My nursing school family

Nursing school is back in full swing which means that the 2^nd year students are being unleashed upon the area hospitals so we can practice on patients, instead of mannequins, all the procedures and information that we’ve been methodically cataloging in our mental file cabinets.

One of the perks in choosing nursing as a career is that, if you are motivated, you can pretty much pick whichever area you feel a passion towards. There are a few of my fellow students who are being pulled in the direction of pediatrics, a couple who are fascinated by wound care, some very special individuals who want to work in hospice, several ER addicts, and one who seems to want to scope any available orifice. As for myself; I love the heart and everything cardiac-related never ceases to amaze me.

My first clinical experience of the school year will be located in a pediatric unit at a hospital outside of my Highlands County home. I must say that I am suffering some serious trepidation about being in this particular nursing environment because taking care of sick and injured children requires a different type of preparation in one’s mind.

As much as I claim that kids are clingy little germ spreaders, I secretly adore them and can’t help but wonder if this is an area of medical care that will force me to face the biggest challenge yet in my educational journey.

The only thing possibly more daunting than sick children is the fact that my classmates and I have to endure each other for one more year. We are like a family; we didn’t get to pick each other and, similar to many families, we are dysfunctional at the core.

All in all, we actually get along fairly well together which a good thing is considering the fact that I get to share a hotel room with three of my “sisters” this week. The last time I had a roommate was in Tallahassee with my friend, Amy. Girls get all weird and goofy when we’re alone and frequently fall into fits of uncontrollable giggles.

At one point, Amy and I were on separate beds, no more than five feet apart, commenting on each other’s Facebook posts and finding it all quite hysterical. I don’t think that scenario could be recreated if we tried, but knowing us, we could probably go crazy with a couple of soup cans attached by a string.

The rest of this semester will be filled with local clinical adventures, a lot of exams, some volunteer opportunities, and pretending that my home finances will hold up until I get a job.

Also, I am now the official President of the Student Nurses’ Association which should lead to some interesting and unique opportunities for embarrassment due to the fact that possession of said title means that I will be forced into giving too many speeches in front of an uncomfortable amount of people. I’ve already executed a couple of oratory performances and I must say that the nervous effect it has on me is not yet reduced by the number of times I’ve done it.

From what I can tell, nursing seems to be full of challenging experiences, unlimited opportunities, and of continually being forced outside of our comfort zones. In my immediate future, I’m going to clear my head and work on bringing a smile to a hospitalized child’s face. If I accomplish that, the rest should be a walk in the park.

Sibling rites of passage

Growing up, I spent almost every school break with my mom on a cattle ranch just outside the city limits of Avon Park. My older brother, Jerry, and I wasted countless hours roaming through the pastures, climbing trees, playing with cars and riding his Shetland pony, Cricket, all over the place.

Some of our pastimes were questionable in nature, including those spent fighting, armed with anything from sand spurs to dried cow patties. All of these altercations were, of course, initiated by Jerry because I would never have thought to utilize these nefarious devices on another person without his influence.

One of our more disturbing games was “bug dungeon.” We’d turn over rotted logs and catch whatever species of insect we thought could be contained in our hand-dug dirt pit. With its rhinoceros-looking horns, our prized catch was the ox beetle. For some reason, every time we found one, my brother immediately named it “J.R.” which, I suppose, originated from the T.V. show, “Dallas.”

On one summer break when I was around 8 years old, Jerry showed me the crowned jewel of nightmarish creepy, crawling discoveries: a large population of banana spiders (a.k.a. Golden Orb Weavers) thriving in a stand of palm trees. If you’ve never had the opportunity to see one of these monstrosities, count yourself lucky.

For those with weak constitutions concerning arachnids, I’m sorry to say that their leg span surpasses that of a large person’s hand and they have the audacity to grow prickly, black hair around the joints of their appendages, like some type of hell-spun leg warmers. Their golden abdomens, speckled with white splotches, are too large for comfort while their heads have a white coating that makes it look eerily like a human skull.

The weaver’s webs are so strong, they can catch small birds. Make no mistake, if these suckers were any bigger, they’d find a way to take over the world.

Our previous attempts to trap spiders in the bug dungeon were unsuccessful, but Jerry had another, really stupid idea for the Golden Orb Weaver. He thought our tree house could use a little sprucing up and decided to transport several of these menacing spiders.

I was the containment unit and he was the catcher. My red Salvation Army shirt with my name stenciled on the back was fashioned into a make-shift pouch by folding up the bottom half to hold tightly against my body. Jerry would grab a spider and I’d snap open the pouch as he dropped it in. I could feel their spiky legs poking me in the stomach and managed to hold it together until, all of a sudden, something foreign (which I later discovered to be a loose string) brushed across my upper thigh.

My nerves sent an impulse to my brain that said, “Hey, smarty pants, one of those death spiders is crawling down your leg at this very moment!” I panicked. The pouch was flung open and, as I was hopping around screaming, I batted my arms in a downward fashion hoping to sweep away any persistent spider still clinging to me.

Jerry’s initial disappointment in me didn’t stop him from accomplishing his goal and the tree house in which we used to play soon became an obstacle of horror packed with dozens of spiders watching us with scores of beady, black eyes.

To this day, I still have nightmares about overgrown Golden Orb Weavers coming to get me. Big brother’s mission accomplished.

A new school year brings new challenges

Last week, my family returned to school. I began my last year of the nursing program, my husband is taking more classes towards his degree, my son entered the 5^th grade and my daughter started kindergarten. This makes my house officially “homework central” so please don’t come over unless you want to help fold laundry.

My husband and I exhibited good behavior in our classes, but my son and daughter had a few tricks up their sleeves that were revealed on the fourth day. It appears that most elementary teachers are generous enough to give children a 3 day “free pass” on their actions. This would explain the positive comments in both of their daily reports.

My son is a talker and I was already anticipating that this issue would be addressed before too long. He’s in the HAART program and maintains high grades, but, like his mom, he has a difficult time cutting off the chatter when he’s on a role. Fortunately, minimal time and energy was expelled in the correction of his motor mouth tendencies.

My daughter, otherwise known as the “X” factor, had her own agenda. Her daily reports are based on a color system: green means satisfactory, yellow stands for warning and red represents the implementation of a time out.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all green days, but by Thursday, her cooperation level dropped and she began talking back which earned her a yellow warning. I discussed the importance of respect for one’s elders, but this had little effect because she dipped into the red zone on Friday complete with a phone call to my husband.

We decided a behavior chart would be an appropriate method of addressing both children’s issues so I picked up some cheap toys and put them in a container. Every day there are no teacher complaints, they each get to put a sticker on the chart. Once all five weekdays are filled, they get to choose a toy. Both displayed enthusiasm and excitement over this possibility and eagerly debated on which toy they’d pick first.

This week began well for both, but it would appear that 3 days is just too long to be good. While my son was busy not staying on task, my little girl was given green marks by her teacher, but in aftercare, she had an altercation with another child. Not content to resolve their problems with an adult, my daughter decided that biting was well within reason and left a mark on the other child’s arm.

I’ve never seen such an abundant flow of manufactured tears as I did from this child when I picked her up. She sobbed her way to the car and was sent to her room when we arrived home where she promptly fell asleep. Playing “Jaws” is pretty exhausting work.

When my husband got home and heard the report, he asked her to tell him what happened. Though she can’t normally contain her usual ear-blasting conversation level, she managed to whisper a barely audible translation of events that included a game of tag gone wrong and being bothered by this other child whom I have come to think of as “the victim.”

No rewards this week.

Kindergarten is a big adjustment for some kids. My own memories are hazy at best and involve finger painting and dressing as the letter “U” for parent night. I can only hope this is a phase that will pass. In the meantime, steel mesh uniforms might not be a bad idea.

Mostly honest is better than totally lying

I’ve never been a good liar. In my youth, I tried dishonesty like other teens tried drinking, but my conscience is too tenacious. I have vivid memories of all the lies I’ve ever told because they hang like a sinful weight on my soul; therefore, fear of potential guilt curbs my desire to weave inaccurate tales.

I also don’t like to be untruthful for other reasons. One is that I’d have to remember all the details surrounding my story and another is that my body physically reacts to lying in an undesirable way that involves cold sweats, a flushed face, and the words “I’m a liar” appearing in bright neon across my forehead.

Though I’m not cut out for deceit, there are types of fibbing that don’t bother me at all. For instance, when I waited tables, I’d regularly spout lies to customers concerning the superior flavor of certain menu items. One place I worked was Chili’s which has served their “Awesome Blossom” (a deep-fried onion) for years and almost everyone who tried it loved it. I don’t care for onions nor do I care for dipping sauces that could possibly contain a mayonnaise base. This covers a wide spectrum of non-mayo products including ranch dressing, guacamole, and “Awesome Blossom” dipping sauce.

The only thing worse than misrepresenting my own personal tastes is hearing a server say, “Gosh, I’ve never tried that dish, but to my knowledge no one has been hospitalized after eating it so I guess it’s okay.”

Since I strive to be as honest as a person with customer service employment history can be, it surprises me how easy it is to lie to my own children.

I have inadvertently lied to them, like the time I took my daughter in for shots and told my 5 year old son that he didn’t need any. When the nurse scanned his chart, it was brought to my attention that he required four shots!

He was innocently sitting in the waiting area because he didn’t want to hear his baby sister cry when she got stuck with the needle. I called him into the room and said, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.” He requested to hear the bad news first and I regretfully told him the shot situation. He immediately began tearing up and asked in a shaky voice for the good news.

The problem was that I didn’t have any positive developments to report. I guess I should’ve used a different lead-in; instead, I said, “I’m sorry, son. There really isn’t any good news.”

To this day, I don’t think he has ever forgiven me for those surprise vaccinations.

I have purposely lied when it comes to my kids and food which is par for the course with my restaurant background. For some reason, they never put up much fuss if dinner included chicken so I just started calling meats “beef chicken” and “pork chicken.” We had salmon one night and I told my son it was “river chicken.” Needless to say, that description didn’t help him appreciate salmon at all.

Being mostly honest isn’t always easy. If people ask for my opinion, I try to deliver it without hurting feelings, but that isn’t always possible.  You’ll know that I’m struggling with an answer when I start to look at the sky, attempt to change the subject, or suddenly have bad stomach cramping and have to run to the bathroom.

In order to be my friend, you must understand: if you don’t want to hear it, then don’t make me say it. If you can live with that then we’re sure to get along just fine.

Fashion disaster on public display

“Mom, you aren’t going out dressed like that, are you?”

This was uttered by my son after I snatched the car keys off the kitchen table to drive him to school. He was obviously concerned someone would see me. When I looked down at myself, I saw sleep shorts that had fit much better six months ago and a dumpy tank top that wasn’t supporting anything. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me that my hair was doing something unnatural and disturbing.

“It’s not like I’m getting out of the car! I’ll just drop you off and drive away; no harm, no foul.”

My feeling was that, worst case scenario, one of the safety patrol kids would help my boy with the passenger door and catch a glimpse of such horror they’d have to go wash their eyes out with industrial strength hand soap.

When we got in the car and headed up the street, I saw the glowing, orange idiot light in the shape of a gas station pump: a helpful invention telling oblivious people to fill up soon if they don’t want to get stranded on the side of the highway while they wait for their aggravated husband to come rescue them. The light had come on the previous day and I tried to calculate how much further I could drive before I pushed fate too far.

My mind flashed back to 1990 when my brother, Adam, and I drove to Atlanta for a concert. Adam’s car didn’t have that particular warning light and, in my frantic dash to make up for lost time, I had neglected to catch sight of the indicator needle slipping beneath “E.”

Running out of gas was bad enough, but doing it in front of your younger brother in his car was maddeningly embarrassing.

After leaving my son at school, I decided to drive to the closest gas station and take care of my vehicle’s dehydration status. A truck was getting gassed up so I pulled into a slot where the pump would hide most of my disheveled self. I thanked my good fortune when I slipped on a jacket I’d found in the car then quickly filled ten bucks in the tank before speeding off to the privacy of my home.

You’d think I would have learned a valuable lesson from all this, but (like my friend, Amy) I’m pretty stubborn when it comes to learning lessons.

Last week, my sister agreed to watch my kids while my husband and I went to his 20 year high school reunion “meet-and-greet” at Cowpoke’s Watering Hole. Since I like to take showers in peace (without hearing my kids scream at each other in the background), I figured I’d drive them to Meredith’s house first. Her one stipulation was to pick up pizza.

I threw on some old gym clothes and decided my son was plenty old enough to walk into Little Caesar’s by himself and pay for a couple of their “Hot-N-Ready” pizzas.

Friday at 5:30 in the evening is apparently a popular time to get pizza because he waited for almost 30 minutes before he took possession of them. He walked to the door, and, due to his inexperience in dealing with awkward, flat boxes, tried to open the door with one hand while holding the precious pizzas in the other. The pepperoni didn’t make the transition and ended up face-down on the dirty sidewalk. Lucky for us, the good people of Little Caesar’s handed him a fresh pizza with no questions asked.

Maybe, from now on, I might not leave the house if I’m not presentable to the public, but I wouldn’t put my money on it.

Misadventures in pet sitting

Animal sitting is not cut out for just anyone. There are two qualifications that absolutely must be met: (1) the potential critter sitter must be a wonderful, generous person; and (2) said sitter has no plans to leave town for a while. A third prerequisite is that this person has to be a die-hard lover of animals, but that is more of a guideline than a hard-wired rule.

Seeing as how I fulfilled the first two requirements, I recently got stuck with quadruple animal duties.

First, my friend, Michele, was heading down to the Keys for the 4^th of July weekend and needed my help with her rabbit, Twitch, and teacup pot-bellied pig, Chops. “Teacup” is a relative term when dealing with swine, because this sucker is close to 60 pounds. I gave Chops and Twitch evening feedings at her house because a pig in my backyard was not going to fly with my husband or our dog.

Then, my sister, Meredith, left for a week’s stay in Miami on the Friday before Independence Day. I had to check her mail and make sure her cat didn’t dehydrate or starve. Cats are so easy, really. I’d have a cat myself if I weren’t highly allergic to them.

Lucky for me, her Shepard-mix canine, Haze, was going to enjoy a visit with a friend of Meredith’s who has two other pooches. I was set up as “Plan B” in case Haze didn’t jive with those other dogs. Little did we know the nefarious plot that was being hatched inside the intestinal tract of this mongrel.

Meredith left on a Friday and Haze made it all the way to Wednesday before the nastiness occurred. My belief is that the dog ate something that totally disagreed with her internal constitution, because on Tuesday night, she managed to come down with a case of explosive diarrhea.

Shepard-sized feces is bad enough all on its own, but the fact that Meredith’s friend has white carpet and white furniture just added to it. Haze’s homage to Jackson Pollock was inadvertently tracked from the contamination zone throughout the rest of the house which resulted in a midnight steam cleaning.

Wednesday morning, I picked up Haze, who still looked guilty, and transported her to my own backyard thinking the worst that could happen would be a little extra fertilizer for my dying grass.

Never challenge Fate when it comes to things having the capability of rapid deterioration.

My family loves to cool off in our 12 foot vinyl pool. Apparently, Haze saw our poor pool as a giant chew toy because that is exactly what she did to it on Wednesday evening. She also shredded a water noodle, but we weren’t sentimentally attached to that particular item.

I glared at Haze with murder in my eyes and told her that I hoped she was happy. She cocked her head to the side with that look dogs give when they’re playing dumb. Our own dog acted like she was above that type of juvenile canine shenanigans.

As for Michele’s beasts, Chops has an affinity for using his pool as a toilet and Twitch managed to escape her cage. My kids and I had to corral and catch her which was pretty hard to do considering how out of shape I am. My son found it hysterical watching me lumber around Michele’s backyard.

I finished my critter sitter sentence on Friday morning when I happily placed Haze in my sister’s living room. Haze and the cat were in the midst of an emotional reunion when I locked the dead bolt and drove away. I’m going to try and fill up my schedule a little better next year.

It’s a backyard boy’s life

My sister-in-law, Ali Lomneck, has been having some trouble with loud barking coming from the backyards of two separate neighbors. As one might expect, a canine is responsible for some of the noise, but, surprisingly, a young boy is the source of the other bark.

I found this amusing because it reminded me of my own son barking at our neighbors when we first moved into our house. He was around 4 years old at the time and our neighbors had two sons: one was my son’s age and the other was a few years older. Needless to say, he was never invited over to play at their house.

Of course, neighbors are not what they used to be. I remember knowing everyone on my street as well as the adjoining roads when I was a kid. If I were a paranoid person, I would think that, these days, people must be hiding some secret life behind their bolted doors like drug trafficking or Russian espionage, but I digress.

I had a fear that my son was going to turn into “the weird kid.” The barking was one thing, but he also exhibited an array of other questionable behaviors like shoving Fruit Loops up his nose.

The first sport he played was soccer which, as any soccer parent will tell you, is like watching a cluster of stampeding kids run up and down the field accidentally kicking each other’s shins rather than the soccer ball because they are so closely packed together.

My son was rarely ever running with the pack. Chances were you’d spy him twirling around a goal post or staring up into the sky in search of rainbows and butterflies. If he wasn’t doing that, he was giving his shirt intense quality stretch checks by repeatedly pulling it down over his knees.

This was all very difficult for my husband to tolerate. He would watch helplessly at the abundance of athletic potential being wasted on tomfoolery in the dew-covered grass during those unbearably muggy Saturday mornings.

I thought basketball would be a better fit, but that turned into an outlet for him to demonstrate his love of raw, untrained ballet moves. Any time the ball went out of bounds, he’d scramble over to the referee so he could throw the ball back in the game, but not to his team; instead, he’d catapult the ball over their heads and into the hands of the opposing team.

I should have known he was different when, at around 18 months, I caught him raiding the fridge. He wasn’t looking for cheese or grapes, but did manage to locate a stick of butter and shove it in his mouth before I could wrestle it out of his hands. Why waste time with the bread when all you really want is the spread? Take my word for it: butter is very hard to snatch out of someone’s hands.

My boy is now almost 11 and anxiously awaiting the onset of puberty so he can focus all his attention on girls who are, unfortunately, already seeking his attention. If you ask, he’ll tell you a shockingly long list of “girlfriends” he’s had since the 1^st grade. He’s quite adorable (all bias aside) and is one of the tallest boys in his school, so I suppose it is only natural that the girls have taken notice.

Even though he’s in a hurry to grow up, he still likes to cuddle with his mom, but, at his size, having him plop down on my lap is kind of like having an enthusiastic Labrador jump on my abdomen. I try to tolerate it as long as possible, but I eventually have to breathe. Sometimes, it is worth the lack of oxygen.