May

The semester's over and I have a little time to do less and not be burdened with constant thoughts of "oh, this is great, but I should be studying...". I've worked a few shifts and will work some more. Friday I was on the   PICU, so the fun really started.

I was driving home from my last clinical day at the pediatric clinic and was listening to Fresh Air. You know, Terry Gross on NPR, station WHYY (that was my station in Jersey). She was doing an anniversary show, a "best of" and it was good. Nick Lowe sang his song, "What's so Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding", a song I've always liked, mostly the Elvis Costello version. And I had just read an article the week before -- Nick gave a concert in town, and he did an interview with the Statesman, talked about that song in particular. I think this all happened on the day that our President came out and stated his support for gay marriage. I thought, wow..... not a coincidence. I mean, that's what always, always pops in my head when people make bigoted remarks about the civil rights of the LGBTQ community -- tell me, exactly what's so funny about peace, love and understanding? Because make no mistake, that's what we're talking about here. You can stand behind your book all you want, but I notice you're not doing it for some of the other topics in that book, like trying to bring back stoning. So. Let's reelect this guy, alright?

I got sunflowers and chocolate-dipped strawberries for mother's day. And I got to eat some of them this year, Dani held off until I got home. Ha.

The last 3 weeks of school were hard. I found myself thinking, why does this feel worse than the stress of work? It usually does, I guess I can think of a few work-related times in my life where the stress was higher than school. Is it just all in our heads because it's such a discrete unit of time, a semester? I think that's a big part of it, but it's also the artificiality of test-taking. In the real world, you're tested every day, but it's not something that you can usually go home and cram for in advance. Now, I do expect to be looking things up and consulting others in my off-hours the first year (maybe years), but still. I wonder if nurses that sign time-limited contracts (a lot of travel nurses do that) have a similar experience. And I have to tell ya, I'm a little ticked off. I got an 89.9% in Pharm -- that's right, I squeaked out an A in my pass/fail class.

Nile and I are volunteering at the Austin Animal Center and had our first working shift last week. I picked him up from school and headed over. We were in the cat house. The day before, they were all over the media because the shelter was way past capacity and appealed to the public to please come adopt a pet. They stayed open til almost 10:00 that night, and I heard that over 100 animals were taken from the shelter - at first I was excited, that's a huge number of adoptions, but then read the fine print and about half were foster families. So those animals are coming back. So, if you're reading this and you live in Austin, think about adopting a new pet. They've slashed the prices, all animals over 1 year old are free -- and they come neutered, microchipped and fully vaccinated. Such a deal. That's where we got our sweet Crabby, about one year ago. Here's a link: GetAPetNow

My sister was invited to the White House and was there on May 7th. She's worked at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired almost her entire career, she currently teaches math there. (yes, she really teaches math to blind kids.) She nominated a blind chemist for an award and got to attend the ceremony. Here's a link: STEM Innovators

So here's my interesting experience from work on Friday (details withheld/changed to protect confidentiality). One of my patients was a young woman who's had schizophrenia for about 7 years. She periodically goes off her meds -- she starts feeling normal, starts thinking she doesn't like the side effects (which are significant) and stops with the pills. (I always think of Billy in Six Feet Under, when his relationship started with Claire, and how he started doing the same thing. Throwing his pills in the toilet because...well...he was in love and just felt so good. Who needs drugs?) And of course, the delusions start intensifying, she stops paying attention to things in life like job, friends, eating, etc. and then she's back with us at the hospital. She's a frequent flyer, as we say. Her delusions this time were quite specific -- the weather is causing her schizophrenia, so she was focused on getting all her medical records since diagnosis and getting weather pattern records and carefully correlating them. I asked her -- then what? And I guess that was a mistake, because she absolutely crumpled. She became so tearful, so hopeless, so lucid  -- she suddenly realized the futility, that no matter what she can prove, she'll still have schizophrenia and she's never getting better. That's exactly what she said. I tried to talk to her about getting back on meds, how she'll feel better, things aren't hopeless, but since she's off the meds now, none of that sunk in. And to be honest, she's right. She's not going to get better. Schizophrenia is always a decline. And the meds are horrible. They're better than schizophrenia - but the personal price is terribly, terribly high. Tears ran down her face and I just stood there telling her I was sorry. And she wouldn't take the medication in my hand either. I think we talked for 30 minutes before I gave up and asked Gilbert, the charge nurse, to take over. He was a little more directive (and he's a rather imposing man, that counts for something) and she took the med from him. But I have a lot to learn. And these are my peeps -- the chronic mentally ill. I prefer working with them, because any little bit of help you offer to move an inch forward means so much. So I just hope that a year from now, I feel better equipped to deal with them.