BS: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)

Subject: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Marion
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:09 PM

Hello friends at Mudcat. I'd like to share my good news with you: I've just passed my board exams to become a registered nurse. Nursing school has been the reason I'm not around here very often these days, but I do check in now and then and hope to be around more often in the future.

I'm working in a NICU (neonatal intensive care).

CHeers, Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:11 PM

Well done that girl.
G

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:12 PM

Congratulations! And working NICU is quite a job!

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:30 PM

Congratulations, Marion!! NICU, wow!

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: gnu
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:30 PM

Yo Marion! Well done!

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: GUEST,Bardford
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:08 PM

Excellent news Marion. Congratulations!

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:15 PM

Great news, and congratulations, Marion.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: number 6
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:24 PM

Way to go!

Hats off to ya.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Janie
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:24 PM

Congradulations!

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:52 PM

Marion, I don't use this company any more, but HERE is my favourite congratulations card. Quite musical?!**bg**

(Be sure to listen to the full musical sequencing!)

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: JennieG
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 06:16 PM

Congratulations!

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 06:42 PM

Congratulation Marion!

And make sure the MBBSs recognise the standing of RN after your name and accept its use.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: alanabit
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 06:45 PM

Congratulations Marion. You now have two really fine professions! We haven't forgotten those songs of yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: bobad
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 06:57 PM

Congratulations on your achievement and good luck to you as you begin your career in the NICU. Way back when I began my working life in the field I had some contact with premmies in NICU so I have a good idea of what you are facing, these tiny things need angels like you to help them along.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 07:34 PM

Congratulations, and try to gaurd your heart, my dear.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: aussiebloke
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 07:48 PM

Congratulations Marion

aussiebloke RN, RM
Nurse & Midwife

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 09:09 PM

Marion, I want to pass on my congrats as well. I obviously have a LOT of respect for GOOD nurses and I'm sure you'll be tremendous.

But even more, I want to express my sincere admiration for any nurse working NICU. Perhaps more than any other, the NICU produces higher highs and lower lows than any other form of nursing. It tkase a very special individual to cope. Be sure you have a good support system and outlet.

I wish you the absolute best!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Beer
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 09:34 PM

Spaw you echo my thoughts.
Marion you are entering a very rewarding and (lets be honest) stressful field. But if your strong and have had good training than you will succeed.
Just remember that when you leave work you have another life to lead.
May your joyful experiences out do the sorrows.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Deckman
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 10:34 PM

Congratulations ... but I'll bet you still miss the bus stations! Bob and Judy, in Everett

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 10:46 PM

Sorcha's words are important...

I know a woman who works in NICU in N. Mexico...she is dedicated and competent, but it takes a special attitude to deal with that job.

They sometimes use kinda macabré humor in song to keep from shedding too many tears....

I'm always impressed when someone can do the job....

Congratulations..

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 10:57 PM

Bill, I think anyone who does well and stays in any medical professional job needs to have that macabre sense of humor. None of it is easy, but taking care of the babies in distress......they need it more than some.

I think Maid Marion will succeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:23 PM

Congratulations, and very important work you've chosen. My youngest is here today because of two weeks spent in NICU (at birth he experienced a pneumothorax due to premature lungs. The surfactant and a chest tube and careful attention saved his life.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:33 PM

Sorcha's right, wherever I worked, many years ago, as an aide and EMT, we used what must've sounded like really awful humour to make it through, some times, esp. in the ER.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 05:02 AM

Congratulations, although just for one second I wondered if you'd been commissioned in the Royal Navy, to which the abbreviation RN normally is associated. I thought that for nurses it was SRN (State Registered Nurse).

I hope that you will enjoy a long and extremely rewarding worthwhile career. Health and happiness to you, well done.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: The Walrus
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:31 AM

Congratulations.

I must admit that Teribus has beaten me to the point, I too saw RN and thought "Royal Navy".

I raises my glass and I drinks your health.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: gnu
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:49 AM

Now that I have more time - Sorcha, Spaw, Bill and others have said it. I dated a few nurses in my younger days. One is now a professor at a uni (almost married that girl). After talking with those lasses and seeings nurses work first hand, with me and with my family members and friends, I think nursing is the toughest job in the world, aside from the Royal Navy, of course. Sorcha said, "... and try to guard your heart...". Indeed, please try to be tough for your own sake.

And, I was cleaning up my office the other day and found your cassette tape of your songs that you gave to me when you were in Moncton a few years ago... hehehe, picked you up at the bus station and gave you a whirlwind tour of Moncton (see Deckman's post above - I'll bet you don't!) until my old truck's transmission started making strange noises. I listened to it the night before you started this thread and wondered how you were doing at your nursing studies.

Again, congrats, and, keep writing and singing.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 11:04 AM

Slightly-belated Congratu-tintinnabu-lations!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Marion
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:37 PM

Thanks everybody for your messages! I do continue to write and sing, and am in recovery now from a nursing-school-induced hypomusicemia.

Joining the navy will have to wait till my next midlife crisis, though.

I love the NICU - the little premies are so fascinating and delicate, and they're so cute with their little tubes. It can be stressful thinking that a mistake on my part could make one of them crash. However, I've never understood the notion that NICU is a very difficult specialty - there are many fields of nursing that sound harder to me, including the most stereotypical job of working on a medical/surgical floor.

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:31 PM

Congratulations, Maid Marion!

Early in the year 2000 (Good grief! That sounds like the opening line of a science-fiction story written in the 1950s!) I wound up in a hospital for about three weeks. Badly broken left leg, required surgery. It was a real "dark night of the soul" for me. But where the doctors would sort of hit and run (look at me for a moment, then sign the chart), there were a couple of nurses there—Chris, Jane, Carlos, and a woman whose name I can't recall—whose genuine care and bedside manner really helped me get through it. It's the nurses who have the real contact with the patients, and they can make all the difference in the world, believe me! I can't praise them highly enough!

Marion, I have a hunch you're going to be a good one!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: open mike
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 12:38 AM

sing to those little ones...
it will certainly cheer their souls!

thanks for letting us know the good news..
my daughter is in R.N. school and my neighbor
is Intensive Care nurse (for "big" people)

there are many opportunities to help the
patients and their families..with a kind
word or touch....thank you for being there
for all of them!!

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Marion
Date: 15 May 08 - 04:53 PM

Hi gang! It took a while, but I finally got a song out of my job. This is based on an incident a few months ago, when I went to pick up a baby born to a homeless, drug-using woman who relinquished all claim to the child. The baby was basically fine but had to go through withdrawal in the nursery before going into the CAS system.

Baby Girl Josephs - Marion Parsons, 2008

Got a call there's one for NICU, just delivered in room nine
Doctor says, "She doesn't want it," he's not one for wasting time
The mother cries and shivers as the blood pools at her ass
"Just tell me what it was you took and when you took it last"
And all around the warmer there's a wall of gowns and scrubs
To weigh and score the infant, do the bracelets, give the drugs.

Doctor threads a careful suture and the forms are signed and filed
Mom is dazed with pain and wonder, cut in two by the living child
A perfect little peanut with no bedbug bites or burns
She steals a glance at baby's face and to the wall she turns
Then just an hour later and she's gone out AMA
To find the mercy to forget what happened here today.

So welcome to the outside, kid, we've both got work to do
I don't have what you're needing but I'll help to get you through
Let you suck my latex finger, cut your hair and bag your pee
Give you half a mg of comfort in a world of tubes and beeps
And when you've beat the jones and you're in one piece more or less
I'll see you off along the road that's anybody's guess.

Footnotes:
- Josephs is a pseudonym
- bracelets = ID bands
- AMA = against medical advice
- cut your hair and bag your pee, i.e., toxicology screen for drug exposure
- half a mg of comfort, i.e., morphine; pronounced "mig" here

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Deckman
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:17 PM

This belongs up in the MUSIC section! Good going Marion. Bob and Judy

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:01 PM

Have you a tune as well as those excellent lyrics Marion ?

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:14 PM

Sad song, but a very good song.

SRS (who experienced two weeks in NICU with her youngest, though due to different circumstances)

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:34 PM

Yes, very sad, but so well done. That baby has a voice, at least through your song and you, Marion. Thanks for sharing.

Subject: RE: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:34 PM

Yes, good song. So sad, and so many of them. Keep trying Marion.

Subject: RE: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: olddude
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:58 PM

I don't know you but that is wonderful congrats. I have 3 beautiful grown daughters. All three were in neonatal intensive care after birth from all kinds of problems and all grew up wonderful. Your job is soooooo important and rewarding .. God Bless you

Subject: RE: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: CET
Date: 16 May 08 - 05:22 AM

Those are very good, strong lyrics, Marion. They do a good job of showing, rather than telling, what it's like to be a nurse in your job. You should come to the Getaway and sing it.

Edmund

Subject: RE: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Marion
Date: 16 May 08 - 10:09 AM

Thanks for your comments everybody.

I am planning on going to the Getaway this year - I've already booked the time off work.

How many weeks was your son born at, SRS? Pneumothoraxes are scary stuff.

I do have a tune but no convenient way to share it with you at this time. I hope later this year to get MP3 demo versions of most of my songs up on the internet, but not yet - if anyone's in a hurry to sing this song, I suppose I could teach it to you over the phone, or perhaps write it down as sheet music and mail it.

Cheers, Marion

Subject: RE: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 May 08 - 11:25 AM

He was full term, 38 weeks, but still had premature lungs--they said this is more common in boys. At 7'11" he was quite a big baby in the NICU. :) Because of his size they had to paralyze him or he would have fought the repiratory equipment. We take him back to the hospital's NICU reunion most years (I think there is one coming up) because the folks who do all of that great medical work need to see the success stories. In this case, he's a big (6'2") long-haired gawky teen who communicates with monosyllabic grunts and rolled eyes. Just what they like to see--normal development!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Marion
Date: 20 May 08 - 10:44 AM

6'2", eh? Funny, I don't remember him being that tall...

Our hospital has a "premie picnic" coming up too. Some of Mudcatter Black Walnut's CDs are going to be in the loot bags.

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:46 AM

I may have rounded up a fraction of an inch. His dad is 6'2" also.

Almost all of them were very small and/or ill, but there were a couple of untreatable dying babies near us in the NICU when Dylan was there. I could see how important it must be to revisit the success stories for those who are in the trenches all day long.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:55 PM

There may be some jargon here that I'm not familiar with: A 7 foot, 11 inch baby? :~)

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Marion
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:10 PM

Everything really is bigger in Texas.

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Maid Marion, RN (check out the new song)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:47 PM

Seven pounds, 11 ounces. The ' and " are used and understood here in the U.S.