Nursing School

Anyone who knows me, knows that the most horrific time in my life was nursing school (and after much reflection, yes — I think it was worse then having a newborn, because… well, just because it was).
I had a teacher that I specifically had a hard time with.
Her name was Mary Jane (not totally sure of her last name, thinking it was Johnson). I had her my first hospital rotation. We did a block in just classroom work, and some lab stuff and the next block they threw us to the lions on a med surg floor.
I remember my first patient, had the runs, and messed his bed about 8 times in my shift.
Uh huh… getting the picture why it might be akin to having a newborn?
Anyway, one day she calls me into her office to tell me that my papers suck. Each night before our shift the next day, we had to travel to the hospital, pick a patient and then do a total work-up on them for the next AM (that’s right folks, a 20 page paper written between 5pm and 5 am — followed by an 8-12 hour shift).
So, I thought I’d been rockin’ out the papers. Really, I didn’t have a clue she didn’t like them.
Then, one day she calls me in and says they’re awful and says that she’s about ready to kick me out of the program. She also made several references to the fact that my father was a dean in another college at BYU and made snide references to perhaps that was the reason I had gotten into the BYU nursing school (honestly, it may be — I didn’t have amazing grades, but I did try hard, and I had good letters of recommendation).
I, of course, went crying to my dad. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. The things she was asking me to correct didn’t make sense to me. Of course, he wrote the dean a nice letter saying that if this particular teacher ever made reference to him being my dad and that perhaps making a difference in my collegiate education at BYU he’d take it further then the dean (my dad was always very sure that I did not get preferential treatment because I was his child — he also always made sure that I signed up for the hardest classes that BYU offered). So, I fixed the things she had requested and I made it through the sememster. I felt marked through the rest of nursing school. I felt like I was the dumb one. I honestly didn’t think that I’d be a very good nurse when I left. Of course, I totally proved that wrong when I have people stop me on the street here and tell me what a great nurse I’ve been. Haha, take THAT Mary Jane!
Anyway, I don’t know why this came to my mind so strongly this AM. I know that after I left BYU she was no longer with BYU. I wonder if that day changed her life more then it changed mine. I just googled her to see if she’d written any papers or was on some other faculty. She’s not. I’d heard that about a year after this incident she decided that maybe teaching wasn’t her thing.
Oh yeah, and she also told me not to get married (I was dating Drew at the time, and she felt that the 1 hour I spent with him/week was perhaps taking too much time away from my studies).
Anyway, I’m babbling. It was just a story I wanted to share. Triumph over adversity, nausea whenever I hear the word Mary Jane (be it a reference to shoes or the person). Sometimes I just don’t think we give ourselves credit. I do believe if I can make it through nursing school, losing this weight can be done too.