I had to put my finger up someone's butt

It was awkward. But she wanted it. So I did it.

She was 75, and fixated on the fact that she hadn't had a BM 2 days after surgery. That's completely normal, but try telling her that. No. Seriously. Try. Because she couldn't hear me. She kept telling me she wanted an enema. Well, the only other laxative prescribed, other than the docusate, senna, and milk of magnesia, was a suppository. So that's what we gave her. I lubed it up, and shoved it on in. Just so you know, you go up and over to the left.

She had a BM a little later, but wasn't happy with it.

I felt like smacking her.

I officially hate med-surg paperwork

I do, however, love cute little 90-something year old men who say 'hurry . . . hurry!' when the nurse is helping him to the bathroom.

He was adorable.

I do not, as it turns out, like having a patient ask me if I want to spoon.

Find a Happy Place

Well, the day finally came. The day of swabbing. I cannot tell you how awful it was to hear my professor describe what we would be doing today. It all started out so innocent. The throat, the nose, some inanimate object, and then...the anal swab. So, here's how it went down. She tells us about the different swabs and the different broths they have to go into to incubate, and she describes what needs to be done for each swab. She tells us how to swab the throat, the nose, the inanimate object...and then she tells us that we'll want to go somewhere private for the anal swab. Really? Really? We'll want to go somewhere private for that? And I loved that she made it sound like it could be anywhere. Like we weren't all going to make a beeline for the bathroom. She also kept telling us that there didn't need to be any penetration, that there was plenty of bacteria in the area around the anus. Fantastic. That's just wonderful. And so reassuring. So, two of the other girls at my table and I decide to do the anal swab first and just get it over with. We grab a tube of broth, the swab and head to bathroom. We swab in silence and go back to the lab room. We put our tubes of broth in the incubator and continue on with our swabbing experiment. We were almost done with the experiment when one of my lab partners realizes that we used the wrong broth for the anal swab. ARE.YOU.FRICKIN'.KIDDING.ME!!!!! So, we grabbed the correct broth, another sterile (for now) swab and head back to the bathroom. I must say, it was faster the second time around. I've also never felt so violated in my entire 27 years, and the sad thing is that I did it to myself.

Just a little. In my mouth.

Okay. So, right now in Anatomy and Physiology we're studying the heart and blood vessels. We have these things called practicals, where we have to answer ten questions concerning a model that is pinned. Things like, 'What is this structure?'. Last Thursday, we had one on the heart. A pig's heart. A real, dead heart. In order to prepare properly, some of us went to the study lab to look at the real, dead pig heart they keep in there. Well, this real, dead heart has gone beyond dead and has become jerky. This thing is so dried out the pulmonary trunk and aorta are ripping and the cardiac muscle is looking like shredded pork. As a rule, it's always a good idea to use gloves when handling things that have been pickled in formaldehyde. Safety first. Apparently, this does not apply to one particular man in my class. He's...different. My lab partner and I are about to leave and I happen to look over, and there he is. Handling the heart WITHOUT GLOVES. I threw up. Just a little, in my mouth. My lab partner and I were so grossed out. And then, not a minute later that guy came out of the lab too. There was not enough time to put the heart away and wash his hands. I'm pretty sure he didn't wash. He doesn't strike me as the type concerned with such trivial things, such as personal hygiene. To cap off the evening, he didn't wear gloves during the practical. He fondled that fresh, real, dead pig heart with his bare hands. At least after he was done he washed his hands. I saw him. With my own bugged out eyes.