I'll see you in the ICU!

This semester (so far)

I'm doing my last two rotations this semester; psych and peds.
I wasn't looking forward to psych, but it's turning out to be interesting. I can see that it's going to be difficult to get an A in this class, however. There are two tests, each 50 questions, and she's likely to ask us about drug interactions or toxicity side effects and to distinguish these from mental health symptoms themselves. Many of the drugs cause symptoms that mimic other mental illnesses, so while you think to yourself "did I misdiagnose? or is this a side effect of the drug they're on?" the test is over.

As always, in a 5 week class, I'm happy to pass.

I spoke to the associate director of the school to which I would like to transfer, and he seemed really nice, very smart, and had some good suggestions. However, he asked me for my resume and portfolio, and while I have the impressive resume/portfolio for architecture, you can imagine it's too soon to have anything worth showing in the nursing realm. I'm scared to death.

Everyone here is particularly burned out, and ready to head back to California. Another anesthesia student is being very quiet about questions regarding transfer. She's also thinking she wants to not come back for the master's portion.

The weather here has been odd: warm then cold, then it warms up to rain, then it's so cold I can't stand it. I guess El Niño is wreaking havoc all across the USA and though I know it's bad for the environment, an indication of global warming and so on, I am somewhat glad that the winter hasn't been too severe.

This is a long weekend, which is great. I wanted to go check out this great trio play in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn (Stephane Wrembel trio) but it's going to be raining; depending on how bad the weather is, and how antsy I get, I may go check them out; they're there every sunday night, so I could always go later when the weather dries up.

I wish I had more to say. I am hesitant to write about my neice/father incident. Most of you know because I'm very open about it, that my father was an abusive alcoholic. So, I've managed to rid him from my life and move on, but being connected to my neice, herself a recovering substance abuser, was opening the door to this man again, repeatedly, via her myspace blog entries.

For the last few months, especially since she moved out, her connection to him has grown in such a way that seems like idolatry. It's one thing to say he's forgiven for the way he abused my mother, but there was delusion in her perception of what kind of man this truely is. I finally couldn't take it anymore and have had to delete her off my myspace account in a self-preserving move. I can't have him back in my life intrusively like this, at a time when my mental focus needs to be on school. There he was, over and over again. I couldn't take it.

Of course, the exchange with my neice was not what I wanted, but if I have to sever the relationship with her, because she's not aware of how it hurts me, then I'm sad to say it has to be that way. Her words were cutting in that she accused me of not ever doing anything for her, despite the fact that I let her come live with me, and gave her my mom's Jeep Cherokee, which I had intentions of selling. According to her, this wasn't any real, meaningful thing, because those things weren't mine to begin with.

So. How do you deal with someone who has to create their own reality of situations? My response right now is distance; to protect myself.

Whatever it becomes later on is up to her.
With the understanding that I can't have her hold the door open for my father to come back and hurt me any more than he's already done. I've worked very hard on overcoming a lot of the damage. And I can't backslide now, during this very demanding year.

So, for now.
I am working hard this weekend to read several chapters and dictating notes, and so on. Not sure if I'll go downtown or to brooklyn at all this weekend. I'll post stories and pics of most of my excursions if they're interesting, anyway, if I do :)

I miss you all and hope you are all having a wonderful year!
Lisa

posted by sketchmonkey @ 9:52 AM