Vanity Fair

Alright, so since you're all probably tired of whining about my stupid life, I thought I'd give you all a Gallery of Jamie. This is not for you folks who see me every day at work (or whenever I decide to show up, lately) all disgruntled, scrubs bagging around my knees like some school uniform reject, petulant look on my face, stethoscope slung around my neck like a millstone, feet shod in dansko clogs breeding MRSA as we speak. Or maybe it is, because this is me, the slightly cleaned up version (eg not up to my elbows in poop disimpacting the latest nursing home dump with an admitting diagnosis of "constipation." No seriously. On a cardiac floor.)

This post is for you guys who haven't seen me in awhile, like maybe six months to a year, or even longer, except through blog pictures. For those of you folks who knew me during my divinity school/New College days, I've lost a lot of weight. Like fifteen pounds. I went from a comparably svelte 107-109lbs down to my current 94-97lbs. I'm not saying this to be an arse, I'm saying this because nursing has basically stressed out me out that I can't/don't eat properly. I once had a shift that started at 11 a.m., ended at 3a.m. the following day and the last thing I had to eat was before my shift at 11am.

I've never been so skinny in my life, and it all happened in the first three months of my job, and try as I might, I haven't been able to gain any weight since. I've even tried those geriatric dietary supplements and they didn't do anything. I'm about to ask my PMD to put me on Megace, a BRCA drug that is also being used as an appetite enhancer that unfortunately also happens to be cytotoxic, but hey, what's a little cell death between friends, huh? I have size zero pants now that have an extra 2-3 inches around the waist and don't have belt loops, so I just have to wear longer shirts to cover up the belly, because I'm not like, Britney Spears, or whatever. I mean, for the record, my dog doesn't go traveling around unrestrained in my lap when I'm driving a car, okay? He travels in the passenger side unrestrained, thank you very much.

Ergo, the collarbone poking out and then hollowed out neck and gaunt looking failure-to-thrive look. I also cut my hair off, because it bugged me, and because I don't know, I thought it would improve my life. And it has, slightly, in that I'm not constantly pushing it out of my face as I'm suctioning Copious Sputum Producer Of the Year.

Now if only I could get a job making obscene amounts of money giving flu shots (as suggested by a former teacher of mine), for say, two hours a week, I'd be all set.

What I really need is a vacation on a sunny beach somewhere, just soaking up cancerous UV rays and not caring about malignant melanoma, sipping pina coladas out of coconut shells and dreaming about the days when keeping old people alive so they can die agonizing deaths some time later is not a part of my job description.