Revenge of the Turkey

It's almost thanksgiving... I wanna be a nurse already and then I wanna GO HOME!!!! (and I want my mommy)

cry me a river

I'm watching the patients on the adolescent psych ward and I'm thinking: these kids are amazing. I don't know what it is, but I feel so entranced just sitting there watching them interact. Aren't adolescents the ones who are rebellious, have identity crises, mood swings, all that stuff...? I look at these kids and I see them as being so free. They don't seem self conscious. To me they look care free. I envy them! What's going on here? Why are they all trying to kill themselves? I want to grab them and make them see what I see. Why do all of the girls on the unit cut themselves? Their arms, their NECKS?? I don't get it but they aaaaaall do it and they are always girls.

Aside from the suicide attempts and self-mutilation (you gotta draw the line somewhere...) how much of this stuff is mental illness and how much of it is part of being a teenager? These kids are put on a LOT of medication, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing because why should people suffer if they don't need to, but what the heck is going on here?

The boys are mostly dealing with anger or autism or behavioral issues. There were only 2 boys on the unit today out of probably 15 kids. My favorite quote of the day came from one of them though: (addressing the female patients) "I can read your minds and I know that you all want to have sex with me."

Adolescent Psychiatry

Why do some people have kids only to ruin their lives? I've always wondered this, but now I'm REALLY starting to see what can happen when parenting goes terribly wrong. I shouldn't put all the blaim on the parents though, things can happen to kids that are completely out of parent's hands. Maybe it's just asshole adults in general... or even other kids (both of whom were probably also screwed over by other adults or other kids -this is getting a little convoluted, but you see the vicious cycle being painted here).

Last month in Pediatrics I was witness to how a child's physical health can deteriorate because of neglect, now I'm seeing how their minds can be destroyed. In the words of the co-assigned nurse I worked with this week on the adolescent psychiatric unit, abuse is pretty much a prerequisite for many of the disorders institutionalized kids are dealing with. I wonder how many of them are able to get better or at least become functional and happy. It makes me really sad and angry that kids have to deal with the kinds of stuff I've seen so far on this rotation.

Psychiatric Nursing Rotation...

...starts tomorrow at 7am. Would it be weird if I wore my hair like this?

Another rotation bites the dust...

Wednesday is the last day of my Pediatrics clinical rotation. It's been challenging working with little kids and babies, trying to get them to cooperate, subjecting them to painful procedures...

While I at least got used to seeing kids in the hospital setting pretty fast, last week, working with a 5 week old baby with a really serious heart condition almost got the best of me. Learning about all of the things that can go wrong with our bodies really made me wonder how any of us manage to be born healthy. It's literally a miracle.

I really hate the fact that I'm never going to find out what happened to that little baby.