Another day at M

Today, I ate breakfast with a bunch of people from Indiana. Then I took an extremely boring computer class. I wandered around a huge cafeteria for a while trying to figure out how to get and pay for the food I wanted. Here at M, there are separate cafeterias for patients/visitors and employees. Today, I found out that there are 30,000 employees here. That's more people than live in my home town and my college town combined.

In the afternoon, we toured the whole facility. Two separate huge campuses separated by several blocks. There's something people call a "subway" system underneath the buildings on each campus here, but the only thing subway about it is that it's underground. It looks like an airport, really, with long corridors decorated with extravagant art and architecture and specialty shops and food places all along the hallways on either side. Here at M, you can get and do almost anything you would need. There's a post office, a credit union, a barber/beauty shop, all kinds of clothing/gift shops, education centers, and libraries up to wazoo. Today, our nursing educator specialist told us that when she was in this program, she called her mom to tell her, "They have the world's largest nursing library here." I don't think I'll be calling my mom about that particular piece of information; each to their own.

I toured with the seven girls that are located on our sister units and the other two girls who are on my unit with me. We're referred to as "heme-onk, BMT", and I think it's fitting that this town has Canadian geese everywhere we look. "heme-onk" sounds like a sound one of them might make. Out of the 140 student nurses here, I have heard that thirteen are boys, and there are none on my unit. One of the patients - we'll call him grampa - in a waiting room of one of the units saw us all walking past on our tour. He made some grunting noises and then said something like, "Well, I thought I was on 'Deal or No Deal' for a minute." I did kind of feel like I was on the bachelor or something with all of these twenty-something girls dressed up with heels. I wore tennis shoes with my dress pants today, because I'm cool like that.

One of the girls in from Georgia kept taking pictures of everything. She said, "Yes, I'm going to be obnoxious like this all sumer long." After someone said, "That's why you have a memory," she pointed to her camera and said, "This is my memory," and then added in her very Georgia accent, "Mih who' fayemlee's gotta saee this." She says she's going to post them on Facebook, so I'll put them on here once I get them.

Today, I learned that this hospital was founded by the sisters of St. Francis of Assissi. I just read about him in A-town when I went to the library last week. The book talked about his early 1800's, I think, pre-conversion, extravagant life living like a rich guy, though his family was poor. Somehow, he had a lot of money and was intent on becoming a knight. He partied a lot and was always ridiculously generous to all of his money-wasting friends. Then, some point along the way, he asked a beggar to switch clothes with him and just stayed as a beggar - choosing to be poor, though he had been living an extravagant life. I don't know what happened after that, but it must have been significant, because he became a saint, and the people at M closely associate themselves with his lifestyle and values.

There is art on the ceiling in the children's hospital. One scene depicted a painted, blue pond with sculptures of duck and hippo legs hanging down. When a little one who is sick in bed is wheeled down the hallway, she sees this colorful curious-looking pond scene.

There is a bell in the waiting area of the radiation therapy clinic that patients ring to signify that they have just completed their radiation treatment series. Our nursing educator specialist said that someone had rung it so hard the day before that it fell off the wall and had to be remounted.
Things I have learned by default:
"Atrium" means there's glass windows somewhere.
When you want a panini for lunch, you have "go out there and through that other door."
There are beautiful, random grand pianos everywhere, and they are not off limits.
"Cold" is relative to where you grew up. So is "big".
There is no shortage of goosebump inducing sights or experiences here.

More later. Time to go out on the town.

Today was my first day at B. "Welcome to B," everyone kept saying over and over today. Sometimes it gave me goosebumps the way they said it.

It feels like it was actually a couple of days; we took in so much information and saw a lot of new sites. It's going to take a couple of days to get oriented, I think. There are a lot of firsts for me here. We'll take the city bus to and from work each day.

We've been treated like queens so far. People treat us as though we're something special and talk about the great opportunity we have to learn in a setting which strives to provide "the best nursing care in the world".

Today, the man who welcomed us read one of the applicants' essays about why we want to be at B. I could have sworn it was mine, and I think my face was getting red, but at the end of the story, it was revealed that it was his own essay from a number of years ago. Many of the people in charge of our orientation process have been in the program I'm in, and chose to stay with B through their years. He kept saying during his speech, "You were meant to be here."

I found out today that 140 applicants were chosen of 600. The chosen ones are from all over the United States here. It's kind of exciting to meet so many new people. I feel like I'm at a state sports competition with the way we've been treated and all the hype about us being so extraordinary.

I learned today that my unit for this summer is hematology/oncology, aka: "heme-onk", and BMT which stands for blood and marrow transplant (not bone marrow transplant like I thought). It's an overflow unit, so instead of only seeing oncology patients or hematology patients or BMT patients (each of those are considered our "sister units"), I get to see all three during my shifts. I was told that 60% will be hematology patients, 20% onc, 20% BMT.

We have quite a few people over us this summer, a nursing manager (who oversees all of the nursing goings about on the unit), a nursing educator specialist, and a clinical coach (under whom we will work directly during all patient-cares). I haven't met my clinical coach yet, but the other two people are nurses with whom I felt very comfortable. They were approachable and knowledgeable. I feel very relieved! I think that when things come up this summer that I need help with, I'll be able to address these people confidently and comfortably. My nursing manager played on a volleyball team with Miss Volleyball from my home town. Small world.

There are two girls in the same boat that I am on my unit. One is from Boston. She's going to school in DC at the Catholic School of America. The other grew up in Montana on a ranch "with cows, horses, sheep... all that jazz". Pretty opposite posts in the world. The one from Montana kept on saying, "Oh! I didn't know it would be this big of a deal. Wow. This is really big. Wow. This is really nice," all day long. It was funny to me. She also said that she applied for the position because that's what everyone else was doing, and didn't really know what was going on when she got accepted. I kept thinking, "You're in for a ride." She's small and blond and reminded me a lot of a girl I know from Maryland. Every time the girl from Boston was asked a question, it sounded like she was reading off her resume or answering a question for a beauty pageant about world peace. When asked about her hobbies, I think she said, "My involvement in the campus ministries at my school is a very important part of my life." She's very tall and red-headed and has a kind of loud presence about her. She was dressed like a city girl. I love this taste of diversity.

I'm pretty excited to be part of something that is so much bigger than myself. It's been easy lately to get wrapped up in the all of the things in my daily life and I feel like this is a chance to get out of myself. I feel small, and really big at the same time. Small compared to what's going on here - just a tiny piece of the B world. 6500 people on nursing staff, I think they said today. Big - I feel like a little bit of a big deal with the way they are treating us. It seems as though it's really just such a prestigious place that the people on the top serve the people on the bottom (me).

The people on our unit, especially our nursing manager, seemed extremely excited for us to come on board. She said that our arrival signifies the beginning of summer for them. She also said that all of the staff really feed off of our excitement and enthusiasm - that our arrival is a breath of fresh air for all of the employees.

Wow.

Really?

I haven't seen all of the facilities yet. But all of the ones I have seen are gorgeous. There is beautiful artwork and architecture everywhere. There are grand pianos just sitting around, and people just play them at any random time. I played one today while waiting for my roommate to finish her orientation process. It was a beautiful piano, and it was really nice to sit down and play in this huge hall.

Anyways, like I said, this is a pretty sweet deal - away from my normal life. Bigger than normal life. Bigger than feeling so sad about certain life situations. This is something outside of my personal life, and it's refreshing.

Our living arrangements are really great. the furnishings are nice, and a lot of people have said that they've just done some remodeling. Out by the dumpster, there's about twenty couches and other pieces of old-looking, shoddy furniture. Ours look very new and cozy and comfortable. I just got all of my stuff settled into my room tonight, and it's pretty much perfect. Just right for ten weeks of living.