New woman, new plan, new start.

New things are happening in the life of Loki.

In late May I came to the realization that I was and had been miserable for a significant chunk of time in my relationship with E. We had been dating for nearly three years, but for the last six months or so things had been rapidly going downhill. I don't want to lay the blame entirely on her, but there were a lot of issues that she was going through and coping with by denial. It was hard to watch and harder to be her primary support person. I was therapist, boyfriend and tutor all at once and it was extremely draining. And so I finally ended it. The actual act - going to her house and telling her - took all of two hours. It can be described in one word - one of my father's favorites in fact - 'Clusterfuck'. Tsar bomba. 100 megatons of full blown nuclear tears and pain. It was not a fun experience and I took no joy in it whatsoever. Until I woke up the next morning it was extremely hard not to tell her it was a mistake, that it would be ok. It took my friends to give me strength to do the right thing for myself and for E. I've found myself with one of my best friends from nursing school now, and the way that we support eachother and respect the other's individuality is incredible. The contrast from bad to good relationship is stark, and reminds me every day of how special what I have is. Also, we fuck like pagans. But thats for another blog.

New plan too. So I failed Maternal Child nursing. Well, I turned in a paper late worth 10% of my grade and received a very lovely zero on it. This prevented me from passing the course (along with 1 very shitty test grade that was concerning but not the death knell for that class) and has forced me into a new path. I am now retaking the course including the clinical aspect this summer. It is the only course I'm taking over the summer so I expect that it will be easy to focus and prove to myself that I know what I'm doing and that I have the intelligence to complete the course with distinction. Oh, and that clinical placement? OB.

"I'm sorry Loki, all of the peds rotations are totally full. You're going to have to do OB."

Fuck! It will be interesting to be sure, but I've never wanted to be a BloodyVaginaNurse when I envision myself as an RN. On the bright side though, having experience delivering children is going to be good for that one freak experience that may happen where I'm the only medical professional and some woman is pushing out a baby on the subway/ballpark/elevator. I expect that I will learn a lot.

New start. I've decided to get back into exercising for a number of reasons. Being overweight is fortunately not one of them! So far this week I've done 20 miles on the stationary bike, adding up to a cumulative time of only two hours or so. When I ride on it, I ride hard and fast. Its much easier to deal with the pain of lactic acid building up in your legs when you have Tenacious D screaming in your ear about Dio (May his metal live on forever).

And now, some complaining. There is a woman, I will name her Beezy for ease of reference, who I encountered in my very first clinical of nursing school. She's 45, has two children, worked at Costco as a manager for a long time. I know all of this not because I inquired, but because she has terrible logorrhea. She is one of those people, we all know a few, who tells inane stories with little to no clinical relevance in class. She took up a grand total of 5 minutes of my life telling some story about her dumbfuck kid shoved a penny down his throat and it got stuck. Now, Beezy, I'm sure that your child's attempted suicide which is likely related to being your child is highly interesting and applicable, but I assure you that it is not. Please stfu. She did this in post-conference in clinicals every day, and does it in class every day. It is going to take all of my willpower not to interject during one of her stories with something like "WE CARE".

All in all, I'm getting back into the swing of things.

This new leaf is for Dio.

Working at the library

Is espescially tough when one neglects to take their antihystamine in the morning. Sorry about the mucus filled sniffling and such Quiet Study Floor!

Terrible design

"Thats how god made it, that's how god made birth work". --my OB professor talking about the movement of the fetus through the vagina.

No designer but a malicious and sadistic one would create a process so rife with pain and risk for complications and death. It's a very good thing that no such creator exists and so we don't have to worry about what terrible plans it has for us. Evolution is a beautiful process but it is a blind process. The comfort of the mother is not going to exert a significant selection pressure and so with the evolution of bipedal ambulation, humans get a more painful birthing process.

If only there was a team of engineers, biologists and doctors to redesign the birthing process. C-section counts I suppose.

Anecdotes

I go to university to learn from experts in their field in order to prepare me to practice as a nurse and more importantly to gain knowledge for it's own sake. Personal anecdotes are not evidence and offer very little in the way of instruction. With that in mind, it frustrates me that my colleagues so often raise their hands in order to relate a story rather than inquire for more information. This occured ten times in my nursing of families class this morning. That class lasts 1:30h. At approximately a minute and a half per story itnoring any ensuing discussion, these noneducational stories take up fifteen minutes of class. I'd much prefer to get out early than have my time wasted.

In that same vein and class we were shown a memorial video for a stillborn child. The professor stated that it was to show the benefits of GRACE, an organization that assists with greif. This is all well and good but an eight minute video with dramatic video and music does not strike me as increasing my knowledge of how to care for a family. Every couple and family will grieve differently and will have unique needs. Watching what amounted to an anecdote was a dissapointing use of my time and money. I would have felt better sleeping in.

Coffee

THE SPICE MUST FLOW!

Thats totally it!

In Suffering and Death this morning we had a guest speaker. A woman who cares for the dying and their families. For the most part her talk was mildly informative. She was a bit far out of nursing school to remember how much we have been educated up to this point and so her bit on opiate tolerance and its effects was redundant and unnecessary. Other portions of the speech did lend some insight into how to assist the bereaved and the dying.

A few things bothered me.

When requested by the family not to discuss hospice or death with the dying client she said she adhered to the families wishes. I understand following family wishes, but when there is a live patient they have the right to be fully informed about their options no matter how far in denial they may be. Not informing them seems like a lie of omission and something I hope I do not do when I practice.

The speaker stated that she would sometimes hear clients tell her that there were seeing and/or interacting with people who had died previously in their lives. She said she "Chalked it up to the sacred" and would let them live with their delusions. Yes, the sacred, of course thats it. It certainly is a better explanation than a stressed and dying brain misfiring with an intense experience. The exception, she noted after being questioned, was that if the hallucination was agitating the client they would be medicated. So hallucinations that are uncomfortable for them should be medicated, but pleasant ones should be allowed to proceed? That idea taken ad absurdium would lead to all sorts of odd situations such as medicating every believer in an eternal hell that has atheist friends should it make them uncomfortable. Upon questioning she relented that indeed, they could be hallucinations but that she (paraphrasing) "liked to think that they're experiencing something sacred, seeing into the next world"

She was a compassionate and kind person from all that she said, but it does irk me that she seems to have a double standard when it comes to disorientation to reality and her private fantasy of another world.

Mysticism

1. Freq. derogatory. Religious belief that is characterized by vague, obscure, or confused spirituality; a belief system based on the assumption of occult forces, mysterious supernatural agencies, etc.

2. Mystical theology; belief in the possibility of union with or absorption into God by means of contemplation and self-surrender; belief in or devotion to the spiritual apprehension of truths inaccessible to the intellect.

Oxford English Dictionary Online

I quite enjoy that the OED lists the nature of the first meaning to be, in fact, derogatory. Vague, obscure or confused. This definition seems to sum up all of my qualms with mystical thinking.

The second definition ought to simply be an example of the first. Absorption into god? What would that even entail? Truths inaccessible to the intellect? Indeed, there is a lot of obscuration and confusion going on with this concept.

Why is it then, that so many purveyors of woo recruit the appeal of mysticism in order to woo (pun) readers and listeners to believing what they say without a shred of credible evidence? I see mysticism in the same light as I see faith. For some reason there is a population of people that find pleasure in not knowing the truth, in knowledge deficit, in a lack of real understanding. I can suppose that it is an easier road than individually seeking out answers which often require a mass of reading and understanding just to underpin the concept someone may be attempting to mystify.

Does it spark the imagination to cause fancies upon which the thinker derives pleasure? Does it satisfy a need to know by abrogating the responsibility to do just that?

These are things that distract me in the middle of my Medsurg exams, which I believe went well enough to not have to take that class again.