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!