Under my umbrella, ella, ella

This has been a fabulous weekend. I took a road trip to visit a friend, KL, from nursing school, and I sort of can't believe it's been over three years since we slogged our way through those dark days. She's an Ivy-League Certified Nurse Midwife now and I'm a relief charge nurse in a high acuity-high traffic ER. Oh, how far we've come since the days of barely knowing how to take a blood pressure.

We went out to a beachy little bar and had delicious cocktails Friday afternoon, then went out for sushi which now ranks in my top three restaurants of all time. Saturday was even better - a farmer's market in a gorgeous town, stopping at a roadside BBQ staffed by grouchy old men for a breakfast of chicken and baked beans, and then on to the beach for hours of sun and snark and tanning and general good times.

And here's a fun story about the beach: It was a very windy day, which is nice for keeping the flop sweat to a minimum but not so nice for keeping your belongings next to you and free of sand. There was a couple in front of us who tried valiantly to set up their flimsy little dollar store umbrella in the face of the wind. KL and I watched with amusement as they struggled and bitched at each other and grew more and more flustered. It was funny until I realized that if their umbrella took off from the wind, it would definitely make a beeline trajectory straight for us. It's not a hypothetical matter either - last summer we had a transfer from a small coastal hospital after she was impaled in the leg by a wayward beach umbrella. "I'm going to be upset if I survived four years as an ER nurse only to die within a week of quitting from a chest injury directly related to these tools," I said.

Her response? "I'm a midwife. Unless that thing impales you in the vagina you're out of luck, so you better move out of its way pretty quick."

In all, a pretty swell day. The only downside: I wasn't liberal enough with my sunscreen application, and my ass cheeks are burned like San Francisco circa 1906.

Reality

No turning back now...

I think the blog title may soon have to be New Nurse Insanity: The Traveling Years.

Oh, my my.

For some reason I have that Tom Petty song in my head where they sing "oh my my, oh hell yes, honey put on that party dress" and I really wanted to work it into a blog post somehow...but I just don't have the mental effort for that this morning. Last night was an absolute ass kicker.

And also last night held the patient with the single most awful thing I've ever seen in my life. Gross. Ugh. Extreme.

I triaged a lady from the nursing home with unspecified "cellulitis" as her reason for sending. She's totally demented and out of it, and so getting an actual history from her was hard - nay, impossible. As I wasn't able to get a verbal history, I just pulled back her gown and started on the head to toe assessment. All good, the usual gomer-looking patient, nbd. Until I pull off another blanket from her legs and start to notice a smell. Like something crawled up in the bed and died. I pull back the layer directly above her legs, and a black fly comes whizzing out of the fabric. The smell of death also got stronger, which was not encouraging.

I finally uncover her legs...and almost vomited on the bed. I think the phrase "holy fuck a doodle" actually escaped my mouth, but since she was demented out of her mind it's okay. Her lower leg was so necrotic it was actually mummified. King Tut up in here, no lie. The knee, on the other hand, was some nasty rotting oozing smelly flesh that was a day from either falling off the bone completely or just being consumed by the black fly larvae crawling around. I am not even lying. Grossest thing I've ever seen in my life. I feel like it should have been on the discovery channel, some part of a documentary where they go all "and this patient was struck down by a nasty bacteria and the leg mummified completely and they only escaped the amazon by breaking the leg off and rowing out of the jungle with it on a log raft" or something. How this escaped the notice of the nursing home staff is beyond me. The smell alone was enough to tranquilize someone.

I honestly have no more coherent thoughts on how to make this a meaningful blog post. I'm still too in shock over how fucking gross it was.

Bits

I cried real hard yesterday, and then passed out on my bed like a chump because I was emotionally exhausted from the breakdown that happened. This morning I discovered a plot to throw me a going away party, and almost had second cryfest. Instead I made it home and determined that if I'm at risk of passing out on my bed again due to emotions, I may as well make a giant glass of creamsicle drank with extra pinnacle vodka and just pass out that way. Same end result, more orangey goodness.

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Spelunking is not for the faint of heart, as Not-So-Tall Tales of the ICU will tell you. This blogger is way funnier than I am, although I guess that isn't really saying much is it?

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I strongly dislike packing, and will put if off for a long as possible. I will probably sell all of my furniture and be sleeping on the floor before I decide to actually start consolidating three years' worth of shit into boxes.

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Why didn't anyone hear Helen Keller when she fell off the cliff?

She was wearing mittens!

Saying goodbye

Leaving is hard. I've only got a few weeks left at my job before I start travel nursing. I have been holding out on my emotional breakdowns and keeping them to a Zero tally, until today.

This morning I went to get my badge changed to reflect my CEN, and the lady took my old badge and shredded it before I could protest. I would have told her I didn't want to change it, go home, and then come back tomorrow and say I lost it. But I couldn't. I wasn't quick enough, and it's gone forever. My first nursing badge. My first big girl job. My first career. Gone.

I wanted to scrapbook it. It means a lot to me, and it's gone. I'm sure I looked a hot mess when I burst into tears at the HR desk. Really I couldn't help it though. It's such a silly thing to be upset over, but it's the truth.

Sigh. If this is the start of saying goodbye, I don't know if I handle this emotionally. Cue the month long random cry-fest.