22

So...I'm officially 22 today. God I'm old. On the bright side, with my age I've learned to embrace my awkwardness instead of fight it. This is truly a gift, considering some of the nursing conversations I've been able to have. For example, I spent my spring break on a service trip working with Indian Health Services in Mescalero, NM. I spent one day shadowing the school nurse at the local high school, and that day she happened to be running an immunization clinic. I was assigned the task of doing alcohol and abuse screening questions and then doing the teaching about the Gardicil vaccine. This was right up my alley, because there's nothing I love more than using words like "vagina," and "sexual intercourse," while addressing a highschooler. The first girl I spoke with was 14, and during the screening she admitted to me that she was sexually active. I started talking with her about gardicil, and I asked her if she understood why it is so important. She didn't know. I explained that gardicil can prevent specific types of STDs which can later lead to cervical cancer. I asked if the girl knew what STDs were...and she shook her head no. I asked if she knew what her cervix was...and again she shook her head no. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but it seems to me that if you're going to have sex you should at least know all of the risks, or at minimum the body parts that you are working with! At this point I decided to go back to basics. I told the girl that penises and vaginas can get diseases just like any other part of the body, and that these diseases are spread through sex. She squirmed a little bit in her chair, and I could tell that she was painfully uncomfortable. I believe that if you're old enough to have sex, you should be old enough to talk about it like a grown-up, so I continued on. I told the girl that you can get painful oozing warts or sores that last forever , and that sometimes your partner might not show any symptoms at all but you can still get an STD. I explained what the cervix is and where it is located, and why cervical cancer is such bad news. The girl seemed to understand, and went on to get her vaccination. She also told the nurse that she really liked the way I talked to her. I guess that nobody had ever sat her down and spoke to her about sex in an honest or open way without showing judgement. I'm really thankful that my nursing clinicals have forced me to talk about uncomfortable issues openly, because it really comes in handy. Later that same day I had to ask another high schooler if she had thoughts about hurting herself, and I had to ask another girl to tell me about her drug use. None of these were easy, but the conversations were necessary and I'm glad that I was able to handle them.