Still enjoying my time off. Just thought you should know.

Random story time!

As a kid (and throughout most of my adolescence) I was in love with Stephen King. Well, not him, exactly - I think he's a little scary - I was in love with his characters. My all-time favorite book is still The Stand. I've read it probably a million times since I was 10ish. I have several versions of the book which seem to crop up in my house every now and then. I think they are getting busy in the bookcase because I can't otherwise figure out how new copies randomly crop up. My favorite character has always been Stu Redman because he is just soooo amazing. I swore that my male children would - of course - bear the first name Stuart. All of them.

Anyway, if you haven't read the book I won't spoil it for you, but basically the initial premise is about a government-engineered superdisease that gets out of control and wipes out most of the population. The bug appears harmless enough with mild cold symptoms at first, escalating into delusion and suffocation, and death within 4 days.

I have always had these elaborate daydreams about what I would do if I was one of the survivors. What kind of crazy fortress I would build myself out in the bush and how I would eke out a perilous existence. That kind of thing.

Part of me has always harbored a teeny tiny paranoia that it could happen for real, that someday a laboratory could lose control of its creation. No, no, don't laugh. I'm absolutely certain that out in the desert somewhere the US government is playing with bacteria as a warfare contingency. And China, and Russia, and the other big players. I'd say Canada, but have you seen our military budget?

Anyway sometimes, when there's a particularly nasty bug going around that everyone seems to get (like now), a little part of my brain slips into that daydream of what if...

No, I don't lie awake wondering about it or listen for a phone tap or anything. No tinfoil hats here. I'm just sayin'!

how absolutely lux being off from school could be. I mean, I've looked forward to (and enjoyed) Christmas break before, but I have never felt SO weightless before. It's like I am 50 lbs lighter. Maybe not in dress size (darn!) but certainly in spirit!

A year ago today I got my acceptance into nursing school and what an incredible journey it's been so far. I was really depressed and felt like garbage for several months at the beginning of this year as my job was on the rocks (and I was subsequently laid off along with 1200 other people) and I hated everything. I was practically climbing the walls in frustration. September was the beacon at the end of that very dark tunnel and nursing school has more or less saved me. I didn't like who I was a year ago. I had no motivation to get out of bed, much less make an effort at achieving something. Life held no mystery and nothing was interesting. It was a "live until I die" feeling. Maybe you've been there. It sucked!

Anyway right now I feel awesome. I'm so excited for so many things! In a few weeks I will find out about my placement (OMG I can't wait) and in my Nursing Practice Foundations class we will start doing real practical stuff - putting all that theory into practice! I'll get to learn baths and transfers and bed-making, and perhaps most interestingly I will get to learn vitals and more medicalish applications after the spring break in February. I'm sure the nurses who read this (or maybe even those nursing students who are further ahead than me) are rolling their eyes at me being excited over bed-making. I'm sure I'll feel the same way after I've done two or ten, but from where I'm standing right now, those are going to be the first concrete experiences of my nurse education. Enough with the theory and models and concepts. Time to get my hands dirty!

Er, preferably not dirty dirty. My level of comfort re: nurse-patient skin-to-skin contact is pretty low. A friend of mine had a testicular examination and the doctor didn't wear gloves. That's a little TOO intimate, in my opinion....

As for previous semester, all of my marks are in and I got A- in all my courses. That puts me on the Dean's list for this semester which is an extremely UNEXPECTED surprise! I don't expect this achievement to last for long. I'll be happy with First Class Standing on my degree (above 3.4 GPA I think).

Of pure bliss.

This might be TMI (warning, very graphic photos of a cervix). I found it amazing to see the changes in the cervix throughout a woman's cycle. Who knew!

I am a 25 year old woman who has never given birth.

My intention with this project was to better understand my cycle and the changes in my cervix throughout the month. As a doula and student midwife, I used this project to help me see how a cervix might look different throughout the cycle in the absence of vaginal infections and to understand speculum exams. You may notice on the right side of some photos, some jagged looking skin, which is the remnants of my hy me nal r ing. [UgRN in: I've broken up this phrase to hopefully help slow/stop the amount of creepy traffic I get from it]   My os (opening to the cervix) is round because I have never given birth; the os becomes more of a slit after childbirth.

Each photo was taken at approx 10:00 pm every day starting the first day of my menstrual cycle. I re-used a plastic speculum and macro function of normal digital camera (and a very talented boyfriend with a headlamp). For the duration of this project, we used condoms as our birth control method so as not to introduce semenal fluid into the photoshoot. I did not use tampons or mooncups during my bleeding time either.

I had heart palpitations yesterday. You wouldn't even have needed a stethoscope. I think the prof could hear my heart beating from the front of the room.

Well, it appears I broke my own rule of 1 post every week. Sorry about that. I've been in a funk the last couple of weeks, wanting the Christmas break to come, exhausted from the work/school treadmill, and freaking out over tests. You know, the usual holiday stuff!