Orientation and old

1st day of orientation at Saint Big Dog went very well today. Policies, procedures, HR, & assorted hoopla. A poorly catered lunch of fried food ( this IS the south afterall) that tasted pretty good because it was free was our mid-day break.
Risk management ended our day with a video that made absolutely everyone cry - a med error that killed a sweet little boy. Then we adjourned for the day... Except for nurses. We were all fitted for TB masks.

I don't remember getting that hot and claustrophobic when I was tested in nursing school. But the lady today was WAY more thorough. It was a 7 minute test. If she hadn't kept talking to us, I may have panicked. No kidding, I have difficulty, big-time with even surgical masks. Breathing hot air gets to me somehow.

(Sidenote, my indigestion is ridiculous right now. Can't wait for my insurance to kick in to see if I've got raging H.pylori or what. Anyhoo. Chamomile tea, down the hatch. )

Then I went and had my ID made. I have my trademark extreme-cheese-grin but my eyes are open too wide...total deer in the headlight look. Yay for goofy IDs that I have to wear forever.

But...since my temp license was issued Friday...my namebadge says 'RN.'. Not 'bsns' that I was all last year in school, not even GN for grad nurse. RN.

Happies.

Sent from my iPhone

Pinning! Graduation!

A huge homemade cinnamon roll sits in front of me.  The first bite; disappointing.  Nothing much more than bread.  Thank God I went for bite #2.  Butter rushed out and into my plate for dipping.  MMMM.

What’s that got to do with nursing?  Not much.  But I’m sitting in the coffee shop/internet café that saw me through MANY MANY hours of studying over the last year.

I can’t believe this…GRADUATION IS TONIGHT! (mmm, cinnamon roll!) I’m not walking in graduation.  Really not into that until I get my doctorate.  But my Pinning Ceremony was exactly one week ago, and that was really, REALLY awesome.

I guess I’m really in a state of denial.  I. AM. DONE! (wow, I’m REALLY making short work of this mammoth cinnamon roll…) I haven’t seen any of my friends, except for one that I helped move out of his apartment day before last with an outside temp of 105. Heat index was around 119.  Sheesh.  But as far as my friends go, I guess I just feel like I did during May Interim.  A little isolated, but we’ll all be together again soon…only we won’t.  I’m not depressed right now.  I think I will have to be later, but I’m not yet.

**

There is a group that meets to practice 2^nd languages here in the café.  Today is Spanish.  I understand every 5^th word.  I just looked up to see someone taking a picture of me (well, in this general direction) with an iPhone.  Strange.  LOL  This cinnamon roll is going to give me heart palpitations.

**

Pinning was beautiful.  Most of our instructors were in attendance, so that was nice.  There were only 22 of us, so it would’ve been easy for them not to come.  And the two that our class nominated for awards were NOT in attendance. Lol

I asked Dr. Community Health to do me the honor of pinning me.  My last name is at the end of the alphabet, so she thought she was all done pinning her group and had to come back on stage to get me; dead last.  I told the audience that we were giving her a workout (pedometer counting is a BIG deal to her, so my sister and brother pin-ees thought that was pretty funny.)

Overall a very nice ceremony.  My favorite teacher, the one who kicked off the program with Essentials and Fundies, had one HELL of a time with the Nightingale Pledge she led us in at the end.  That was pretty effing hilarious.  Apparently, most nurses don’t know the word ‘deleterious’ or how to pronounce it. Bwah-ha!

I was in charge of the actual Pins and of course, IT for the whole show.  We had a pretty fun slide show of our pics and random FB quotes throughout the year playing before pinning, with some fun music, like my beloved GaGa’s “Edge of Glory,” James Taylor “You’ve got a Friend,” and ….eh.  Can’t remember the others.  We processed out to a great one though; “WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS.” Funny.

My goofy Goatee Man missed a happy-pill the day before, which always precipitates about 1.5 days of mania.  I’m not kidding.  He showed up late to my pinning.  At least he channeled the energy well.  He had shaven, was wearing nice clothes, and grabbed up my digital SLR camera and shot the whole ceremony as if we’d hired him to do so.  (GAWD, I am too effing full.  Cinnamon roll gone.)

I was so pleased with the people who showed up to share my success; Mom and Dad, Goatee Man, and some really dear friends of ours that live 1.5 hr away, Tim & Michelle.  I can’t *believe* they came, but how cool of them. Also, my niece and her husband came.  My niece is only, like 2.5 years younger than I.  We just celebrated her graduation in May.  She is a history teacher now, and is going to be teaching Special Ed about 30 minutes from here.

I don’t use the word ‘blessed’ too much, because I associate it with some of the hokier sides of churchy-people (a whole ‘nother blog post), but I gotta tell ya; having all those people there for me made me feel blessed.

***

This is another thing about living in a town where there is a lot of bible-belt hokieness…I just took my plate to the counter, leaving my computer, keys, and iPhone unattended here at my table, and they’re all still here now that I’m back.  How ‘bout that.

Ugh.  My strange nurse-ness just came out.  I saw an old friend acquaintance just now who said that they were celebrating their kids 1^st year birthday, and what did I say? “Congratulations, you made it through your first year!”  Ugh.  To self, "What happened to Happy Birthday, you freak." LOL Nursing will definitely change your perspectives.  I really meant it.  I’ve seen a lot of sick little kids this year, ya know?  I at least thought to say Happy Birthday as I walked away.  *shaking my head at myself.

***

After pinning, we went to a local pizza place that really looks and feels like a very upscale club.  A guy named TONY SPINNER was playing.  If you don’t know him, Google the band TOTO, ‘k?  A few weeks ago, my band friends (who are friends with Tony) invited me to their practice room to their little jam session and I got to SING. With Tony Spinner. Too cool.  And way cool to see him out and about a month later and he remembered me.  Don’t know how long he’s in town for.

So Tim, Michelle, Niece, Nephew-In-Law, and [Manic] Goatee Man and I had a decent time at the pizza joint, largely due to Tony Spinner and Gin & Tonic.  I was home, in bed, by 11 pm.  I was exhausted from all the running around I had to do with sound, lights, and computers for the ceremony, but it was all worth it.

I am now a Graduate Nurse.  Better than Student Nurse, fo sho, but marginally.  Going to start studying for boards this coming Monday.  Yaaaaaay HURST REVIEW.

Back to School aka Crap You Need.

Back to School Shopping

or

Stuff that I *NEEDED* to get me through School/Clinicals/Life this past year

Stuff I bought, borrowed, and otherwise acquired, and would recommend you do the same…..

As a Student:

• ·         Netbook computer with added RAM (that’s memory for you non-geek types).
• ·         Open Office (word processing suite) that is a free, safe download if you don’t have free Microsoft Office available to you from your University IT Department. My U also provided me with a free copy of Windows 7.  Ask around and see what your exorbitant tuition might include.
• ·         Smart phone
• ·         Smart phone apps, such as Davis’ Drug Guide (which comes free when you buy the book), Epocrates, and Resident Helper.  Resident Helper has all the normal lab values and what the different labs tell us.  REALLY great.
• ·         Wireless mouse for the Netbook.  Ups your productivity by at least 50%.
• ·         A free account with Dropbox or Box.net   Both of these are online storage in the cloud.  Put another way, quit carrying around your antiquated, easily lost flash drives, jump drives, thumb drives, memory stick, etc.  Store your files in the cloud where they cannot be lost or stolen (well, not too easily anyway) and if you’ve got internet, you can access all your files EVERYWHERE.  You won’t even realize how important that is until you start using them.
• ·         Springpad.  Also free.  This is the best task manager, to-do list, place to upload important documents AND tag them for easily searching for them again later, and it all resides in the cloud.  Springpad takes a second to set up, I’ll be honest, but you can make it as complicated or as easy as you want.  I would NEVER have made it through nursing school without it reminding me of when everything was due.  I set all my reminders to the day before.  They even push notifications to your iPhone, and I’m sure to Droid as well.  Free.  We like free, don’t we, poor-nursing-boys-and-girls?

Stuff you need for Clinicals aka actually getting to practice Nursing:

• ·         Okeeffe’s “Working Hands” hand cream.  A little dab is enough.  Latex-compatible (if your facility is stupid enough to still use latex).  Very important to keep your skin in good shape, just like we do for our patients.  Too many buggies in the hospital, just waiting to invade a split in a fingerpad or abrasion of the palm.
• ·         Littman Lightweight II SE stethoscope.  Cheap. I paid <$50.  I can hear pretty well with it. Doesn’t break my neck when it is resting there, and doesn’t hurt my ears when I’m doing my assessments.  I’m even sticking with it after school.
• ·         Ryka tennis shoes for women.  Very nice for we girls and our typical over-pronation problems.  Check ‘em out.
• ·         DANSKOs.  These aren’t ‘comfy’ shoes.  They have a very rigid arch.  But if I don’t wear ‘em, at the end of the day, my feet, knees, and back are killing me.  They just take a little bit of a learning curve.  Completely different than what Americans are accustomed to, shoe-wise.
• ·         Non-stick bandage scissors.  Look on Amazon.com  About $15.  Wish I’d had them all year long.
• ·         Your own pair of hemostats.  No, you’re not going to be clamping vessels.  But you are going to see how handy they are for disconnecting IVs that have somehow clamped themselves to the pump.  Or taking pesky tubing off the IV still in your patient’s arm when they need “hep-locked” for a bath or for PT. Or Or Or.
• ·         Rewetting drops for you contact lens wearers.  When you are running up and down the halls at top speed as you will be doing during clinicals, your lenses will catch all that air and dry out.  Or invariably, something will get between your eye and your contact.  Have the stuff in your kit. Seriously.
• ·         Burt’s Bees chapstick. Even comes in colors now.  Nice to have a hint of color without having full makeup on.  I’m not against full makeup in the hospital, but…many nurses you work with will look at you pretty suspiciously if you come too ‘pretty-girl.’  A little mascara and a hint of color on the lips is enough, and is professional.
• ·         Imitrex.  That is gold for you migraine-sufferers.  I’ve had ‘em for the last, I dunno, 15+ years.  Keep one in your pocket.  Don’t broadcast it.  If you start to get your warning signs or aura, go to the bathroom and take it.  You can’t miss clinicals, and your instructors don’t need to know you’re taking meds.  It’s not a narcotic, for god’s sake, and it will keep you acting as a safe nurse, instead of a headache-impaired-nurse.

Stuff that I just like, in general:

• ·         Toms shoes.  Aren’t they fun?  And our materialism is slightly mediated by the donations they make, so yay!
• ·         Burt’s Bees Milk & Honey lotion.  Fab Fab Fab!  And any other assorted Burts products are generally on my fav list.
• ·         Germ X hand sanitizer.  I like that brand because it smells good.  Not all of them do.
• ·         My Keurig coffee maker.  Can’t get through nursing school without a daily caffeine infusion.  I love Newmans Own in coffee and Celestial Seasoning’s tea.
•  

And Oh yeah…get an Amazon Prime account!  Totally important.  And they give it to you free or cheap when you start school and sign up with your school email addy.  Do it.  Textbooks are cheaper on Amazon than at your bookstore.  You can have a textbook shipped to you in only TWO DAYS for free after your Prime membership fee.  Or OVERNIGHTED for only $4.  This will save your ass sometime, trust me.

Happy Back to School Shopping!