4/5/13

Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with a fourth-year medical student up and coming on his big doctor graduation, and he openly admitted that nurse practitioners (meaning, me, us, nurse practitioner students) know so much more than the fourth-year medical students. Of course, he defended himself, “we know all about the molecular and cellular processes that underlie diseases…but you guys seem to know more of what counts for recognition of symptoms and treatment”. 

This year has been particularly difficult in terms of communication for me and Jay. We find ourselves not hearing each other, not saying what needs to be said, cutting each other off, short-changing our conversations, and throwing mini temper tantrums. 

Oh, but let me clarify. Who is to blame for this? AT&T. And Comcast. And Xfinity. 

Hi, you three…you are responsible for all the above. When we literally can’t hear each other because of a bad connection, when we don’t say what needs to be said because we literally didn’t hear what the other just said, when the internet literally cuts off our video chat, and when our conversations are literally short-changed because my bedroom has zero signal (except for that one particular spot on my desk and at the foot of my bed—one move away from those spots and our conversation is dunzo). 

Lol, I’m sorry, did I scare you? Justin and I are great. This is just another angry rant at technology, which doesn’t seem to put me more towards even the upper half of the list of people that need good signal so they can talk to their loved ones across the country. Don’t they have a list like that! Dammit they should. 

Although…I have to say the mini temper tantrums part maaaaay be true on my part (I may be 25, but I can cry if I want to, lol). And Justin has been so patient with me. When he sees or hears me getting impatient with the bad connections, he just lets me have it. And sometimes I need to have it, because talking to my boo thang is my relaxation, my therapy, my unwinder, my diffuser, my means for feeling peaceful. And when that’s taken away from me, well, sometimes that just leads to a breakdown. It only makes sense. So Jay, I love you for that. 

Not much can be changed about this whole situation, so in the meantime, it’ll be rant rant rant. 

Rant done, for now. 

Ureterosigmoidostomy: ureters detached from bladder and anastomosed to sigmoid colon. 

Learning new things everyday. 

“Everything feels like something with you, does that make sense?…I don’t believe in “the one” or fate or destiny but you are The One for me because I choose you every single day.”

I can spend hours on ThoughtCatalog. And even though a lot of it is crap, I’ll sometimes come across gems like this that just make me swoon. And also make me wish that I had written them myself lol.

An emergency c-section yielded two of the tiniest human beings I have ever seen in my life. Twins. Boys. 24 weeks gestation. Both just a little bit longer than the palm of my hand. They needed to be evacuated from their mother’s uterus in a hurry in order for them to even have the slightest chance of living. Both were pulled out of their mother, and immediately brought to separate incubators, where four people immediately began to assess them. I swear, I wanted to cry so hard, but in those particular moments, everything in me was directed towards one of these two twins, literally right next to me and just so so…small. And not breathing. Heart rate barely there. Then I heard “Come on little guy, I don’t hear your heart”. And the next thirty seconds was a flurry of intubation, oxygenation, and chest compressions. Two finger-width compressions on the tiniest of chests. At this point, I think every muscle in my body was tense, waiting for him to breathe, waiting for someone to hear his heartbeat. Then suddenly, his tiny chest began to move up and down, and my clinical instructor whispered to me “These little guys are so resilient.” And all I could do was nod in awe and relief while my insides were a hot mess of emotions and adrenaline.

My clinical instructor and I left the operating room. She asked me if I was ok, and in all honesty I wasn’t entirely ok at that moment. In fact, when she turned around, I power-walked to the bathroom and had a quick cry. I had just been one foot away from a baby, barely old enough to survive out of his mother’s uterus without extensive help, dangle on the edge of life and death, and come out a champion. Although I’ll never know if those twins ever survived past NICU (very small possibility), I will never, ever forget them, or how they made me feel.

Imagine for a second, me drowning in my way-too-large “small” surgical scrubs, holding open the legs of a very pregnant woman, yelling “Push, Mama, push! Come on!  You got this!”, while she’s grimacing with the worst combination of fatigue and pain, with no one but baby daddy at my side and no nurse in sight.

Yes, that happened today, and it was probably THE coolest moment of my life. To clear up any confusion about my nurse’s temporary absence, she had to run out to get some more meds, and in reality, my coolest moment really only lasted about 20 seconds, but what a fuckin’ 20 seconds, RIGHT!