Without Insight

י'ט באלול תשס״ט
Belz 20

In follow-up to my previous post, The Alphabet Murders, I drew the Hagalaz rune of protection last night before bed. The dream which followed that drawing wasn't apparently connected to the old unsolved murders.

I dreamt.

I was laying in an ICU (intensive/critical care unit) bed with my head at the foot of the bed with a male patient whose head was at the head of the bed. He was on IV fluids. I woke up in a very very tired state, with my cosmetic bag in my hand. I had to get up because I was a nurse, not a patient. I also had to go to work but I didn't have on any cosmetics for work.

Though I was very very tired, I got up to get ready for work. I forced myself to wake up and get up despite the weariness I felt in my body.

I needed to find a bathroom in which to wash up, apply my cosmetics and get ready for work. While considering where I might find a bathroom, the charge nurse of the ICU where I was working came up to me and told me that she had assigned me to work out on one of the general medical units instead of in my regular ICU unit. I knew why she had done that, she told me even - I was really competent at what I did and she didn't want me working in the ICU because my knowledge and clinical aptitude made all the other nurses look not so competent. She didn't want the doctors to compare all her other nurses to me, so I was banished to working the general medical floor where my talents would have less opportunity to shine.

I hated being a nurse and I hated working on the general medical unit as a nurse even more. It was so incredibly boring and didn't fit my personality at all. While I hated being a clinical nurse, I could at least tolerate working in the ICU because I was somewhat intellectually challenged by the clinical complexity of the medical problems of most patients in ICU. There was also more complex technology to work with in the ICU than on the general medical floor - like mechanical ventilators, swan ganz catheters, etc. My personality is one that prefers working with data and figuring things out - and I am good at it. Being banished to the general medical unit was like being banished to hell. ICU was no paradise for me, because I didn't like clinical nursing period, but at least it wasn't hell.

Nevertheless, I went to find a bathroom to get ready for work. After cleaning up, I couldn't find the general medical unit. I walked through the hospital, looking for signs and asking directions, but I could not find it anywhere. I kept ending up in the lobby.

I woke up.

This rather uninsightful dream just rehashed my dislike of clinical nursing and of working directly with people in that capacity. (I don't work in a hospital or as a staff nurse anymore at this point in my life.)

I conclude that I have been 'disconnected' from the alphabet murders.