In which I give a school (what else?) update.

Got all ‘A’s on my finals; got all ‘A’s for the semester. Weeee!

Since I wrote last, I’ve been under some extreme duress.  Since I’ve decided I really do like the sciences, why not become a physician? Instead of nursing.  Well, I’ll spare you the neurotic details, but I had a moment of clarity yesterday that confirmed my original goal of Nurse Practitioner.  Happy days; now I can celebrate Christmas since this isn’t hanging over my head any longer.

Next semester is pretty full—A&P II & Lab, 3000 level Statistics (ugh!), Sociology, & Chem I & Lab.  Most of my classes are during the day for Spring semester, which adds CONSIDERABLE stress that I will not be able to work full time. CONSIDERABLE.  Motorcycle-Goatee-Man, aka my husband works hard but is in a venture with a friend that amounts to about a part time job. (never go into business with a friend, btw).  So we’re looking at a pretty large loss of income, but my Stay-at-home-Mom raised me on just Dad’s income growing up, so I know how to live lean.  Time for me to get back to my roots on that one.  Dropping the high def cable, the UFC pay-per-views monthly, and going out to eat lunch at work every day.  Those lunches alone costs me probably $300 a month which I think is ridiculous for ANYONE.

So here’s a very exciting tidbit—I applied to Duke University’s accelerated BSN program and I WAS INVITED TO INTERVIEW. Ohmagosh.  Not that anything is a sure thing, but I don’t think that I will go to Duke for monetary purposes for my BSN.  Local Podunk-U costs$19,000 before books and uniforms; Duke is well over twice that if I figure correctly.  Plus I’d have to pay for an apartment, too.  But it is DUKE and would be one of the finest educations I could receive.  I do think I will go to the interview—I’m honored and I’m hoping that one day if I apply to their NP program, I could get another interview…!

But as all of the experienced ones say, don’t even worry about NP for now.  Worry about BSN and the skills that will make me an awesome nurse.  I get to apply to Podunk U’s Accelerated BSN starting March 15^th.  Hope I get in!

Just put my tree up today—the latest I’ve ever waited, but then, this is the most I’ve ever had to study so who had time? J

Think GoateeMan and I are going to go see Avatar.

One Amaretto Sour down...

So I’m one amaretto sour down, so it is the appropriate time to blog, no?  My musings of the moment:

Happy upcoming Turkey Day, for starters.

I have a crazy husband, a greedy pig-dog, and an OCD-separation-anxious dog to be thankful for this year.  The latter is outside barking her fool head off right now as we speak.

I really like microbiology.  The micro class I get to take for nursing is really fun and I’m learning about all kinds of disease processes right now.  Micro Lab?  About to come to a conclusion on what my “pet” is!  I've been running tests on him all semester and his true identity is about to be revealed.

Fall ‘break’ is nothing of the sort.  I have a ton of tests and projects due as soon as I get back to class from ‘break.’  I have all ‘A’s right now, and I really hope to keep it that way.

Today, I found my former boss/coworker/friend on the couch in the bathroom—I know a couch in the bathroom? We’re a bank afterall, couches should be in bathrooms in banks, right?  Especially non-customer-contact IT centers. Anyhoo, poor Joann is laid out on the couch, sick as hell because she is starting a new phase of her cancer treatment.  After I determined what was wrong with her and realizing I could do nothing to ease her nausea, I ran and got my coat, covered her and patted her arm.  30 minutes later, she brought me back my coat, told me she thought she’d take my advice and go home.  And then she hugged me.

My friend Julie has a terrible rash that I ‘diagnosed’ as hives.  A real diagnosis of hives, a steroid shot, and bam!, she's was better.  But the rash has come back and now she has terrible joint pain.  I hope the lupus test comes back negative.

People have always told me all about their medical woes, and now that the word is starting to leak out that I’m going back to school to become a Nurse, well, they’re almost standing in line now.  Galbladder removal, hysterectomy, hives, and cancer treatments.  I don’t know how to help anyone yet, but I do know how to listen and be sympathetic.  And to encourage these people to advocate for their own health—asking for tests that they didn’t know about or actually asking questions in their doctor appointments.

Don’t go into business with your friends.  I am one notch away from complete meltdown at the moment.  None too happy with the hubby or the people he went into business with and now calls boss.  Pissed at the world.  Really.  Pissed at the world is not who I am, but when I get to this place, it is awhile before I get Un-Pissed at the World.

My friend survived lung surgery today, so that is wonderful news.  All the lymph nodes around his trachea and bronchi are gone now.  I'm not sure how that will improve his incessant coughing, but they claimed even before surgery that it was not cancer.  I guess maybe we'll know more after pathology.  

I’m allergic to alcohol.  Ok, well, how about ‘food-intolerant?’  To tyramines, but especially to tyramines in beer and wine.  It really sucks on nights like tonight when I need to get shit-faced in order to not mass murder everyone in a one block radius.  Achoo! Achoo! A-fricking-choo!

Orchids & Onions, take 1!

Welcome to the first edition of Orchids and Onions! Without further ado, let’s see who this week’s winners are!

Onions to: stupid advisors who screw up your Master’s graduation clearance and then get pissed that you would dare question whether everything is still in order...Two. Months. Later. By the way, useless advisor, I don't care what women-oppressed country you are from OR that you purport to be a MD. (my old school)

Orchids to: wonderful staff in student records offices who realize that advisors are as stupid as you suspected. (my old school)

Onions to: podunk universities that offer must-have classes for admission into highly competitive programs only one semester a year. And who don't accept my Stats class from the old school. (my new school)

Orchids to: advisors who help you find other universities from which to take the missing courses. And advise you to CLEP out of Sociology. (my new school)

Onions to: advisors who didn’t advise you last semester and now feel bad and have to help you find missing courses at competing universities. And forgot to tell you that your US History class was one you could CLEP out of. (again, the new school)

Orchids to: the sun. It is our first sunny day in about 2 weeks. 

Onions to: neighbors that purposefully look the other way when you wave as they drive by.

Orchids to: redneck neighbors that park their 4x4 Dually truck in the middle of the road, blocking traffic to say hi. I’ll take any kind of friendly neighbor as opposed to a snot any ol’ day.

Onions to: my local Podunk university for having more prerequisites than some well-known-teaching-hospital-university’s Accelerated BSN program. If they don’t need it, Podunk U surely doesn’t either.

Orchids to: Tater and Twinkie, the two best bichon kids ever!

Onions to: my very disorganized US History teacher. (yet ANOTHER prereq that my two previous degrees didn’t require, and I’m required to have for Po-Dunk U.)

Orchids to: the hubby for cooking and running the vacuum today.

Okay, back to Microbiology! I have a test coming up on disease transmission and antibiotics—love it!

Time Flies…

Time is flying by, fa real. Midterms are SO 2 weeks ago, of which I am sporting all shiny ‘A’s in every class, thankyouverymuch. ;)

So the updates. I really didn’t realize that I was actually learning stuff, let alone meaningful stuff until I watched “Monsters Inside Me” on Discovery Health this morning. Not for the squeamish, indeed, but nothing in the health world is, I suppose. This med student came down with terrible headaches, they did an LP on him and his cerebral spinal fluid pressure was off the chart. Then they did blood work and said that his eosinophils were off the charts. Eosinophils, you say? Why I just learned that those are the bad-boy-white-cells that go to work on a parasite infestation. Eureka! Said med student and 9 of his mates had been in Jamaica and contracted a rat-lung worm. Ew.

But I knew what they heck they were talking about on the show! Neato. I really like ‘Microbio for Allied Health’ which is the BS name they’ve given the class at my university to denote Microbio for Nurses. I really like the course—no BS that doesn’t pertain to me and my ultimate goal of becoming a nurse.

A&P is going very well, too. I don’t know if I like the ‘crash’ way I’m having to study for the class, because I actually NEED to know this shit for, I dunno, the rest of my life/career. We will go over 3 little ‘uncomplicated’ sections, like, Skin, Bones, AND Joints and have a test encompassing all three. That. Is. A. Lot. At. Once. And I really do want to know this stuff. My future patients hope I do too. Why we don’t do a topic, test, topic, test, is beyond me, but I like the class in spite of the instructors way of testing.

MicroBio lab is fun. We’ve done about 8 tests now on our Pet Bacteria. Things are looking very favorable for me to be toting around Salmonella. *Patting suspected-Salmonella on the head, “Good little Gram-Negative bacteria. Does the good little bac want a treat? He does? Awww, how ‘bout a nice EMB plate to grow your colony-wolony on?”

These are fa real pathogens. Lab friend has probably got E. coli. And does the disinfectant we use ever STINK. My backpack and lab book and notebook are permanently impregnated with the stench. Ah well, stench is preferable to live pathogens.

So it is all VERY interesting to me right now, even though my education is not yet “nurse-ly” in nature.

Offhandedly, I try to speak with ‘those-who-wear-coveted-white-and-black-scrubs’ as often as possible. They are the ones who look constantly overwhelmed and tired, and wear aforementioned white scrub tops and black scrub bottoms to class 3 days a week. Everyone I see is in the traditional 4 year nursing program. Accelerated Nursing students wouldn’t be in my MicroBio class with me—they’ve already taken the course, like I’m doing now. (my own personal lightbulb just went off on why I’ve only been speaking to 4-year-plan folks. I digress.) At any rate, all of the 4-year-ers are incredulous to the fact that I am willingly setting myself up for an accelerated program. That I am TRYING to get IN to that program. It is a bit alarming I guess, but the way I see it, I have all of the book classes done. The lacking sci classes, I’m taking. So it really isn’t different, it is just I’m doing a front-loaded program of my own tailoring and next year, I’ll be doing almost exclusively clinicals. As I understand, that’s how a lot of advanced practice nursing programs work.

Well, it is the rare weekend that I do not have 3 tests in the next week, so my husband and I are about to take a nice late lunch at the local wonderful (albeit non-alcohol serving) Italian joint. Amore!

Week One OVER

This week was full of firsts-- first time to commute to school two days a week, first time back to the local univ. the other two days a week that I go, first time to take classes with labs, first time I've been back to the chiropractor in awhile, lol.

My history class online sucks. Not a 'gimme' class, for sure. But I LOVE my new science classes. Anatomy & Physiology and Microbiology are great. I hope I love Organic/Inorganic Chem as much next semester.

In micro, I'll be assigned a "pet" which is an unidentified bacteria. Through experiments, I will discover who ('what,' really) my pet is!

I've been reading for hours on end at allnurses.com Some days, I love what I read, and others, I leave the site disheartened. I really don't like the idea of subjecting myself to quirky nurses (mostly women...and I'm a woman) who will write me up at the drop of a hat for every little thing that I don't do 100% correctly in the beginning. I have read so many accounts of that happening, and it frustrates me and I'm not even a nursing student yet. I WANT to be critiqued so I can learn, but TEACH me, don't just write me up or get me fired without helping me to do better!

As a non-traditional student and a future career changer, I hope that I will bring my life skills and life experience to the table to help deal with this possibility.

I used to be a push over, but life has taught me a lot about being balanced. Sometimes, you just let things go. Other times, you stare down and confront problems.

I'm really considering CRNA school after RN school. I know, long term goals, I'm not even in the BSN program yet. But, ya gotta set goals to meet goals. ;)

CRNA school sounds...rigorous. Stressful. Challenging. Like something I'd really like, lol. I really can't wait to get into some RN Clinicals so I can decide if ICU is my thing or not. I think I'd really like neonatology, too...but I don't think time in the NICU counts as experience needed for prerequisite work for CRNA school.

I'm rambling. I need to get some coffee, go pick up my Micro lab book that finally came in, and get to it! Gotta have a kickass GPA in my prereqs to get into my BSN program!

What kind of crisis comes before Midlife Crisis?

Welcome to the From Banker to Bedside Blog! This is my obligatory blog opener.
I've been in banking for ten years and now I'm working on bailing. My own personal bail-out plan, LOL.
Banking was the great part-time job that was offered to me as I went to college (the FIRST time) to be a music major. Ten years later, I am still a banker (a Trainer now, 'cause I've done it all) and I have nothing to do with musical performance.  My hobby is everything health, and now I'm trying to make the jump to my hobby being my career.
I am a pre-nursing student. I have a degree in IT Management that I got online...and guess what? Accredited as it is, IT Man. didn't require Human Anatomy & Physiology, or Organic/Inorganic Chemistry, or Microbio...you get the picture. So I am lucky enough to have a boss who is letting me work early and leave early so I can go to night classes.
...My classes start TOMORROW! Oh my. The anxiety has been a bit high the last week or so.
I'm 28 years old. I guess I wouldn't be able to call this a 'midlife' crisis at this age, so what kind of crisis comes before a midlife crisis?
Did I mention I have submitted my thesis (well, they call 'em Captsones now) for my completion of a Master's Degree? It's in Public Health. Turns out, to get a job in the Public Health sector, you also have to have the not-so-little initials of RN beside your name. BTE, for banker-trainer-extraordinnaire, doesn't count.
So I am taking Human A &P at a satellite campus to the University that is 7 minutes from my house. From work, that is a 40 minute commute. BUT, they are offering the class at a time that I can attend--at night. Offhandedly, they are also a helluva lot cheaper than the local version of the Univ, but with the commute, I figure I'll break even.
So here's the plan. I'm taking 11 credit hours this semester. And hopefully my Stats class will transfer. (Please God.) Midway through next semester, I'll apply to the 'Accelerated BSN' program, whereby I'll go to school full time from Aug 2010-Aug 2011 and come out the other side with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing, and be eligible to sit for my RN NCLEX, the boards for licensure.
Whew. All the while, teaching new employees the wonders of banking, studying my ass off (as I must have a sky-high GPA to get into the Accel BSN program) and becoming quite sleep deprived.
Can she do it? Can she go to class until 9pm Monday-Thursday? Can she deal with dumbass teenagers and smartass professors? We haven't even gotten to the good nursing stuff like poop, puke, and catheters. We'll see. :o)