Raenielyn

I’ve just been alerted to the news that one of my favorite authors has died.

Janwillem van de Wetering, R.I.P.

It is a sad day, indeed.

Read the news here

And here is my last assignment for the week. This is my Lord Jim set.

Here is my second sculpture for my class. It is made using only a chopstick and the paper wrapper they come in. It is a tribute to the hornet nests that I dig out of my wind chimes with a chopstick, then crush under my feet.

And here are Jordan and Testface, enjoying our deck.

I just awoke from a nap where I dreamt that I was with my parents on the cliffs of Palos Verdes drinking beer and hiking. We were watching people in diving suits sitting in hovercraft and surfers and these crazy leisure boats in a square steel frame that fly and you could land in the water with them. An orca appeared on the scene and ma and I watched it attack one of the hovercrafts. The diver got away from the grips of the whale’s jaws just as another orca showed up. They both chased the hovercraft away into the sunset. In my dream I was thinking that the bright colors of the divers’ suits and tanks and the hovercrafts were a truly temptiing invitation to killer whales. The surfers were just surfing and the recreational boatplane people were having a lot of fun. My pa was explaining to me exactly how all of these things work. I woke up very upset that I had forgotten to display my brightly-colored snake-shaped cartoon dragon stuffed animal on my parents’ bed when they were here visiting. I don’t have a brightly-colored snake-shaped cartoon dragon stuffed animal, but I wish I did. I would coil it at the foot of the guest bed in the record room.

I had my first intro to sculpture class today, and my first assignment. We were each given a matchbox and told to free associate on paper beginning with the word ‘matchbox’. I ended up with this free association: matchbox, match, fire, death, tissue, cells, virus, HIV. Here is my sculpture using one matchbox and some matches depicting an HIV virus invading and destroying a T-cell:

I think I used too much tacky glue!

I started my co-op gig today at Oregon SurgiCenter. It is an ambulatory surgery office in Springfield where we perform such procedures as cystoscopy:

where it is my job to set up the cystoscope and other equipment, insert a soft-tipped syringe filled with lidocaine gel into the urethra and inject, and help the doctor with the imaging equipment (focus, etc.). It’s intense. This is done to view the bladder and urethra in search of polyps and neoplasms. 

Another procedure we do is prostate ultrasound/biopsy:

In this procedure, a biopsy gun is inserted into the man’s rectum. Then lidocaine is injected into the rectal wall and then the prostate gland. Then an alligator forceps obturator is inserted into the instrument and through the rectal wall into the prostate, about 12 samples of prostate tissue are taken and sent to the lab for evaluation. It is not a pleasant experience for the men, but they seem to tolerate it pretty well. The ultrasound pics are amazing. Lots of lidocaine and allowing it time to work it’s magic is key.

Yesterday was my first day. I think they like me there. My supervisor kept introducing me to the doctors as “a student with a pulse”.

I’ll keep posting my experiences in ambulatory surgery over the summer. If it grosses you out, you don’t have to read them, I will understand!

I graduated.

Well, I join the ranks not of nursing students, but of highly qualified applicants to this particular associate degree program that does not have the funding to expand in order to accept all of us.

I am of course, heartbroken and feeling rejected, but there are other careers I can pursue in healthcare that will have allow me the direct patient care that I love and pay well. It is not uncommon for students to apply several years in a row before they get in, but I don’t plan to do that. It’s too much and the future careers of nurses is only going to more stressful as those baby-boomers become geriatric and need more healthcare while the industry is doubtful to rise to the task of hiring enough nurses to keep the nurse/patient ratio safe. In other words, RNs are likely going to see a lot more patients die unnecessarily and in the interest of the hospitals saving money on wages.

I plan to work as a CMA (AAMA). I will be certified in October. I have some jobs prospects in the works already and I enjoy the work a lot, it just doesn’t pay that well.

I also have a lot of support from the MDs and NPs I work with now, which makes me feel validated in my abilities.

In the meantime I will be researching an education in Public Health or imaging careers.

Thanks for all of the support and love.

Currently, I on Donna Hayden’s couch watching Patty Joe watching Meet the Press. We arrived in New Jersey Thursday night. I was high as a kite on 15mg of Diazepam I had taken to calm the anxiety caused by my twitching sciatica. It was awesome. The flight would have been doable on 5mg, but the baby behind us cried loudly every 15 minutes.

Friday we hung out at the house and then had an early dinner with Patrick Grandfolks. Saturday, we got up early and drove 2 hours to Long Beach Island, where PJs Dad has a vacation home. We hung out with aunts and and friends of the family. It was a lot of fun, but a very long day of sitting and eating. I went for several short walks, which were really nice. Today, we got up and drove into the city (New York) to see the Whitney Biennial. I am still digesting it all, but there were some really amazing video installations. I think my favorite stuff was the Robert Mapplethorpe Polaroids, which weren’t part of the biennial, but available for viewing anyway. Apparently there is a book of this collection which I must own.

We’ll fly home tomorrow, where it’s more school and anxious awaiting off news about my acceptance into the nursing program. If I get in, I will treat myself to Mapplethorpe’s book.