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!

Recent Honors

I was invited to Phi Kappa Phi, the oldest academic honor society (non-departmental).  Pretty cool.

But *GIRL SQUEEEE!*   I was invited to Sigma Theta Tau, the “International Honor Society of Nursing!”  (STTI) YAY-YAY-YAY!  I have worked SO hard this year towards that goal.  And I thought having that one ‘B’ in nursing would exclude me, so when I was notified…wow.

The way that all happened, though, was a bit sad. Several of us were sitting at a Filipino restaurant in another town after the first part of a Nursing Research Day at Private-Beautiful-though-Church-affiliated University.   Each one of us around the table got an email…except one. *sigh.  We graciously put off the celebration until we were not with that person, but, STILL.  How on earth the stars line up for us to all get in but her?

Anyway, it is the top third of the class, and in a class of only 22, the spots are pretty limited…and coveted.

Induction into the societies are the next two Monday nights…yay!  I could not be more excited and humbled to be a part of them.

Musical Honor:

 I have been a guest singer with a band as of late.  As kind of a long story, one of my dear friends who is a Psych Nurse Professor at my Podunk U is married to the lead singer/bassist.  (She isn’t one of my teachers, so we get to be friends.  Can’t wait for a few more of my teachers to get to be friends, too, but I digress).  Anyway, the band was doing a wedding, the bride wanted Carrie Underwood’s “Mama’s Song,” and the band wanted a chick singer.  We had all hung out one night, they heard me sing a couple of bars to the Enzyte commercial (lol, another story) and I was asked!  I was really nervous, but now I LOVE it.  It went really well, and I was even tipped $100 to sing it again at the end of the reception night.  I sang it with them at a bar again the other night.

They guys gave me an open invitation to learn some more of their stuff.  FUN.

And I’ve joined a community choir that is working on the Brahms Requiem in English.  Quite a contrast from country music, huh? (that is the ONLY country music that both I sing or the guys in the band perform, btw.)  It is weird to be back in the professionally trained singer world, too.  But it is challenging, and it is good for me to work on something besides nursing all the time.

What an Accelerated Program is.

Just what exactly is an Accelerated Program, you ask?

A program in which:

• People who were brilliant enough to get in, can't hack it and get kicked out.
• People who don't make anything but 'A's now make 'B's.
• People who have never quit anything in their lives have to discontinue.
• People who have never had mental illness find themselves dealing with depression and anxiety.
• People go on Paxil and Xanax to make it through.
• People get divorced. Or hopefully just have to start marriage counseling.
• People struggle with tiptoeing around 'too much' alcohol.
• Sleep deprivation is the rule.

Because it is a whole year of crisis. And mental health is Never challenged more fully than in a crisis-state.
I had the ego to think when I joined, "*I* won't feel that way. Maybe THEY just didn't know what they were getting into."
Nope, they were right, and I hadn't a clue as to what *I* was getting myself into. ;-)

Dear reader, I'm still hacking it. Proudly. I haven't made all A's. My marriage has come out of a dark November-December. Some of my dearest friends in the world (dearest as a result of this program) are having some of the other points stated here.
I think it is the bootcamp of nurses, an Accelerated program. And this one is just a year, so it's just that much more tight.
Any other program, especially a 4 year program, though, would be exceedingly boring.

My Back and Almost Finals Again

Back - I swung my backpack around and under some stairs.  Small strain from bad body mechanics, is all.  A little less pain today, and probably better tomorrow.

Hurts right over my mid-to-low ribs on my Right back. 

Studying now for an EXAM tomorrow, can you believe that?  They are making our last clinical day for this semester a 1/2 day and then giving an exam.  Pooh.

So I still have all the night-before planning at the hospital and the diagrams to draw (CONCEPT MAP) before being there tomorrow, and a test! Thank God it turns out I am very, very good at concept mapping. 

Oh, well, that's just this program  And I seem to adapt pretty well to whatever they throw.  For the next 3-4 days, it will be all about finals.

Sent from my iPhone

Here's a lady like me! (Note to Mom)

She thinks like you, totally absorbed in it.  Only Thing different is her family, that is unless you include your furbabies☺☺☺

How is your back today? and what did you do??????

Love you, MOM

----- Original Message -----

From: Me

To: Mom 

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 12:37 PM

Subject: here's a lady like me! Really MORE of a go-getter!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDbnk5mIR3A 

Sent from my iPhone

Oncology Clinical I

Hoo-boy.  I just got up from my post-clinical-crash.  As I've previously posted, what makes us so unbelieveably tired is that we go to the hospital at 4pm on Thursday, write down pertinent info for our preplanning paperwork, and then stay up til 12 or 1 AM doing the preplan. And concept map. And med cards for each. Med. On. The. MAR. (medication administration record).  I get it though; we need to be totally prepared to provide really good care to our patients.  When we are knowledgeable, our patients accept us as students much more readily.  They trust us.

And then we are at the hospital all bright and shiny for report at 6:30 AM at St. Big Dog's Hospital. (I'm done with Hospital-of-Changing-Church-Affiliations for now.)
Clinicals are done at 3pm, ahem, 1500.  Last night, my preplanning ran out before my caffeine did, so I was in bed at 12:45 spinning out and tossing and turning about getting up in 5 hours.  By 1:30, I had downloaded an ambient-sounds-maker App for my iPhone to listen to, to distract my mind.  Guess it worked; I awoke at 2 when ‘sounds of the ocean’ shut off, unplugged my headphones and awoke to my alarm 3.5 hours later.

Three of us tag-teamed a bed bath for an independently living  88 year old little-old-lady.  When my cohort was scrubbing her rear end and privates, she asked the patient, “Now I’m not hurting you, am I?” to which said patient replied, “No, that feels good.” Bwah!hahahahahaha.  I think she meant the amount of scrubbing force was good…not that she LIKED it, LOL.  Completely professional, the three of us exchanged knowing glances with one another, never cracked a smile, and filed that one away in the “things to laugh about in post-conference” drawer.

My actual patient today has Breast Cancer that a radical Left mastectomy failed to cure, mets to everywhere (aka it has spread. BAD.), and malignant ascites (cancer in a belly full of fluid where fluid doesn’t belong) blowing up her abdomen like a balloon.  Lower pitting edema  (swelling) 3 or 4+, (not sure due to my inexperience), and almost liver failure. As many of my patients who have already faced their mortality, she was a dear.  And you know what my big nursing interventions were today?  To teach her to not let pain become intractable, because when pain gets out of hand, it’s tough to stop, and speak up about getting pain meds.

Tip:  she was over 60 years old.  To those of her generation, you MUST teach this-- you will NOT become an addict if you start pain meds when you actually have pain!  Bless her heart; accepting a couple of Tylenols was really difficult for her today, even though she rated her pain on the high side with a 7 out of 10.  What a tragedy—to be dying in pain.  Teach your loved ones, too.  Even tolerance and physical dependence related to PAIN will not an addict make.  People become “addicted” in an unwholesome way when they take meds for which they have unequal levels of pain.  I had to convince her it wasn’t a bother either—those things are usually already on your med sheet for ‘just in case.’

She could not sit up in bed without becoming short of breath.  Most people can’t lie DOWN when they’re having breathing troubles.  Her pain of her swollen belly and the pressure from sitting up made it almost impossible for her to sit up any higher than 15 degrees.

…and then she had rectal bleeding today.  Which is a new thing for her.  And it scared her—a lot.  After the primary nurse showed me, and was gone, I was tucking her back in because she had been SO cold, and I could tell she wasn’t good.  I asked her if she was upset about the bleeding, and of course she said yes.  And then I used good ol’ nursing therapeutic communication and asked her, “Want to tell me more about that?” and she opened up and just cried and cried about the uncertainty of her future.  I dabbed her eyes with a tissue, tucked her in even more securely, and wanted to tell her that everything would work out.  But I can’t give someone false hope; never-ever.  Especially for her.  I stayed with her a few more minutes, patted her knee and told her that we would just get through the next hours, hour by hour.  She told me how great I was.

When I left for the afternoon, I made my way back to her room to say thanks for letting me care for her and goodbye.  By that time, her family was at the bedside.  I told the family “You’ve got a special lady here!”  They said they knew. J  I introduced myself to the family, who asked if I was a med student or a nursing student?  I told them “Nursing.”  The sister said, “Good!  You seem to actually care about your patients.”  They wished me luck.  I wished my patient luck.

It was a good day.

Honeymoon OVER

So I pretty much hate nursing school right now. Hell of an opening post after all this time, I know. Lol..
But for real. I am tired of studying so much, tired of feeling stupid at clinicals, tired of it. Actually, the book work and paperwork isn't so bad to me.
Sigh. Its an accelerated program, that's all. Our class is at the moment worse for the wear. We had or first class fight , for lack of a better term. It was basically front of class vs back of class, participators vs non-participators. Via facebook. Puh-lease. Juvenile bull shit from one girl. The only one on the class I totally do not trust.  That has simmered down.
Now we're all exhausted on the weekends because we have class and Healthy Aging clinic on Thursday, then have to go to Hospital-of-changing-Church-Affiliations on Thursday night to get patient assignment.  We spend two hours writing down everything relevant in their chart, all their meds, all their labs. Then we go home, do a med sheet on each med, and then a concept map on our patient. A glorified flow chart, really. Do that takes us to 12:30, or 1:00 if your lucky and your patient doesn't have 32 meds like Astronaut's did this week.
Clinicals start at 6:45 sharp at Hospital-of-changing-Church-Affiliations; be there ten minutes early.
Oh yeah, and we' ve got a Med Surg exam and pharm exam every Monday. Phew.
My patient this week had acute delirium. And lots of heart probs.  no one on a regular floor likes or wants anything to do with a crazy patient. Well, I like psych, so I was good with it. But at the end of a good day, I hated it.
I've thought about that all weekend, and I * think* it is because it was boring. Gave three meds and the rest of the day was patient care tech stuff. A freaking important job, but not why I'm in school learning about assessment and delegation. Sigh
I know, crawl before walking.
I was able to get my patient in a more lucid state by talking with her, bathing her, and brushing her poor matted hair. So funny, girls are girls, even when delirious, and she loved getting all dolled up. Which amounted to a bath, hair brushing, and getting the dried blood out from under her nails. Oh yeah, forgot to say, she was in wrist restraints  due to pulling out her IVs.  with a stage two pressure ulcer.
Sigh.
A doctor hit me with a random act of meanness, too. Said "yall are going to have to move (from nurses area station!) because I've got to make rounds."
Really?
Without missing a beat, I got up, and said " Have a seat." I guess I was so stunned at what a prick out of nowhere he was being, my speaking-filter just turned off.
People are pricks because they are allowed to be, jussayin.
Going to go read some of my fav nursing blogs and go to sleep now.

Ready to be done

I am SO ready to get down the road 7 months to the part where I know what the hell I'm doing and am done with bring a student.
More details to follow.
Sent from my iPhone

Stuff that hits me right

So I’m talking to Goatee Man this afternoon.  As I am oft to do, I’m talking about everything I love about being in nursing school, about being a nurse, yadda yadda.

And I told him, even though I can’t hone in on what I *do* want to go into at this point, I can at least cross some stuff off my list:

No OB

No Operating Room

No One-Day Surgery

No PACU

To which he replied, “You love nursing so much, you basically don’t want to do anything you’ve learned thus far.”

Much laughter.

In other news, Goatee Man has probable early pneumonia.  Nice urgent care doc (Urgent-Care-Affiliated-with-Hospital-of-Changing-Church-Affiliations) today who works at a nearby VA.  Xrays have been sent to radiology.

No tellin’ what other stuporous pearls he’ll have for me the next day or two until the antibiotics kick in. J

Flu Clinic Day

I got to participate in our Community Flu Clinic at El Humongus Arena of Podunk U.  I don’t know why we weren’t busier, except that it was poorly marketed.  I don’t think enough people knew about it.  All in all, I did give about 40 flu vaccines today, so not too shabby.

Another beautiful memory:  One of the clients that I’ve worked with a lot at Big Mental Health Day Service (where  I’ve been at for my Psych rotation) came to me today for his flu shot!  Bless his heart, he was nervous and was holding the LPN’s hand who brought him for dear life, but wanted me to be the one who did it.  He did great.  My heart overflows with all kinds of gushy emotions. J

By the way, I’m loving my Psych rotation.  They day service I’ve been at the last couple of weeks is awesome.  So awesome, I’m even considering a career in Psych.  And I never saw THAT one coming.   My problem, as usual, is I like everything.  Well, at least I know I won’t be an OB nurse.  Don’t think that one is for me, though I did have a successful rotation.

I digress.

My Community Health teacher took me and a couple of the guys to a couple of our ritzy/eclectic/cool shops in town today to give flu shots, too!  So we were the traveling flu clinic service today.  We gave a bunch of shots at a florist/boutique owned by a lady…then went down the street and gave shots to a bunch of guys at a Music/Guitar/Guitar Lessons shop…owned by her husband!

So when you give 40-50 shots in a day, you’re bound to hit bone.  Yup, bone.  I did…a few times.  I am glad they prepared us for the possibility because it makes you bounce back the first time you do it.  Stream of consciousness: “ok, little stick…needles going in great, see that wasn’t so WHOA WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”  It’s like hitting a brick wall.  And amazing that the patient doesn’t know it.  Of course, I hate it when it happens, because you never know what kind of soreness someone may have later, but it often cannot be helped in thin arms and in the emaciated.

We used these cool needles today that retract when you give a little more pressure on the plunger at the end of the injection.  All in a blink, it withdraws the needle from the skin and retracts into the barrel.  Because most needle stick injuries happen after you withdraw the needle, ya know. J  So we were taught.  Every 8^th one didn’t retract as it should, so we had to discard of it in the usual way; carefully.

Hmmm, what else?

I’m doing Weight Watchers again to get off the 10 pounds I gained as a Bank Trainer and the 5 I gained as a Credit Analyst before that.  Almost 8 lbs down the drain so far.  WW is a great program for teaching boundaries, eating healthy foods, getting in your dairy and veggies, etc.  It is also great because it teaches you to have NO taboo foods.  Which is great, because other ‘diets’ I’ve done have created cravings out of deprivation.  Now if I want birthday cake, I have a piece of cake coated in Lard and Powdered Sugar!  And I count the points honestly, and budget my balance for the remainder of the day.  It just works for me.  Calorie counting doesn’t.

So this semester, Pharm is great, albeit hard.  Mental Health’s teacher is from New York and puts off a lot of my classmates.  I had a boss years ago from Boston and she’s much like her.  I ‘get’ her and we get along great.  She is dumpy, though she can be pretty, has a decent limp, and is overweight.  And I feel very at home with her. J  She let me help her lead a stress class in Group Therapy at Big Mental Health Day Service this week – yea!  Community Health is good—it’s Dr. Community Health that took me and the guys to the florist and the music shop.  She is…brilliant.  And Californian.  And odd.  I think she has breast implants.  No condemnation here; I love plastic surgery.  She is very different, and I think I will like her.  She is super dry, so it is hard to get a read on Dr. Community Health.  So 3 classes and 2 clinicals right now.

That’s all for now.

email to Mom

I went and saw the Nurse Pract at the Student Clinic on Monday.  She agreed with me that it was either a virus or allergies and wrote me a script for Zyrtec (which I already had OTC) and Sudafed (in case I had trouble getting it.)

Really, I went to see her so I could stay home!  I felt too bad to be in class, but you have to have a REALLY good reason. :)

I have been taking lots of Vit D and using my Nasopure (nose irrigation), and I bounced right back.  I'm still blowing gross stuff out and I don't SOUND great, but I feel fine.

I got to start my Mental Health rotation today, and it went really well!  I just felt like I was doing ministry work with the Bus Ministry, or half of the folks that used to come to church, LOL.  No problems at all with that.  Woot for Group Therapy, Pizza, and Uno!

There's a LOT of money in Psych Nursing...who knows?  I get two more 8 hour days to see if I really like it or not.  Then on to Community Health!  Which will be the Health Dept and the Church Health Center and places like that.  I'm REALLY excited about that one!

OB Rotation 1

Here’s my paperwork that I had to turn in to give you an idea of what it was like.  Forgive the bullshit and the formality, won’t you?

       I arrived shortly after 07:00 and was assigned the patient mentioned above.  By 07:45, I had written down my patient’s history and started working with my assigned primary nurses.  One of the two nurses, Carlee, is a new orient herself, so she was very good for me to learn from as a nursing student; she was great at showing me things and teaching/explaining things to me throughout the day.

     At 07:45, I started patient care with my primary nurses.  I introduced myself to my patient, and then Carlee showed me how to increase the Pitocin running through my patient’s pump. We went in and increased it by 2 milliunits every 15 minutes all day.  Carlee allowed me to increase it all morning with her observation.

     The patient’s doctor broke her water with a fetal scalp monitor and then placed the monitor.  I was told that this doctor prefers to do this on most of his patients.

     The patient planned for an epidural for pain management and was ready for one midmorning.  We hung a Liter of fluid before the anesthesiologist administered the epidural. (I’ve learned that this is to help avoid a major hypotensive episode.)  Anesthesia doctor was great to the patient and was an incredibly good teacher to me, as well.  He talked me through his whole procedure and showed me that he did a combination spinal/epidural.  He explained the spinal portion gave more immediate relief; the epidural was for long term and had a catheter for administration of more meds later.

As far as support for the patient, the patient’s husband stayed at the bedside all day, though he slept most of the time.  He was also unable to stay for the spinal/epidural, but I think that was more out of being squeamish, and not a lack of support.  One set of the grandparents-to-be visited for a short time as well.

     The patient seemed to be coping well all day.  In the afternoon, she requested more pain medication which was administered by a SRNA.  When we asked her a pain scale, she said that she wasn’t experiencing pain, but much more pressure than she had earlier.  I also observed that she had a cough, but she wasn’t on any antibiotics or other meds for it while I was in clinical.

     I got to do an in-and-out cath on her!  I have only done ‘foley’ catheters, but my primary nurses assured me that the procedure was the same, just no balloon and removal of the catheter right after the bladder empties.  I was really glad they allowed me to perform the procedure. 

     I explained to the patient that it should be done because she wouldn’t feel the urge to void.  I also assured her it would not cause pain, (it really shouldn’t have for her because of the epidural) what the procedure consisted of, and that it would take longer for me to set it up than to actually perform the procedure.  (in the patient’s chart, she stated she learned best from 1-on-1 instruction.)

     I pulled the curtain for privacy, put on the sterile gloves, and felt great to be doing something that would keep the patient safe from bladder distention.  Christy, (the other primary nurse) talked me through it and really helped when I had a bit of difficulty. (side note:  I got to do another right away on the walk-in patient we were also assigned to and I felt really good about it.  No problems at all with the 2^nd one!) Christy also explained to me that this could possibly help the patient with her lack of progress in dilation; it would keep the bladder from potentially adding pressure that her body would have to work against.  I measured her output in the ‘hat’ in the commode, and Carlee charted it on the computer.

     I brought my patient ice throughout the day, since that was all she was allowed.  I changed her pads on her bed several times throughout the day.  Several times during the day, I asked her what I could get or do for her, and only one time did she request anything; more ice.  She was a quiet and reserved patient.  It was hard for me to tell if that was her personality or if she was a little unsure of having a student involved in her care, but she seemed to come around a little more after the nurses allowed me to do her cath.  I completely understood.

     At the end of the day, I observed Christy checking the progress of the patient’s cervix.  By the time I left the floor, 15:00, she had changed very little and was around 2.5 cm dilated. 

     I was also involved in the care of two walk-ins:  one was sent home, and one who came in dilated to 4. It was a busy, great day!

So, the patient I was assigned to was a bitch, but whatever, I cath’d her anyway, LOL.  She may have just been apprehensive, or maybe she was snotty because she was a speech pathologist who was already secure in her career.  Who knows?  I was terribly nice and helpful to her, so I have no regrets at the end of the day.

What I didn’t get to talk about was my walk-in.  This girl was FUN-NEEEE.  She works in the cafeteria in the same hospital.  She came in dilated to a 4 already, membranes ruptured!

She had a party going on in her room there at Hospital-of-Changing-Church-Affiliations.  There was a conversation going on around me and the two primary nurses I was working with. Something along the lines of, “Well, it’s gonna be a boy, because she was on TOP.”  And much laughter.  And I didn’t know if I could laugh with them or if I was supposed to maintain my professional distance, but my GOD, you can’t write this stuff.  The girl was like, “Can all ya’ll be quiet until my 3 nurses leave, please!”  She was laughing.

And I was smiling.  Her *3* nurses; me included!

I hope she ended up ok.  We had meconium by midmorning and we started amnioinfusion.  And when I took her temp at 14:00, she had one at 99.1.  Hope that little baby boy ended up ok.

That was a good day.  A good day indeed.

The Catch Up!

Gosh, I don’t even know where to start.  I never intended to not write at least weekly, but an accelerated program is, well, accelerated!  Who the heck has time?  I want to make time. :)

Well, let’s see…I had a 2^nd not mandatory orientation on Monday and Tuesday before class started, so I really didn’t work those last two days.  Just a couple of hours.  It was a really great way to transition my work life to school life.  My office threw me a great going away party.  I’ve been told by everyone that the office is not the same without my loud-ass laugh.  I’m glad I was someone to miss; that’s what I always want to strive to be.  Miss me instead of ‘good-riddance,’ ya know?

So... school!  It is GREAT.  I’ve already had plenty of “the thrill of victory; the agony of defeat.”  Aug Interim was 3.5 weeks of 8-5, Monday through Friday.  I worked really hard, did several Returns aka Check-Offs.  On female/male cath or sterile wound dressing, I drew sterile wound dressing.  And I left that return barely holding it together.  I broke technique twice without reporting it (without NOTICING it) and though my teacher was very nice and I took it gratefully, by the time I got down to my locker and a sympathetic friend saw the look on my face, I started bawling.  I don’t want to potentially hurt someone by breaking sterile technique!  I don’t want an 85 either! And I don’t know why I didn’t get a worse grade than that.  Sigh.  That was a very hard afternoon.  I actually asked the teacher before she gave me my grade when I could retest because I am very hard on myself.  Glad it wasn’t necessary; she said I had the principles, I just needed more practice.  So.  I hate even reliving that day here in words.

The weekend before our finals/final grades, we all went to happy hour at a great local bar.  Well, not all of us, but like, 12 of us.  What a blast.   We all got quite drunk. J Good times.  Steph reported to us Monday that she was parading around her house naked afterwards, looking to see if her grade had posted from the test we took earlier that day.  LOL 

My dear Indian friend who comforted me that day didn’t make the cut at the end of Aug Interim.  It was too sad.  She didn’t make the grades.  All of our tests are in NCLEX format to teach us to test that way AND she has the language barrier.  She’s incredibly brilliant – she was going Pharm until she tried out for this program.  But her grades weren’t good enough and she was eliminated.  We were all so dismayed.

I ended up with a 93 in the Fundamentals class that I screwed up the sterile wound dressing.  And I didn’t do good enough on my final for Essentials.   I couldn’t believe it when the final grade posted; an 89.3.  Are you kidding?  89.3!!???  The College of Health Professions has a college wide agreement that there is no rounding.  So I got a big fat B in my Essentials course.  I didn’t study nearly enough on the different theorists and stages of development:  Freud, Erkison, Piaget. (This whole going back to college thing is TOTAL Identity vs. Role Confusion, LOL) And it totally burned me.  My fault—I have to work harder next time. 

Here’s the kicker.  We have a guy in class, Mike, that is a big work-avoider, laid back, dry humor—really a lot of what I was used to in my IT Office that I used to work in.  So his humor is great, but his laziness isn’t.  First day of class, he was dubbed “Astronaut” and the freaking Astronaut got all A’s.  And I got an 89.3.  That pissed me the FARTHEST off.  I did worse than the freaking Astronaut.  *Sigh  J

Other things…

God, I LOVE the GEICO commercial “did the little piggy cry wee-wee-wee all the way home!”  I am so Maxwell, the piggy. :D Weeeeee!  Weee-weee-weeee!!!!!

What else.  OK, so Fall I started.  I have Med-Surg, Health Assessment online, Health Assessment Lab, Childbearing Family (ob), and my FIRST CLINICAL ROTATION! Weeeeee!

OH, our Childbearing teacher.  Man.  She is…something.  She can be so funny, and then so damned strict and sharp tongued, you just never know where you are with her.  So we all had to RE-check off on doing IVs with her before we went to clinicals.  And we’re all like, “we just checked off on this with our other two teachers in Fundys.”  But in Fundys, they allowed us to use the fake IV arms.  They bleed and everything, but according to Ms. Childbearing, it ISN’T the same.

So what was told to us to be a voluntary stick-clinic, was quickly changed to an INVOLUNTARY stick clinic once we got in Ms. Childbearing’s class.  It created a bit of an uproar, honestly.  And after belly-aching on the part of many in our class, we did get the option to do our (re)check-off on either the fake arm again or the living.  Our classmates.  A choice…sort of.  No one wanted to admit that they were one of the ones who bitched to the program coordinator, so everyone chose to stick a classmate. J  Ms. Childbearing said, “There is nothing like doing the real thing.”  And as much as I on-again-off-again don’t like her, she was absolutely right.  I planned from the beginning to stick a real person, because I need the experience, but I was really, really glad that I did. 

My bestie in Nsg school is a LPN.  For some, this might add some performance anxiety, but she is a great teacher and encourager, so she really is great for a partner.  As it turns out, she is also an exceptional bleeder.  I had her blood all over everything and the floor when I stuck her.  I got the cathalon kinked, so I didn’t get to do the whole thing.  It was fine for the check off, but not enough for ME.   So I hung around and there was another girl who wanted to do a 2^nd stick at the end.  I was so glad, because I felt like I had to redeem myself.  So we restuck each other.  Two bruised hands later, we felt great.

My first exams, ‘A’s in everything except Childbearing.  89 in that one.  Goatee Man had a hypoglycemic episode the night before (diabetic) and I lost 2 hours of study time the night before.  Thank goodness that was the first test; still have time to make that B an A, hopefully.  

My first rotation is OR/One Day Surgery/OB at Hospital-of-Changing-Church-Affiliations.  We do one day in OR, 4 in OB, and one in One Day Surgery.  So I observed my first week, in the OR.  Pretty cool.  I saw a C Section and a total hysterectomy on a girl younger than myself.  Enjoyed it, but OR is not for me.  I don’t want to look at the same 5 people all day long.

OB was this past week. FAB.  I, after panicking internally the first hour, fell right into my role.  The more you act like who you are, the more you are treated like who you are.  Same applies in nursing.   See my next post for a glimpse into what happened.

I’ve spent around 18 hours this weekend studying for various tests coming up this next week.  I really want those ‘A’s.  And I really want an invite to Sigma Theta Tau.

Guess that’s it for now.  I’ll catch you up as I remember stuff.  I am so honored to be among the chosen, everyday.  Of course this is hard work, but I love it.  I'm going to be a RN!

No more waiting.

And so it begins!

I do think it's funny that it says "2009 class."  LOL  Oh well, it could say Whatever class, as long as the rest of the dates are on there...and I'm in!

Still not in but still not out!

I hate waiting.  Today is Thursday.  As of yesterday, still no word on program placement. *Sigh

Maybe I'll hear something today.  I know this is neurotic.  Can't help it. :)  I'll be better when I get a 'yes' or 'no.'

In the meantime, I am working towards and planning and using all the learning resources I can find as if I am already in my program.

Here's a great site from Jamie Davis, the PodMedic, on Nursing School strategies for us all to peruse:
http://www.nursingshow.com/student-nurse-tips/ 

Waiting and wondering.

It's the 17th.  Applications were due the 15th.  Wonder if I'll get a call today for an interview?  Nervous!

Hoping.

Sad news, though--Dean of Nursing at Podunk U lost her husband friday.  Terribly sad.  I completely understand if it delays the the process.

Keep your fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted!