Go You Huskies

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are now my nurse refresher class days. The classes last 4 hours each (with a 10-minute break that stretches to 15 minutes if the Dunkin Donuts in the next building is closed, and we have to walk all the way to the student center to get coffee), from mid-afternoon to early evening. I've had two now.

I like first days of classes. They're so unintimidating. You can't be behind yet. And there's all that time taken up with getting the revised syllabus handed out, and passing around a sheet to write your name and e-mail address on, and going over the list of required and suggested text books. It's all so nice and low-stress. And in this case, we also had to get a little campus tour (at least to see the library and the student center and the office where we could get parking passes) and get our student IDs made.

At this particular institution, they're called "Husky Cards." I'm sure that's some school-spirited reference to valiant sled dogs, but to me the word "husky" conjures only the fat-boy clothes in the Sears catalog. I'm not saying that definition of "husky" is not applicable to me in any way; I'm just saying maybe it would be more polite not to call attention to it on my student ID. When I had my picture taken, though, I was holding my head high to try to prevent double-chin shadows, and also I was trying to look pleasant but not smile so big that my face got all squinchy. The end result was that in my ID photo, I look like one mean mofo, with my chin jutting up and a kind of smug glower on my face. I definitely look like somebody who would take a swing at you, or maybe slash your tires, if you so much as whispered that she might be husky. So I guess it all works out.

There are only seven women in my class. (There was supposed to be an eighth, apparently, but she hasn't shown, so maybe she's thought better of this whole go-back-to-clinical-nursing craziness.) I think that, at 39, I'm probably the youngest by at least a couple years. I also, unsurprisingly, have the least clinical experience of the group. We meet in a classroom that is also the nursing skills lab, so as we sit and listen and take notes, orangey-tan plastic mannequins gape at us from six hospital beds, three on either side.

My favorite classmate so far is Janet. Janet is maybe in her early 40s, and has a way about her that suggests she's a strong person who's been through the wringer. She probably looked like a model not too many years ago, and still has girly long blonde hair. When we went around the room to introduce ourselves and explain a little bit about our background, she alluded to a very difficult divorce around the time she left nursing practice, and a kind of deep weariness passed over her face. During break time, I also heard her talk about her migraines (better now than they were) and an auto accident a while back in which she was injured kind of badly (they still plan to do an MRI of her head to make sure her left-sided headaches aren't trauma-related). But she also has a glow of optimism under the pain and fatigue, and she's friendly with just a little bit of wariness around the edges. I don't know. I like her. I trust her.

My other classmates:
Ellen -- in her early 50s, I'd guess; relaxed, sturdy, no-nonsense, professional, has worked for Head Start as a disability specialist for years
Lynne -- seems kind of sweet and fresh-scrubbed, very pretty face but incredibly dowdy hair and clothes--like an actress cast as a "real person" rural housewife in some slick X Files/West Wing/Veronica Mars TV drama
Lucille -- I'm trying to withhold judgment, but strikes me so far as a kind of negative, pessimistic, passive wet rag. She's in her 50s, I think, and this step has to take some courage, so she must have some spine and spunk in there somewhere. We'll see.
Nancy 1 -- again with the trying to withhold judgment. Strikes me as kind of cavalier and entitled and obnoxious. Doesn't really seem to take nursing seriously. Filipina. Worked as a public health nurse in Manila, but has only worked as a nurse's aide here in the States. May well be cloaking insecurity in brassiness.
Nancy 2 -- seems at first like a bland, shallow jock, but she hasn't said much, so it's really too early to say. She's slim and fit and outdoorsy, worked for years in sales for some medical equipment company that got bought recently and laid off a bunch of people.

Anyway, after all the first-day housekeeping kinds of stuff, we started with a lecture on how health care (and particularly hospital care) has changed in the past 10-20 years. Because of my background, little of it was news to me, but that was fine. Then yesterday we had a dynamic, entertaining lecture on pain control from an outside expert who played her plump-outgoing-Jewish-woman-of-a-certain-age role with effective, if a bit studied, panache. And we went over our homework (some dosage calculations, and some what-tests-are-needed-for-this-patient scenarios), and had a lecture on infection control. So far so good. Nothing to raise my pulse.

Next week, though, is going to be heavy on the scary scary part. Skills lab. Of course, this is mannequins and practice and no expectations, no pressure. I'm also beginning to realize that much like driving (you may recall that I just got my first license a year and a half ago), the skills part of nursing can be broken down into a series of tasks, any one of which can be made quite manageable, and even if you're in a hurry, you're really not doing more than one at once. So you just breathe and focus and think and do what you've been trained to do, and failing that, do what makes sense, and it doesn't actually have to be a big, hairy deal. I'm really starting to think I might not die from this.

Contrary to my expectations, though, I have hit a bit of a snag as far as obtaining scrubs. I happened to speak to Marina, my friend since 1st grade, maid of honor at my wedding, practically a sister, and incidentally nurse-midwife, just before I was going to place my scrubs order. Um, she said, I don't want to throw cold water on anything, but you should probably know that a lot of places are going back to dress codes for nurses. Some places that's one or two specified colors of scrubs (e.g., apricot or sea green), and some places even have nurses going back to whites. So now I have to check with my most likely places of employment to see whether I'll even be able to wear "oregano" or "Caribbean blue" or French Kitty on a pink bicycle before I go ahead and order. Very disappointing. But I suppose there is still hope.