Introduction

I always thought I would go into advertising, own my own business, or invent something that would make me millions. This is why I was equally as surprised as my family was when I announced that I was enrolling at McGill University, Montreal Canada, for an applied master of science in NURSING.

I'm the type of person who hates it when people fart around me. I get salty cheeks and leave the room angry. Whenever I start dating someone new I make it clear on the first date that I don't consider passing gas around another person to be pleasurable, funny or a bonding experience indicative of intimacy in a relationship.

Furthermore, I hate the sight of blood. I passed out twice in high school while watching a video on red blood cells traveling through capillaries and larger blood vessels. So, when I told my boyfriend at the time that I was moving back to Montreal to study nursing he practically spit his diet coke out and all over me--not the reaction I was expecting.

Becoming a nurse had never crossed my mind. When I enrolled I told myself that I would get past the clinical placements by avoiding diapers and blood and when I finished I would work as a nurse researcher or open up my own retirement home. You'd sooner catch me dead than put in a foley catheter (a tube into the urethra) or do a wound dressing change-- all things I hadn't fully walked myself through when I signed up for the program.

My father is a dentist and he had always hoped I'd take over his practice. However, the one summer I worked with him during high school, I almost fainted and had to leave the room during a wisdom tooth removal. That was the end of mine and my fathers dream of me becoming a dentist.

The irony is, I now make a fraction of what a dentist makes and I've been unfortunate enough to clean up massive blood spills from IVs being torn out, and patient's with stomach bleeds vomiting up "coffee ground emesis" -- digested blood. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my decision for one moment. What I'm saying is that I've changed. I now enjoy all the aspects of nursing I thought I'd hate and I work as a nurse in Cardiology at a large teaching hospital downtown Toronto.

The following blog will take you through some of my adventures as a nurse, as a twenties something girl, and as a newbie to Toronto--Enjoy!