As far as I can remember, I have always been extremely enamored by the enigma of our bodies and the science behind it all. So intrigued I was, that for my twelfth birthday, all I asked for was a PDR (Physicians Desk Reference – but I referred to it as Perfect Doctor Rhonda). Amazingly, I did get it (albeit, a week late since my parent’s actually forgot my birthday that year) and I was so happy that I would spend hours on end geeking myself up reading that damn thing. I would drive my parents crazy (didn’t take much) because I was constantly going around the house diagnosing everybody’s problems. Whether it was dad’s gout, mom’s gallstones, Slinky sis’s missing cerebrum, baby sis’s nocturnal enuresis, or grandma’s tapeworm – I nailed it every single time. I think this pissed everybody off, because by the time they figured out I was right, they had already blown a small flea market’s worth of co-pays to the real doctors.
Nonetheless, I would have really strived to be a real doctor, except for the gore factor. That, and I was having too much fun just doing it as a hobby and annoying people with my self-taught intelligence (to think, people spend/waste hundreds of thousands on med school), that I never really considered it much. I did consider becoming a nurse since I had convinced myself that if I immersed myself in the blood, puke and shit, that I would somehow magically become accustomed to them and therefore they would not bother me in the slightest.
As it turned out, nursing school was somewhat of a breeze for me since I had pretty much taught myself all there was to know about everything I needed to know (I’m good at that - when I want to be). It was all fun and games until it came time for clinicals. That comes later in the schooling and it’s where you actually go and work in the hospital with live patients (hoping to keep them that way). Almost from the get-go I was thrown into the hustle and bustle of the med-surg floor (and so not glamorous). I was expected to administer medications, give injections, change surgical dressings, measure decubitus ulcers, you name any kind of shitty job – it was mine. The whole thing was like a light bulb going on for me ( kind of like the time it looked like the Frisbee was getting bigger and bigger, then it hit me in the face). It’s when the shit hit the fan…quite literally.
Despite passing out during countless surgical procedures (that didn’t go over too well with my instructors BTW), I stuck with the program, determined as hell to beat my squeamishness. I can’t tell you how many times I went in to observe even a simple hernia repair surgery, only to wake up with myself in a gurney with several of my classmates tending to me (as much as I like attention – I didn’t much appreciate ten pairs of eyes staring down at me – at least not in the pallor-as-hell state I was in). One lucky day, I came in and received my patient assignments. I went in to check on my first patient of the morning, and it quickly went to shit from there…
This woman had a new colostomy bag and my job was to assess the area for infection, measure the shit in the bag, and change, if needed (told you it wasn’t glamorous). As soon as I walked in the room, the whole thing just reeked of shit. Shit + more shit = instant nausea and/or vomiting on my part – and this was shit overload. However, I did my best to keep professional (this is where my acting skills really came in handy) and act all nursey. I get over to the lady with the bag (bag lady) and it doesn’t look right. Now this was my first live experience with a shit bag (at least the surgical kind of shit bag), but something in my fantastical brain told me it was NOT supposed to look like a balloon that had been blown up to the exploding point. It was at that point that the patient told me she was extremely uncomfortable and she had been up all night with horrible gas pains. I was afraid to touch the bag because it looked like a bomb that could detonate at the slightest touch, sound, or blink. Un-freaking-fortunately, bag lady didn’t have the same fear, because she reached down and grabbed the bag while she was explaining her discomfort, squeezed and twisted, and before I could back away – the fucker exploded. Let’s just say when a shit bag explodes – it does NOT do so gracefully. It went all over me, her, and even splattered onto the patient in the next bed (who was, thankfully, near-comatose asleep). Shockingly, I didn’t scream, rant, rave, or have a meltdown – I froze. I was afraid to even open my mouth for fear of what venture in (I know - call Ripley). Luckily, almost immediately, my instructor walked in to check on me and got quite the surprise since she almost fell flat on her ass in shit. In the whirlwind that followed, I was led to the HAZMAT shower and changed into fresh scrubs. I, however, could not cleanse the shit from my brain and began my quick descent into getting-the-hell-out-of-nursing-before-I-get-covered-in-shit-again.
Needless to say, I wasn’t cut out for nursing (thank God - for all parties involved), but I do greatly admire those that work in the medical field. After all, we need those people to deal with all of the blood, puke, and shit otherwise we’d all be in a world of hurt (and knee-deep in shit). For now, I’ll just keep saving people co-pays and offering my quack (but most-often undisputed) diagnosis (with a dash of sarcasm, when necessary). If only I could prescribe medication (legally), I’d be in business (at least as something more than a witch doctor…).
