Lipstick and lace.

I remember seeing commercials on television a couple years ago for the Lifetime movie titled Why I wore lipstick to my mastectomy (based on the book by the same title). I remember thinking that it was a clever title, and that I'd like to see the movie sometime.

This morning as I was getting ready for the day, I thought about the breast ultrasound I had scheduled for right after lunch. Instinctively, I reached for the cutest bra in my undies drawer.

I didn't think I was all that nervous, but when the radiologist came in and said that the lump looked benign to him, I sure felt a wave of relief.

I thought about that movie again this evening. I still want to see it (or better yet, read the book), but I definitely feel like I "get" the title. To me it's about being brave, and identifying with who I am as a woman. Finding a lump threatens to take that identity away from you, and it's important to reclaim it any way you can.

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(Yes, this is a very personal topic - but I wanted to share it anyway. And I hope that the women reading will take this as a reminder to perform self breast exams!)

Assorted babble.

Earlier this evening Erica and I were at her apartment doing a kickboxing workout video together, and we heard this pflump outside... She glanced out through the blinds and said, "What is on my balcony?"
It was a peacock. A beautiful, brilliant, full grown male peacock, perched on her railing.

WTF?

I came home from working out about an hour later, and through the open blinds I saw a giant blue peacock sitting on my balcony. (Presumably, the same peacock that we saw earlier.)

Seriously, WTF? It's mid-February, and I live in Montana.

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I had to work all weekend, and I also had a couple of big assignments due by Saturday at noon. After I got off work on Friday I came home and finished the longer one, and finally retired to bed around 2:00am. I went to work on Saturday morning with the intent of finishing up the second assignment there. Usually Saturday mornings are fairly quiet for the first hour or so - but nooooo, not this weekend. It was complete insanity until about twenty minutes past noon, or twenty minutes after my assignment was due. I scrambled to finish it up, and I turned it in about half an hour late. Naturally, the following two hours at the office were completely quiet. (grumble grumble...)

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Tomorrow is my first day in med surg clinicals. I'm actually a little bit freaked out. Ventilator, nasogastric tube, foley catheter, central venous line, infection, complicated diagnoses with complications on top of that - my patient has it all. I'm sure the day will go fine - I met the nurses on the specialty unit where I'll be, and they were helpful and friendly. But still, it's a lot for my first day.
And next week we have to take two patients.

*whimpers*

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It's been beautiful outside the past few days; mid-forties and sunny. Spring isn't here yet, but it's coming. A week ago yesterday was the first time I noticed it - I went outside in the evening, and although it was quite cold, it smelled like spring. I'm ready for it.

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Okay, enough therapy. Time for homework.

Some thoughts after psych nursing...

After a few weeks in rotation on the inpatient psychiatric unit, here are a few thoughts:

• The people on these hospital units are just like you and me. If you met one of them on the street, you'd never know that they were a psychiatric patient.
• There is a very fine line between mental health and mental illness. Most of us will cross it at some point in our lives. Most of us probably already have.
• Mental health is a continuum, just like physical health. There is not simply "sick" and "healthy," there is a whole spectrum of shades of wellness.
• People who have a mental illness can't just "snap out of it" or "control their mind" as people so often arrogantly suggest. You wouldn't tell a person with diabetes or congestive heart failure to just "get over it," would you? Nor should you with a person who has depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. They all have underlying physiological causes which need treatment.
• Your physical body is intimately connected with your mind. Poor physical health can contribute to poor mental health, and vice versa. Take care of yourself. Sleep. Eat well. Exercise. Avoid excess.
• Stress is a huge precipitator for mental health problems, just as much as it is for physical health problems. Manage your stress well.
• People who are at higher risk for mental illness are those who have poor coping resources and poor coping skills. Resources include things like family and social support, financial stability, knowledge, and spiritual beliefs. Coping mechanisms are the behaviors that are exhibited by someone in response to a stressor. They can be constructive or destructive. Generally, constructive coping mechanisms are defined as actions that help you resolve the stressor or problem. Destructive coping mechanisms help you to cope with the anxiety and stress, but do not help you to find resolution to the problem itself - they only serve to help you evade the problem.
  Think about your responses to stress - prayer, a cigarette, eating food, to-do lists, complaining, retreating, a long run, aggressive behavior, a cocktail. In my mind, an action alone can't be defined as constructive or destructive, but rather it's related to the situation. For example, a nice run is therapeutic and a great stress reliever for me. It helps me to unload the physical tension that builds when I've got a lot going on in my life. This is a constructive coping behavior. However, when I go for a run instead of writing the paper I have due, it's functioning as a destructive behavior. It's worth giving some thought to how you cope, and evaluating how those behaviors are serving you...
• Life is a beautiful, delicate balance. Be good to yourself, be good to others.

A quickie...

I'm up to my eyeballs in schoolwork at the moment. It's funny, because I'll be totally stressed, but then I'll finish up an assignment, and I'll feel the giant band of pressure around my ribcage relax for an hour or so, then I'll realize how much I have left to do, then then the tension builds all over again.

This weekend was the Montana Student Nurses' Association state convention in Helena. It went really well, and we had a great time. Photos will be on flickr when I get a chance.
The only downside of the convention is that I had to trade weekends off in order to go, which means that between last Monday the 11th and March 1st, the only day off I have is Presidents' Day. Buh-yuck.


When caring for a client in detox we utilize a tool called the CIWA, or Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment. It's a series of questions about the patient, some asked directly of the patient and some observed by the nurse, that helps us to assess the severity of withdrawal symptoms being experienced. The questions take into account things like tremors, nausea, sweating, and so on. With this information we can make sure that they get the enough medication to help counter the worst of the symptoms. (I just found this fascinating.)

The temperature is supposed to get up to almost 50° on Monday - I can't wait!!

Tonight on the telly...

Last week I was sad to discover that LOST's day and time-slot change means it's on the air while I'm at work. But the bright side is that I get to watch it commercial-free as soon as I get home.

"I’m thinking about growing a beard..."

Sleepy winter blues.

This morning, between groggy swipes at my snooze button, I dreamt that I was sitting outside in a comfy lawn chair. It was dusk, the lightning bugs were just starting to stir from the grass, and the air was warm and heavy. As I slowly started to emerge from sleep, I snuggled down into my covers, contentedly listening to the sounds of a distant lawnmower. Then with a thud, reality sank in - the sound was not a lawnmower, but a snowblower - meaning that we got more snow. Again.

I'm ready for summer.