Bitchin' view of the uptight

So this is weird to me, given the amount of sort of pervy and fun (to me, ha) humor that pervades my unit often.

Background: Some of the software we use, when you log in, it has a list of all the patients in the entire hospital. You have to search for the ones on your unit. Stupid and inefficient. You can create a "view", though. You name the view yourself. It displays the name of your view if you leave it open on the desktop, etc.

So someone thought I had an inappopriate name for my view. It was called "bitchin' view". I think I will go back and rename it something much more shocking.

Any suggestions?

I cannot believe I haven't posted in almost a year.

This is embarrassing. I am still alive! I've just been so busy.

I've been on my own in the ICU with my own patients since January. It's going quite well for me so far, knock on wood. I still like my job a lot - in fact I like it much more than I did when I first started.

I still feel sort of hesitant about things some of the time - not at work though, but in odd social situations. Like half my family was upset that I hadn't reminded them it was nurse's week so they could have planned to buy me something. Um... but I've only been a nurse for a little while, I am not "really" a nurse yet. Am I?

So I had a patient who asked me to get her a kitchen knife

Sure, I will get right on that!

I like the rectum

After inserting a suppository, I had a preceptor say to me, "You know that suppository isn't going to work. I just let you go ahead and do it because I know you like the rectum".

Umm. I guess you figured me out. My answer was to giggle nervously and look around like maybe she was talking to someone else, but I really wish I had said any of a thousand less stupid things, other than NOTHING. Because I could have made that into some funny ICU shit, for reals.

I wonder if this guy ever got change for his five

Alternate title: I didn't know they kept money there!!

So this guy insisted he had a five dollar bill and accused us (a preceptor and I) of stealing it. To humor him, we shook out all the bed linens and looked under the bed, etc to make sure his money wasn't hiding there. We even stood him up to see if he had been sitting on it.

When we sat him back down in the bed, his gown rode up and there was his five dollar bill, wedged in between his scrotum and penis. I pointed at it, and said, "Hey, there's your five!". He looked down, grabbed it, and brightened. He held it out and, without missing a beat, asked, "Do you have change for a five?".

Um, no. Not at all. And every time anyone went in there for the rest of the day he asked them for change for his five.

I don't know how much longer I can do this.

The schedule changes are completely killing me. I want to kill some of my fellow new grads because the luck of the draw sucks. How come they give these chicks just out of school with no kids and no significant other straight days and I have to keep switching my days and nights and fucking up my life?

I am seriously wondering if I should just quit, this just feels like too much. My kids don't see me, my husband doesn't see me. I like the unit and have had some good days, great days, so far. But what it's doing to me, and the rest of my life, is not worth it. I still want to be a fucking mother here, and so far that's not been possible.

I miss my kids and husband so much.

I miss my therapist (he's had to go out of town on some family emergency for a couple of weeks now and so I am stuck handling this with my own rudimentary coping skills, like blog posts).

It really shouldn't be more difficult than going to school while working. it shouldn't. But somehow it's killing me over here.

I have no idea what I am doing.

So I started a new job a few weeks ago. It's terrifying to be on the unit so far, though that's probably because I've only done it once so far.

I am so much more addicted to the internet than I thought I was. I keep thinking I will email people and stuff, but then I have NO TIME ONLINE. So I am losing touch with people.

I don't know why I am doing this, and I feel like I've just fucked up unbelievably in leaving a steady, stable career for a new one where I don't know fuck-all about jack shit. :(