Friday, October 05, 2007

Me...Now In Cupcake


I went from Student Nurse to Busy Mom this summer and I forgot all about this place. And so have you. But I'm back now and I have my student nurse cap on though nurses stopped wearing caps a few decades ago because they were found to be reservoirs of disease and, well, ridiculous looking.

School started again last week in a flurry of syllabi printing and several phone conversations with friends entitled What is Conservative Street-Wear Anyways? See, I'm doing my psych rotation now and we don't wear our marshmallow-colored scrubs for that. We wear "conservative street clothes". I figured it was kind of casual Fridays but with more comfortable (albeit closed-toe shoes). Nothing low cut, nothing with logos. If you lift up your arms and bend over and any midriff is showing: you're outta here. We're told, "Don't do anything that makes you stand out." and "Don't show any weakness." and "Be just scared enough." and "Don't touch anyone."

So, how can you tell the patients from the staff? The patients are wearing socks and the staff wears jeans and t-shirts. Except for us students. We're wearing button up shirts and flat shoes. "Wear shoes that you can run in." And I'm on the wing with adolescent girls. Most of them have eating disorders and that made me show weakness and want to touch shoulders and the one time on my first day I forgot and touched an arm gently the tiny gal cringed and looked scared. I think I was put with the adolescent girls because I was one of the only students in our group to raise my hand when the instructor asked "Is anyone scared?" But it's scary to hear "I'm huge...I'm soooooo fat." from someone who barely makes 90 pounds. But, funny thing, maybe I could be a psych nurse. I'll let you know next week, ok?

That picture is of me in cupcake form. My sister concocted a cupcake competition between myself, herself and my mom for my birthday this summer and those are my sister's cupcakes.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh - that is so interesting! wow, can't wait to hear more about it. I think I would want to work with the eating disorders b/c I can somewhat relate. I think. Did you ever read Second Star To The Right when you were little? I read that book over and over.

-Katherine

Molly said...

I didn't read that book. I'll check it out.

Anonymous said...

I AM going to be a psych nurse...the stories are so much more interesting than....