Q: What does CRNP after nurses name mean?

A: In most cases, it means Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner, a lot of fancy words that mean a nurse has been trained and tested and knows enough about medicine to not kill someone when inserting an IV. That's in most cases. My case is different.

Those letters after my name don't mean anything. There's no acronym to decode, no riddle to solve. They're just a name. My name.

My name is Nurse Lisa CRNP.

My father swore off vowels after a disastrous appearance on The Wheel of Fortune. You've probably seen it. He really wanted that ceramic dog. He never really got over it.  The dog, that is. And his disastrous loss on the show. Nearly every day after school I would wonder home to find my father staring at an empty spot on the carpet, petting an imaginary ceramic dog, muttering, "I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat. I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat."

It wasn't the best childhood.

When I was 8, my father swore off vowels and changed our name from Curniape to Crnp. When I was 12 he turned against uncapitalized letters, after a incident at work involving the New York Times crossword puzzle. My mother wouldn't let him touch my first or middle name. "Who'd want to marry someone named NRS LS CRNP?" she said, "Who'd want to take that in? She's got enough problems already, Dan, what with the homeliness and the odor and the vacant stare. Give her a chance."

I didn't overhear that conversation, by the way. She said all that in my presence. Frequently. She worked it into toasts. And birthday cards. And conversations with strangers. Saving my name was the defining moment of her life.

It meant a lot to her that I was called a nurse, even if I didn't become one. More consumed with title than accomplishment, my mother. She named my older brother Doctor and my younger one Noted Ladiesman. They work in meat.

She would have loved for me to actually become a nurse. But it wasn't meant to be. I don't test well. And I can't remember anything. And sick people are the worst. All the moaning and crying and soiling the sheets. Who wants to deal with that?

I'm only in this hospital because of the weather. Can't stand the rain. I'm only in your father's room because someone a doctor said, "Nurse, come with me." Once I realized he wanted an actual, trained nurse I had already been helping him for twenty minutes and was too embarrassed to say anything.  In his defense he was probably confused by my outfit. And my name tag. But I look great in white. And the name tag saves me from the crippling awkwardness of introductions.

Look at me, talking your ear off.

You'll have to excuse me. Your father had a lot more blood in him than I expected and I need to figure out how to get it back in before the doctor comes back. He seemed like kind of a neat freak.