Getting my hands dirty while soul searching for the perfect job

A classmate of mine truly opened my eyes tonight. I was commenting on her facebook status discussing our clinicals tomorrow, oh dreaded clinicals be damned. There was an exchange between her and another classmate talking about the clinicals for next semester. They were saying how they weren't looking forward to tomorrow, and I mistook their reasons to be because they hated going to the hospital as much as me. However, I was wrong. I did not have an ally in my hate, rather she felt completely opposite. She said she loved clinicals and going to the hospital, and in fact being there all day didn't bother her at all.

WHAT?!? REALLY?!?

It got me thinking... Maybe my dislike (hate) may have less to do with the fact that I'm a poop-wiping virgin, and more to do with the fact that me and this job are not going to live happily ever after. I'm not giving my all to this degree. I do what I need to and then spend the rest of my time playing or doing anything other than school work. We were told to give something like 45 hours a week to this degree...yeah...that's NOT happening. It's so unlike me to disrespect education like this. I got thinking that maybe my desire to puke every morning prior to labs may not necessarily be related to morning sickness. I think I hate life right now. I'm contemplating taking next semester to finish up the last few classes I need to wrap up my Masters in Public Health. I called my mom after the realization that I didn't care if I have to stay home tomorrow with Giovanna because of her icky cough, which would result in my getting kicked out of the program. Of course I'll be more responsible than that, but it did open my eyes. I told her how much I hated wiping large, elderly butt, and how I dreaded that this would be the rest of my life...FOREVER. She told me she didn't think it was a good match when I first told her I was thinking about traveling down that path. REALLY!! That would have been AWESOME information THREE DIARREHEA-LADEN, FAT, ELDERLY BUTTS AGO!! I'm now picking up my life's lessons and continuing down my neverending path of self-discovery. My thought is, I might as well finish up my masters and get paid to do a job I don't love rather than spend money working towards a degree so at some point I can work a job I hate even more. What a challenge this "being an adult" thing is...

No patients for patience

So...I'm working on my RN degree right now, and I think I hate everything about this experience. I have lab clinicals every Friday, all day. During clinicals, we are assigned a patient and our job is to just generally take care of them. We give them a bath (I hate touching people), change and make their beds (I don't make my beds at home), and then tend to their issues for which they're in the hospital. Of course I can't really discuss the patient, but I can tell you, between my pateint and the roommate, that I spent my whole morning cleaning up elderly person poop and wiping said large fanny, and the amount was astonishing. Can I really do this for THREE MORE SEMESTERS?!? I took a second to consider what other kind of patient I would have preferred. I asked myself, "Hilary, if you could "design" your own patient, what would you want?" I thought about the patients that the other students had. Would I rather change colostomy bags? Perhaps dressing weeping amputations? Maybe I'd rather monitor the urine output of the jaundice patient and his dressings on his pancreatic drain? I was confident answering a resounding no. It all grosses me out. I started to think that maybe I hadn't really had such a bad patient, until I remembered how it felt when I heard, "I made a mess again". Aw man...really?? AGAIN?? You were only clean for 15 minutes. How could one person have that much to eliminate?? Now I'm scarred. Every time I walk through stores where large people are riding on those electrical carts, mostly Wal Mart, I now think, "I'll be wiping your butt in a couple years. For God's sake woman, get up and walk to get your hot dogs, frozen pizzas, and Little Debbies. Have some dignity!" Perhaps I'm not the best candidate for this position. I love the idea of becoming a nurse practitioner, but you have to work a year as a nurse before you can apply to that program, so I'm stuck butt-wiping. I'm hoping to find a good school nurse position in which to gain experience. I can handle little kid puke, lice, and pants-wetters...and summers off! Three more semesters, three more semesters, three more semesters...