When I was in nursing school I had one of those teachers that you never forget. She was formidable, that's a nice way of saying she was cranky. She also had an odd habit of altering her hair color drastically on any given day. Her formidability prevented anyone from remarking on these non subtle changes. She was likely the only person I'll ever know who could come into a room with two feet (very long) of magenta hair, when the day before she'd been golden blonde and have absolutely no one say a word about this alteration. She went noticeably unnoticed. She had other physical attributes that were also the sort no one mentioned, size being one of them, lets say, "not small" and "not tall". For whatever reason she and I hit it off. Well, I know the reason. One time at a slum-like hospital, while we students sat in conference with post clinical rotation, I defended her honor right in front of her to an ex-marine, now fellow nursing student. He challenged her endlessly and took up valuable time just to annoy her and since she was already perpetually in a state of annoyance, this all just seemed like a big waste of my precious time. I remember being so tired that I said, "Why don't you just shut the *x^* up?" to this argumentative classmate and to my surprise he did. She later scolded me for inserting myself into that situation, but it was clear a bond was formed and as so often is the case, when someone is extra cantankerous for no reason, they can become quite the opposite when given just a little reason. I sure do love becoming a favorite. Teacher's pet suits me. But being her pet meant being a shining star in class and being the guinea pig at times as well.
I can be a jokester. I loved clowning around and entertaining my fellow classmates. It helps lighten the burden greatly when you are dealing with illness, death, stress and pulling 10 to 12 hour shifts as a novice nurse, doing the worst sort of medical chores for free.
In my last semester of nursing school, I was working nights in an ER. This same instructor was my clinical mentor. She seemed to be focussed so intensely on me at that time, I found myself hiding from her every chance I got. Her scrutiny was great and her attention left me shaky one too many times. She'd begun to comment on everything I did, she seemed intent on changing me and my jocular manner, kind of like she changed her hair color. She wanted me caustic and straight laced like she was, or so it felt to me. Wasn't going to happen. I loved being warm and involved with patients and I loved making my colleagues laugh. It was the best part of that job and nursing is a job with a lot of best parts.
So... on one of my last nights in the ER, a twenty-something year old guy came in after having welded for hours without the proper head gear, no goggles. His burned retinas and blood shot eyes were swollen, bruised and almost impossible for me to look at and not feel ill. Such an uncomfortable situation. His pain was enormous and my experience was nil. An ER doctor had us sedate him a bit, dull his awareness and then it was up to me to systematically flush and rinse his eyes while injecting small needles of antibiotics and numbing solutions to the soft tissue surrounding his eye socket. Talk about the last thing I wanted to learn how to do by experience alone.
Two other nursing students came for support and to learn from my hopefully few mistakes. This young patient's lovely mother arrived in time to hold his hand while I began the procedure. We sectioned off the area where he lay, pulled closed the curtain and just before I began, his mother said something so sweet to him, she said, "Son, if you could only see that you have three beautiful, young nurses here to take care of you, you'd be so happy." I might have held my tongue, but if I had, I wouldn't have been me and so I spoke, perhaps too soon and added to this mother's darling commentary, "Yea, and we're all naked". I said this in a near whisper, soft and sultry, but filled with mild humor. He laughed, we laughed and I somehow made it through the daunting chore of sticking needles in his eyes and then squirting copious amounts of saline into huge, aching, puffed out, pool-ball sized sockets.
I finished up and brushed hair across his forehead, patted his mother's shoulder, made some comment as to how he'd be just fine, which I was not at all sure he would be, then turned round to see my not small, not tall, then brunette instructor glaring at me. She waved me out of the tiny booth were my patient lay finally resting after all he'd been through and with my two companion students she repeated the line she'd apparently been present for, un-be-nounced to me, "We're all naked?'
I'm sure I fidgeted, positive I squirmed, searching for some sort of explanation. None came. I believe I shrugged, then I recall how she pinched me and walked away shaking her head.
I love that teacher and I mean it. I swear I do; cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.
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