Poo Magnetism

I never really had a nickname growing up. I wanted one.

Most people couldn’t pronounce my incredibly cool Greek name, so the names I did get called would certainly not fit into the “nickname” category.

College came and the nicknames started flying: Tameo, Pany, O-2, Cubby….blah blah blah.

Fast forward to my mid 20’s when a friend, for whatever reason, dubbed me as “Sprout”.

Yes, as in:

Anyway, it stuck, and in the Emergency Medical World I became known simply as “Sprout”. Many of the folks I worked with back then, still call me that to this very day.

Which (finally) brings me to this post’s title: Poo Magnetism.

What is it?

It is the STRONG ability one has to attract “POO” in a magnetic like fashion. (Not as in literal Poo, figurative Poo).

Who has it?

Me.

How does one know if they possess Poo Magnetism?

Their co-workers will tell them so.

Or at least mine did. And it didn’t take long for me to acquire that name.

Most of you know that I am a nurse anesthetist and have been for the past three years. A couple times a month, my job requires me to be “on-call” for 24 hours at the hospital. I am either in the OB unit with the lovely laboring ladies, or I am in the main operating room doing any manner of surgical case.

Sometimes the call person is up all night working and other times they are lucky enough to make it to the call room for some amount of sleep. If they are REALLY super duper lucky they go to the call room and sleep ALL NIGHT LONG (what a novel idea).

Guess what usually happens if you are a Poo Magnet?

Yep, you are up all night and usually attract some pretty yucky cases.

The very first night I took 24 hour call, I think I set the tone for my call career. You guessed it, I was up the ENTIRE night working.

Three years,

SEVERAL all nighters, and

MANY Poo cases later……

I wish I had never so strongly desired a nickname.

I guess it would be a bit much for me to sign the bottom of my charts:

Nurse Anesthetist Sprout, Poo Magnet extraordinaire