I used to live in a desert...

....I'm not saying I miss it; I'm just saying the humidity might kill me. That or the cockroaches; I have no idea how Disney managed to make the cockroach in Wall-E endearing because those things are disgusting. I saw one for the first time this last week...it was in the shower with me; there was a lot of screaming, a little cussing, and a ridiculous amount of pep talk required every time I've showered since. I keep on trying to tell myself that I've survived gross bugs before, I can do it again. Luckily I have yet to see any since my shower buddy; I've rigged my room with traps and poisons so hopefully that keeps them away.

Speaking of things that freak me out, if you know me you probably know I don't handle blood very well. It's one of the reasons I chose to do nutrition in the hospital instead something a little more hands on. Well I had experience this last week that convinced me that I could in fact live out my Grey's Anatomy fantasy and possibly one day become a doctor. This last week I had to give a patient an education in the cardiothoracic ICU. First off, the ICU is a little intimidating. The patients are obviously more advanced so I haven't had a lot of experience working with them yet, alarms are constantly going off, you can see right into the rooms that often have very sick patients in them, IV's and tubes are coming and going from everywhere, and I feel like all the doctors are staring and wondering what I'm doing there (I don't blame them, I'm sure I look a little lost). So I was wondering around the ICU trying to find the patient I was supposed to teach (and of course the rooms are numbered differently in the ICU than the rest of the hospital) trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, when I realize that the doctors around the patient directly in front of me are completely gowned up, elbow deep in blood, with their hands in a man's chest. Apparently something had happened and they couldn't get the patient to the OR in time, so they made do with his room in the ICU. I had to check in with myself a couple times, but I didn't faint or even get too queasy; after the initial shock wore off I realized that I mostly just curious. For a little while I was pretty convinced that it was sign that I was meant to be a surgeon. I quickly changed my mind when a couple of days later I was sitting at a computer in the ICU typing a note and the smell of burning flesh wafted out from one of the rooms that had the curtain closed. I held my breath, walked quickly out into the hallways and decided that I'm completely okay the fact that I will probably never be a doctor.