includes opening little packages of awkward-sized  objects in a particular, sterile manner onto a sterile-draped table. These awkward things come in "peel-packs" that are kind of like string cheese wrappers.

So, I'm at my first day in OR clinicals, awkwardly hovering in front of a sterile table being stacked with sterile stuff, not real sure what to do. No one's very friendly. One girl asks me if I can do anything and I jokingly say, "Well, I can't do much, but I can open packages!" She motions for me to proceed. I select a skin marker from the bucket and begin to carefully peel back the wrapper like I've been taught. The OR is silent, waiting for me to amaze them with my surgical tech skills...

Oh, crap. Too much wrist flick at the end of the peel. Rookie mistake. My stomach plummets to the sticky blue floor as the marker angrily arcs from its wrapper and pings off the back wall. The now-infected marker jets like a homing missile towards our sterile table piled with costly supplies.

The missile finds its target. Infected-to-sterile contact is made. Loud, frustrated sighs echo in the cold room. Everything on the table now has to be shoved into the trash, the process started anew. I am demoted to the nurse's prep stand.

FAIL. Multiply this scenario about 17 times. Biggest loser in room.

Later, I go to glove a rather large, impressive, intimidating surgeon. He towers over me with his hairy hand in the air awaiting its glove. He's saying something to me- I'm too nervous to comprehend so I just smile and nod- while I'm grabbing his glove and stretching the Latex open for him. He jams his hand into the glove in an authoritative, hurried manner and begins to extend his other hand. But, wait? What the--? Oh. Ha. Umm. Well. The glove is wonky, a thumb here, a pinkie somewhere else. He can't touch his other "un-sterile" hand to fix it, so it's up to me to awkwardly molest his hand and try to right the glove.

You are unintelligent. There, I said it. 

I pull the Latex this way and that, snapping his skin in the process and most certainly pulling a few hairs. The darn glove may as well be a 50,000 piece puzzle. A puzzle laying atop your boss's round, hairy stomach. It's difficult, sure, but mostly just super awkward to put together. It is finally declared that I have done the unthinkable. The Left Glove is on his Right Hand.

*Palm to forehead*

I also said a million stupid things that week...

"Oh! Hi Dr. A!" (I'm Dr. B...)
"Is that the ovary, Dr. C?" (Uhh no. That's the stomach.)

Needless to say, the week was long. Having my intelligence questioned by people I respect in a God-like fashion is tough. Wasting countless dollars of medical supplies due to my inability to open packages is difficult for this little Jew. A cloud of heavy failure followed me around the entire week.

So, when I was assigned a 6-hour long surgery on my last day, I wallowed. I wallowed like a self-absorbed, pathetic warthog. When I found out it was with Dr. Hairy Hands, it was all I could stand. Why ME?! Why is my life so cruel?!

The surgery was a Pancreaticoduodenectomy, or a Whipple, where part of the stomach, the gall bladder and duct, the duodenum, part of the jejunum, part of the pancreas and all regional lymph nodes are removed.

Although quite caught up with self-pity, I was also intrigued to see how this surgery would play out. My curiosity was peaked. So, after scrubbing, gowning and gloving myself, I watched the patient roll into the OR. He was a big, jolly man. He had cancer. We were going to cut it out. Once he was asleep, I stood at his side and looked into his open cavernous body. Slippery intestines and pulsing organs slithered like snakes in a hole. The room was much quieter than normal. I guess everyone knew what I didn't.

"Well, let's close him up."

Huh? It's only been 45 minutes! You got it out that quickly?! But where's my 6-hour long, impressive-sounding case?

The surgeon looked at my confused, naive face and told me that there was nothing they could do. He took my hand and wrapped it around something warm and hard.

"That's cancer. It's too far spread. I'll give him 3 months." And with that, the surgeon ripped his gown off and left.

My hand jerked out of the patient like he was on fire. Wait, what? 3 months? It was incomprehensible. This jolly man would not be here 4 months from now. The leg that I had rested my hand on for 45 minutes will not be alive soon. Gone. Forever.

KCi and JoJo's "All My Life" played almost imperceptibly in the background as the man was wheeled back out. (Wish I could make this crap up.)

I left the room in a daze. My thoughts vacillated between where good people go when they die and how much of a jerk I was for worrying about a darn glove being put on wrong. Like my gloving problems were actually important in a hospital full of sick or dying people.

To finish my week off, I went to have one of the staff sign me out for the week and he blew up on me in front of everyone about how I wasn't doing it right. He threw a pen at me.

<Insert the cherry on top.>

I made it hurriedly down the stairs in my new white coat before a tear pricked behind my eye. I burst out the doors to the hospital parking lot where I completely decomposed next to my car. Snot and audible sobbing were involved. I couldn't find my frigging keys. I looked up and saw a bleary image of a man sitting in a small truck in the spot next to me, watching me fall apart into a hysterical mess. I was psychotically flinging things from my backpack and crying so hard I was dizzy. I finally got into my car and called Kevin. I'm pretty sure he thought Tyson got run over or something.

As I curled up into fetal position on my bed that night, puffy and exhausted, I seriously questioned what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

Nurses: RESPECT

*This is the 2nd post of the day, there's one before this if you want to read it in order.

**Pretend that this post was written six months ago

***Also pretend that I'm an organized, efficient, good-time-management type of person who doesn't procrastinate**

To all nurses: After having endured three straight, 10-hour days on the ambulatory surgical unit (ASU) during my first clinical rotation, I can only say that you are special, special people.

For my first rotation, I was put on the ASU floor, which is where patients who are coming in for surgery and leaving that same day come. The ASU performs pre-op and post-op, outpatient care. This was the first time our surg tech teacher decided to place us on this floor, but her thinking is that she wants us to see what happens before and after patients are wheeled into the OR doped up on Versed.

My first day was on Tuesday (I have clinicals TWR and class MF) and I was to report to the floor by 6:15 am.

............WHAT? There's actually existence between the hours of midnight and 9 am?! Who knew? And more importantly, who didn't want to know that life exists between those hours of unholiness? Um, moi.

So, when my phone alarm exploded next to my ear at 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday, I did not hop out of bed like Christmas morning per usual. It was more like a full-body slither of malice a la The Grinch...

(I seriously just searched "Grinch slithering" and the above picture came up in .00346 seconds...thanks Google!)

Anyway, I was not happy. I was exhausted, anxious, grumpy, excited, nervous and seriously questioning the direction of my life. Could I seriously ever wake up this early again? Is becoming a PA worth it?! While pondering, I- for whatever reason- realized I was starving. I went out to the kitchen, located and kissed Tyson's perpetually-smelling-of-Frito's head and stood in front of the fridge. What in the heck do you eat at 4:30 in the morning. Isn't it a law or something that you don't eat eggs when the moon's still out?

Ew.

Normal breakfast items just seemed unnatural. So instead, I chose to gorge myself on cold leftover quesadillas and hot wings on the couch in dark silence. As I later pulled into the hospital parking lot that morning, under a sheet of stars and darkness, with my spiffy white coat on and my stomach full of nerves, I totally regretted my breakfast choices. Lesson learned.

I met my teacher at the front lobby so she could walk me up to my floor elementary-school style. So, so lame, but I had never been up to that area and could barely find my way to the main entrance of the hospital with its blinking lights and red arrows, so I'm glad she took me up there.

And I'd just like to say that this hospital is seriously designed with the intent to make you think you've lost your freaking mind. You turn down one corridor- door, door, green block, tan block, door, sliding door, round silver button- and turn down another corridor and it honest to God has the exact same pattern. Everywhere. Every hallway. Even the people look exactly the same. It's creepy, to say the least.

The (Hospital) Matrix 

So, as my teacher was winding me up and around and side-to-side to the ASU floor, I was freaking out because I knew that I'd have to find my way back out eventually...right? I can leave this place, right?!

I was quickly introduced to the Charge Nurse who- even though she was smiling- sorta scared me. I'm pretty good at picking up auras. And her aura was cage fighter.

After my teacher left me, Nurse Ratchet passed me off onto another nurse who was really nice and welcoming and all, but I totally felt like a chubby toddler on my first day of school. I want my mommyyyy. Who are these people???

Much of my time spent on the ASU floor was taken up with watching nurses chart on their little computers. They charted the patient's height, the patient's weight, the patient's Latex allergy, the patient's father's glaucoma issues, the patient's 37 meds he'd taken that morning, the patient's last bowel movement, the patient's favorite color ad nauseam. And I mean that literally- to the point of my feeling nauseous. Or was that the hot wings I ingested at 4:45 that morning? Hmm.

I did get to do a few exciting things while there. I made and brought multiple cups of coffee to Mr. Oldpervert in Room 17.

Mr. Oldpervert is ready for his Sponge Bath! 

Oh, and I was asked to bring a cup to Room 7 by one of the nurse assistant's. I distinctly heard two creams and two sugar. Not that hard.

  Well, I pleasantly delivered this coffee to Room 7, a nice elderly gentleman. Within seconds of me leaving I hear a booming voice summon me from the bowels of his dark cave room. "Is there SUGAR in this?!"

Err, yes. Apparently he was a severe diabetic. For the rest of the morning he glared at me through his bifocals.

Then I was miraculously upgraded from Coffee Girl to Wheelchair Girl.

Nurse: (standing in front of obese patient in wheel chair who was ready to leave) Would you take Ms. Only-Speaks-Rapid-Spanish down to the front of the hospital. Her ride is here.

Me: Um, well, I don't really know how to get-

Nurse: (exasperated) Down this hall, press the green button, through doors on left, turn right, jump through fire ring, while holding woman in wheel chair press the red button while saying, "abracadabra," when you meet up with the man with a long beard, tell him the meaning of life, he will then give you access to the elevator.

Me: Okay! Sounds great! Will do!

I smiled and dumbly said, "Hola" to the woman. I got behind the chair and tried to push. No budge. I pushed again with all of might- nothing. Ohhh, the chair's locked. Dur. After stomping my foot on the chair a few times, it released its grip. I leaned around to face the woman and gave a reassuring smile and thumbs up. She looked at me the way I would look at a red-eyed, stumbling pilot before take off. Terror. 

ANDDD we're off! (To our imminent death.)

I made it to the hallway and pretty much wandered around pushing this robust Latina woman into dead ends and down wrong elevator wings. I kept giving her reassuring smiles and thumbs up along the way even though I seriously had no *&^*^%* idea where we were. However, once we reached the morgue, I decided it was time to suck it up and ask for directions. By the time we felt sunlight on our heads, about 30 minutes had elapsed. I brought her up to the car and an annoyed little man got out, speaking Spanish rapido to the woman. She said something back to him and they both cast angry looks at me.

I was like, "Ohh Bien! Adios! Gracias! Chiquito chalupa!"

What I did like about being on this rotation was that I could be with a patient from beginning to end. There was an older patient who was having a bone marrow biopsy. I got to sit with her and her husband while they waited in pre-op and talk with them. And then she asked if I would stay with her during the procedure and OF COURSE I said yes. Warmed my heart (and I hadn't seen that procedure before).

We started to wheel her down as her husband asked me to send up prayers while we were down there. So I did. I'm not religious at all, but I prayed for them in my own little atheist way, truly hoping for their sake that someone was listening.

And it made me feel so good, like I was actually helping someone. Maybe there is something to this prayer stuff. When we brought her back up, I got to be there when they were reunited and see the relief that it was over and everything had gone well. They thanked me and she said she couldn't have done it without me there. She called me a "sweet girl." I'll never forget her.

It's a different world when your patients are awake. It's easy to forget that there are people under the blue surgical drapes of which I'm excitedly looming over. Another lesson learned.

Up next: My foray into the Butt Hut. You won't wanna miss that. Or maybe you will. I'm pretty sure I wish I'd missed it...