I Found It In The Kitchen

Gross.

I got home from spring break Wednesday night, in the dark, and had to walk into my house all alone. I walked into every room with a broom making tons of noise, even looked under my bed, but saw nothing. The last room I went into was the kitchen, and as I turned my head to look at the floor, I saw a little rat butt poking out from under the cabinets... my cabinets actually... and I sucked wind. I found it odd that the mouse was still in the middle of the kitchen after I had been making so much noise with the broom, so I walked to the other doorway of the kitchen and looked in from a safe distance. There it was, grossing me out. So, I called home, and Matt picked up. I think he loved that he picked up the phone and got to hear me in such a panicked state. Here's our conversation:

"The rat's in our house!"
"What?"
"Eeeeh, is Mom or Dad there?"
"Hahaa No."
"Ewww it's in our kitchen."
"Ok...Heehe haha!"
"It isn't funny I almost walked on top of it!"
"Yeah? And how does that make you feel?"
"uuuhhh, ewww! ok..."
"April, talk to me"
"I'm all sweaty and my armpits are itching, that's how it makes me feel."
"Ha haaa! Are you looking at it right now?"
"No I walked away. EEEh. Ok. You get to play this for everyone because I'm sure it's being recorded."
"It is. Ha."
"Alright, I'm gonna hang up now and call Dad."
"Alright, one second though, Dad's at work. Ummm another question, do you have a crush on anyone?"
"Do I have a crush on anyone.... haha, no."
"Hahaha."
"Eew I'm so creeped out Matt I have to go, I have to call Dad."
"Alright, what's Dad's gonna say?"
"I don't know, I'll call the landlord."
"Call up one of your dude friends and tell them to come over and get it."
"Alright, aaah. Ok bye."
"And then block the entryway so It doesn't get out of the kitchen."
"It's dead!"
"Oh it's dead?!"
"Matt, I think so, I'm not gonna go close to it, but it's not moving, EEEW!"
"Call one of your dude friends. Call the one that broke the Jeep window because he owes you, and me."
"Ok."
"Alright."
"Ok. Everyone's on spring break, but alright."
"Alright, bye."
"Bye."

There it was folks. And in case you couldn't tell who-said-what above, Matt's the one who kept saying "ha ha".

It'll Be Funny One Day, Right?

Update on the mouse situation: well, it's a rat.

My roommates and I have a rat living in our house, and my nightmare of stepping on the body of a vermin almost came true. We had set out a couple mouse traps to catch the little guy Lindsay saw in her room. After weeks of no success, we assumed he went back outside after all the snow melted. Some time last week, I was home alone, in my room with the door closed and heard a loud chewing noise coming from somewhere in the kitchen or dining room. I ventured out with as much bravery as I could gather while being home alone with a "mouse" but soon realized that the noises were coming from inside a wall. Eeeew! My roommates started hearing the noises throughout the day as well.

So, this past Thursday night, I was getting ready for the arrival of my mom, Aunt Becki, and cousin Katie for the weekend. While I was in my room I heard the wires behind my desk shift. I convinced myself that it was nothing and continued getting ready for my family to arrive, when I heard them shift again. As quickly as I could, I threw open my door and ran out into the hallway, screaming "The mouse is in my room!". My two roommates ran to my rescue, one of them kneeling down to look under my bed and the other walking around and making noise with a broom. I was standing at the doorway really grossed out. Then suddenly, we heard scurrying and a big, ugly, black RAT ran behind my desk and out the doorway.... towards my feet.

I screamed and jumped in the air as I saw this "not a mouse" hover under my feet for a split second in all the confusion, and all I could think to myself was, "I'm going to land on it and feel it under my feet! (read previous post)". Thankfully, I did not land on top of the rat, but ran instead back into my room and jumped into the middle of my papasan chair. Mom, Aunt Becki, Katie arrived soon after this mess.

We were all in the hallway and my roommate started opening a cereal box. I thought that the rustling of the cereal bag was the rustling of the rat, and when I gasped, Mom, Aunt Becki, and Katie thought that it was the rat coming out. I can't even begin to describe the scene. Mom and Katie screamed but both maintained a stellar composure when compared to what was going on next to them with Aunt Becki. She lost her head and started jumping up and down on top of Katie, screaming and spinning; she told us later that she twisted her ankles and momentarily lost her vision! Needless to say, no one wanted to sleep on the floor that night, so we all went to a hotel. Over the next couple of days I was discovering more and more rat poop in my room, under my bed, and in my closet.

The exterminator (I now feel that exterminators are very, very brave men) placed sticky traps and rat poison throughout the house. Hopefully, when I get home, the rat will be dead! Hooray!

Of Mice And Women

Yes, I have legs so pale they are almost transparent. But, this is what I look like every night while getting ready for bed, because we have a mouse in our house.

And yes, it knows we are afraid of it, and yes, it probably lives in our walls with an army of 500. And yes, I refuse to walk around the house without shoes on, because if I did, the mouse would know, and scurry across my feet (or, in my process of jumping and screaming, I would accidently land on top of it and feel it under my foot).

And I'm sure that the mouse can get into my room despite the fact that I have found a new use for my school books; blocking the crack under my door.

It turns out my fan sounds just like a chitter-chattering mouse.

And yes, when I heard there was a mouse in our house, I mentally went through Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat, Fox in a Box, Mouse in a House rhyme.

And yes, I am quite certain that this mouse knows how to climb into washing machines, cabinets, bath tubs, beds, and toilets. And for that reason, I take deep breaths before entering any room of the house, and I whistle under my bed each night to see if a little creature responds.

My Goodview Room, With A Good View!

Here's my house on Goodview Street,

before:

and after:

I'm watching "Say Yes to the Dress". I have a little entertainment corner, with a TV, bookstand, and chair to read in.

Behind that is my dresser with some of my favorite pictures of my travels on it. My bed wall was boring, so I put up a painting from Australia.

My desk, across from the window, full of things to distract me from doing my schoolwork.

And last year's The Office calendar is hanging on my wall.

My door and closet...

... and a lose up of the awesome mirror my dad custom made for me!

My view outside my window is so pretty in the spring, our neighbor has a large garden, and there is a bush just outside my window that grows beautiful pink flowers.

But right now, the view is nothing but snow! We have about a foot so far, and it's supposed to snow every three days or so for the next couple weeks.

Leadership Clinical

I have gotten my Leadership clinical assignment and it is..... the Neonatal ICU in Lynchburg! My plans for carpooling to Richmond didn't work out, but I am still thankful that I will be able to work with neonates this semester. I pray that God uses this clinical time to help me feel more comfortabe as I begin caring for these patients as the nurse, and not the CNE. I hope to be the kind of nurse that can be trusted by my patients (or the mommy and daddy in this case), their families, and the staff I work with! I am excited to begin my time in the NICU developing my crital care skills!

Update, Senior Year

It's hard to believe that it's my senior year already! This place has become my routine; when I go HOME I feel out of whack! I forget to take my medicine, I eat "weird" food (not raw food)... I can't wait for home to be my normal routine again. Not so I can eat normal food and forget to take meds, but so it can become my full-time life again.

This semester has been super easy so far. I am in Community nursing, where my clinical experience involves 4 Mondays of working with a hospice nurse. It will be a new experience for me, but I am curious all the same. My Leadership class will have 5 clinicals, one weekend every month, from 7a-7p. I haven't heard where I will be yet, but I signed up for the NICU here in Lynchburg and the NICU in Richmond, VA. It is most likely that I will be going to Richmond because I have 2 other friends that signed up to be in the same hospital. Our professor should want to take advantage of 3 students willing to drive and stay in Richmond together. It would be a fun weekend for us to hang out together and have time with eachother before graduating. My Advanced Critical Care class has just a handful of students in it. It is a much more personal class, where we have discussions on what we are learning and have lab days where we run through codes and trauma cases. There are no tests in this class either! Lastly, I'm in Biomedical Ethics. This is an interesting class because it will help me to be able to back up my opinions better; like how I feel about abortion, physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc. These are issues that I will have to face in the NICU, probably even during my interview!

Each of my professors in my classes said that we will get out of this class what we put into it, meaning that getting an A should be easy, heh heh heh. Yay! I would love to get straight A's this semester!

Just a few more months left!

Go Ahead, You Can Laugh

The road to becoming a nurse is not without its troubles and concerns. On occasion, the learned nursing student will self-diagnose her/himself with everything that s/he has learned in class.

I am not the exception. I might even be the extreme.

Over the past 3 and a half years, I have self-diagnosed, at one point or another, believing it to be true for any amount of time, the following conditions:

1. Supraclavicular Nodes (feeling one of these is bad news)
2. A Blood Clot (that was not too long ago)
3. Leukemia (I had a total of 1 symptom)
4. Spontaneous Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak (because I had a runny nose)
5. Urinary Retention (turns out I just didn't have to "go")
6. Pre-Ventricular Contractions (actually this wasn't too far-fetched, but I still didn't have it)
7. Atrial Fibrillation (which would cause a blood clot, sooo...)
8. A blood clot, again
9. Ventricular Septal Defect (this is a BIRTH defect, I was 20 when I "acquired it")
10. Anemia (like the serious kind)
11. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (again, not too "out there", but not entirely accurate)
12. Crohn's Disease (just a little tummy ache)
13. Meningitis (my neck really hurt, okay?)
14. Umbilical Hernia (after a big day of eating...)
15. Melanoma (some people pronounce this as "freckle", as in my diagnostic case)

I won't even go into things I learned in my Psych class.

Lucky for everybody else in the world, I keep these diagnoses to myself, until now.

Also, don't meander onto GOOGLE Search when you have any of the concerns listed above, it's just not helpful... or when you have a runny nose, a full tummy, an ache or pain...