Hello?

Man, whoever's blog this is should REALLY update. Ah. Right. So today was Thanksgiving. What am I thankful for? Today it was a little hard to remember. I was at home all day, alone. I'd texted friends but they were all busy with family and their significant others, so it was just me, homework, a little TV, and my knitting. I watched a bunch of Extreme Home Makeover. That show is written specifically to be as emotionally heartwrenching as possible, and I'm a giant sucker. It got me thinking about nursing, though. I'm currently doing a rotation on a surgical ward. There are lots of bariatric patients, and lots and lots of them have colostomies. Now, I have NO issue with blood. I think guts are pretty cool. But when it comes to mucus, vomit and poop... oh wow. That's gross. Ostomies are clinically fascinating to me - you can take the intestines and literally just have them end sticking out of your belly instead of continuing all the way down to your butt!! How fascinating! However... I don't like poop. But then again, if *I* don't like it, can you imagine what a massive thing it would be to deal with that sort of life change! Anyway, I'm enjoying this placement for the most part, even if I won't be looking for a job in exactly this area. However, I've been putting more and more thought into where I DO want to work. The people who got helped today on the show really got me thinking. One family had fostered lots of kids with special needs and adopted a few of them. Watching that filled me with revulsion at the idea of working peds. The idea of watching little kids with diseases or deformities that would end their life early horrifies me. Even the idea of kids having to fight and succeeding devastates me. I really don't think I could do that!! The same thing happened in my first placement when I watched an elderly patient of mine get sicker because there wasn't the time to give her the individual care she needed. She deteriorated to the point she wasn't able to go back to her home, and I don't know what happened to her in the end, as she was still at the hospital when my placement ended. That broke my heart. The next family they helped was this amazing couple who had also adopted special needs kids from orphanages in China. Then the dad found out he had brain cancer. He fought it, but his desperate wish was that his family could have a good house that wasn't falling down around them, so they'd be taken care of when he was gone. The show came and built an amazing house, and 3 days after the reveal, the dad died. They said he lost his battle, but I think he won - he knew he had to hang in there until he was sure his family was ok, and he did. And you know what? THAT episode made me feel completely the opposite. I want to try to work in palliative care. It's weird - I can't handle kids and old people getting sicker, but I want to be there to help someone die with dignity and in as much comfort as is reasonable. I am worried about nursing the whole family, as your patient goes way beyond the person in the bed, and I'm not always very good with people, but there is something about that situation that makes me want to run towards it instead of shy away. Thing is, I still have a passion for harm reduction, and some of the things that follow it. I'm immensely interested in all the fantastic things a needle exchange, and better yet, a safe injection site, could do for society. I'm interested in addictions to a lesser extent, too, and homelessness, and street nursing. Can I put those together? I am leaning towards trying to get a palliative position for my final senior placement, but I really don't want to lose that other stuff. I have a feeling that I'm going to end up working with a lot of people that the rest of normal society doesn't really want to have a lot to do with. And I like that.