here goes...

As I'm sitting here trying to catch up on my Pharm. readings from last week I can't stop thinking that I still haven't written my first blog (ever) about my nursing school life. I'm actually pretty jealous Mary Kelly and Erika have been so diligent about this, and now I'm really looking forward to it! So here goes...
Last week was one of those that just completely overwhelms you before it even begins. I was just so busy with class, registration (that rarely goes as planned), first two days of clinicals, work, volunteering, quizzes, and then, of course, studying. Now that it's over it doesn't seem so terrible, but I'm still lacking in the sleep department.
Tuesday and Wednesday clinicals were not what I was expecting. My clinical instructor, Joan, is very relaxed, funny, understanding, informative and entertaining. Almost everything is laced with a bit of humor, which I enjoy. I thought it would be more of a drill team deal without a moment of rest. We went in to meet our patient for the first time with Joan and she made it so simple. Later I figured out that you can let the patient do most of the talking (you know, trying the active listening and therapeutic relationship stuff), but then you may be stuck in their room for almost an hour. I'm pretty sure that won't be happening when I'm trying to manage five patients instead of one. After listening to some of our fellow students' stories about their clinicals I realized I still haven't had much hands-on care. No bed bath, no linen change, no assessment. Only vitals, which is a machine. So there's a lot of firsts still to come. Oh boy!
So I mentioned that Joan kept us going with entertainment, here's a fun tid-bit: Our clinical group had a competition to see who could hold their bladder the longest and then we used the bladder scanner on each other to measure who held the most. Devin won with more than 1000ml (the max the machine can read). This way we had some friendly rivalries and learned to use the scanner all at once. I'm pretty sure only nursing students would find such a game entertaining!
Getting together for quiz time with Mary Kelly and Erika was much more successful this week. It called for a little celebration and definitely lowered the stress levels!
Friday was our first exam of this semester. Seeing as I had quite the busy schedule and have a procrastinating attitude towards school work I did not study until Thursday. And now that we only have class once a week our professors like to use all the time they can. So after not sleeping much during the week, then studying all night Thursday, trying to make it through a full lecture after an exam was a little much for me. Distractions abound on Fridays!
The greatest part of this week had to be the "ice cream and banana split social" Friday evening! Props to the organizers because there was some great bonding and planning for our trip to the State Fair in October...something else to look forward to!
If this is rambling, I'm sorry. If you would like a summary of my week sans drama, you just read it. I can't think of any good quotes, but I'll usually try to have some!
first blog ever. check!

A second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week ...

2 + 2 =4. 5 x 5 = 25. d = rt. These lessons all sound really simple. I don't even have to think about them anymore. Still though, I know at one point, they didn't seem so simple. At one point, they were confusing to the point that my mother let me practice by counting with forks and knives in our drawer. This week, I had to learn a lesson again that I've learned more times that I can count; still, it trips me up every time. This week started out looking like it could potentially be a complete nightmare. I had to deal with my first ticket Monday; I woke up at 6:00 to go to court. I waited in line for over an hour and half and got out of the ticket. Simple, right? My first day of clinicals started on Tuesday; I had no idea what I was doing. My clinical leader looked at me during a practice run and said, "OK, start the assessment." I had no idea where to start. We had been taught a FULL physical exam; I only had to do 1 body system. It turned out to be really simple. The next day, I would meet my patient. Stress. What would that be like? Well, actually it was fantastic. Wednesday was one of the most fulfilling days I've had in a while; my time, each minute, each hour felt purposeful, even though I didn't actually do that much. Nursing allows me to incorporate the value I place on life and living into action which I just find so exciting! I hope I keep that in mind because I know how idealistic it sounds but still, it never hurts. I am so aware of my flaws (of which I have many), butI also believe that God graces me with days that I feel like He designated just for me, to show me that I am part of His plan. Yes, surprisingly, I got all of this out of putting on scrubs, taking vitals, and measuring urine. Now, I'm sitting here with my bestfriend of over 10 years, cuddled up in blankets, watching Grey's Anatomy Season 5, and I would just like to say on the record, this week turned out much better than anticipated. Everything came together. Lesson learned - again. Still, I'm scared. I have this life in my mind that I have always wanted, that I still want, and it seems much farther off than I thought it would by this point. You would think though that after I saw, yet again, that things turn out just as they should, that I wouldn't be anxious about the future. Maybe one day it will actually sink in. I love quoting others because they often say it better than I (I tend to ramble) so here's the quote of the week," Essentially, we spend too much time trying to figure out where we're going. We should be trying to figure out WHO God wants us to be, rather than WHERE God wants us to be." So, I'm going to try to do just that; I encourage you to do the same <3

I Love Nursing School

For multiple reasons. Here's a few, in no particular order:

1) Nursing Humor: We're all nerds, and I love it. In lab today, we were practicing moving patients from the floor to a stretcher with these crazy inflatable beds. And John, one of our few male nursing students, was like "I'm clear, you're clear, we're all clear!" going back to our BLS [basic life support] CPR class we took this summer. They were crazy about making sure we say that every time we practiced with the defibrillator. Either way, we all started laughing, myself included, and all I could think of is, "Wow, we are nerds." When you're surrounded by these things all the time, it's hard not to revert to talking about it all the time. But then when you tell these "funny" stories later on, everyone else looks at you like that was the dumbest story ever (maybe it's just me actually, if you know me, you know that I am TERRIBLE at telling stories). But when I get those blank looks from people, I just go..."oh, nursing humor."

Which reminds me, I don't think we fully explained the name of the blog. When we were trying to think of a title, we turned to trusty Google with this search: "things that nurses say a lot." Well we found this list of [mostly funny] sayings that nurses tend to say, and one of them was, "This won't hurt a bit." Well I think we can all say that we've heard that before, and usually when they do say that, it does actually hurt! So we though that was funny. I tacked on the "at least we hope not" because let's be honest, we have very little knowledge and we're about to be thrown into this crazy world where people's lives are in our hands - we definitely HOPE we don't actually hurt anyone! Especially when it's school and we're just students...

2) Our crazy labs: Today we lifted each other off beds 5-6 feet in the air to move them to chairs to practice safe patient handling for immobile patients. A few weeks ago, we actually restrained each other to beds. Next week we're doing injectable medicine...on each other! In a few weeks we have our Venipuncture lab; they sent out this notice this weekend regarding that lab: "We recommend not wearing light colors that day. You will be in a lab environment with copious amounts of fake blood and with the potential for exposure to real blood and body fluids." Haha, whaaaat. My favorite part of that was the adjective "copious."

3) The people: This week is going to be a tough/busy one. We have our first exam on Friday, and it's also our first week of clinicals, and thus our first week of patient interaction. What are we doing Friday evening? A bunch of us are getting together to have a Banana Split and Disney movie night. That's my kind of night! The invite to this get-together read, "For the love of bananas and our sanity." :)

Two other quick things:
1) Katie is a slacker, and better post something soon!
2) Our friend Whitney is joining this blogging team, so get ready for one more awesome perspective in our journey through Nursing school!

"It's a long semester; you don't have to do everything at the beginning."

On my way to Carrington Hall (the school of nursing building) on Tuesday, I stopped at the Health Affairs store to buy a snack and drink; the guy who normally checks me out asked how my labor day weekend was and how school is going. I told him I was really enjoying it but that this week was going to be a clincher; I was on my way to do my first Eval (nerve racking evaluation of Clinical skills) and glucometer training. On Wednesday, we had our first clinical meeting and a calculations test we had to get a 100% on to pass. Needless to say, it was a little intimidating to be walking towards. How did he respond? "Remember, it's a long semester; you don't have to do everything at the beginning." I said "Ya know, you're right; thanks for the encouragement." Now, in actuality, I'm not sure how much sense that statement makes, but nonetheless, I really appreciated his encouragement. Life is a beautiful thing, in its entirety and its pieces. He's right, in that, I need to remember to take one day at a time and keep the big picture in mind. I look back at this week and everything fell right into place (except for that 50 on our quiz in adult care, but that was a fail for everyone). That's one reason I'm so glad Erika thought of this blog; I love looking back and seeing how everything unfolds just as God intended. Just to give a little detail, our clinical instructor seems so very nice and seems genuinely excited to be working with us. We'll be on 3rd floor Anderson of the Cardiac Unit at the UNC Hospital; we'll be exposed to many patients with Heart Failure, MI, heart transplants, etc. We're all so excited but so nervous so be thinking about us next week when we actually head to the hospital to start with our first assigned patients : ) That will be next Wednesday. Another thing that really stuck out to me this week was how much more fun I'm having being in school, solely because I'm surrounded by people that I know and feel comfortable with everyday. In my classes, I'm surrounded by people that I know and admire - it's a pretty good feeling. It's weird though; I feel myself becoming more and more independent which I'm so happy about. But ... it makes me miss my family. I miss my sister and my brothers most of all; I would miss my mom and dad, but I see them pretty frequently. Anyway, all this being said, I'm just so excited to see where my life is headed, the turns that I'll take, the destinations God will take me too, and the relationships I'll have along the way. And yes, I am this cheesy all the time. And yes, I tend to ramble. Like everything else, I choose to see that it's for a reason : ) Hope all of my friends and family are finding themselves just as blessed as I am <3

so that's why they do that!

So one of the cool things about nursing school so far is learning the reason why health care professionals do the things they do - you know, the things that you see all the time whether from personal experience or the wealth of tv shows and movies out there, but you don't really know why they do it...or at least never stop to think about it.

Example one: Whenever a tv show shows doctors and nurses preparing for a surgery they always show the doctors holding their hands out in the air, even after putting gloves on. I always thought that was just so they wouldn't accidentally touch something. Nope. Well actually, that's part of it, but any area below your waist is considered non-sterile. And clearly in this case sterility is necessary. So if you drop your hands below your waist, even if you touch nothing, you've got to start all over and get new sterile gloves. When we learned that I was like, "ooooh so that's why they do that!"

Example two: I've never really stopped to think about why sometimes you take antibiotics and the first dose is greater than the rest of them. I just do what the bottle says, right? Well in pharmacology today we talked about "loading doses," which is when they give you enough of a drug to push you quickly into the therapeutic range (where you'll see the effects) and then after that give you maintenance doses which are smaller, to keep you in the therapeutic range. I mean, that's actually intuitive, so maybe I just was being lazy and not actually thinking about it. But I didn't really know the whole concept of the therapeutic range and maintaining that level and what not. So there's my second, "ooooh so that's why they do that." And now you can know that for the next time you take some antibiotics.

And last but not least, a few observations from my skills and concepts lab:
1) Having your teeth brushed by somebody else is pretty strange
2) Sponge baths - not so bad; it kind of felt like you were at the spa...I've never actually been to a spa, but you got to be lazy while somebody else did the work! (I only had my arm washed though.)
3) Bed pans - UNCOMFORTABLE! We had to lie on them in bed to get a feel for what it's like for the patient.
4) For handwashing being something I've done for as long as I can remember, doing it right is more complex than you'd think!

It's Friday!

Life is a journey, not a destination

That had to be the title of my first blog post, no question. My brother, whom I love dearly, responded to this earlier today with "and remember, when life gives you a lemon make a cheesy motivational poster....." To which I responded, "And remember... never act in anger. Instead, calmly flip the person off." I love my family : ) You might think that last statement is sarcastic, but no. Cruel and mocking comments are our love language. Erika created this blog for she, Katie, and I to document our journey through nursing school. The title reflects her goal: to give us an outlet to relieve stress and also to let our family and friends get a picture into the experience. So far, the experience has been far from painful. In fact, I find that my stress level has only decreased 10-fold since starting nursing school. I fully embrace the fact that this again reinforces that I am a complete nerd, but I love it: I love everything that I'm learning, I love that I've met someone new every day, and I love the interaction. Most of all, I love that yesterday when I played with a baby on the bus , I knew that the capillary angioma on her face was totally benign! The Lord has shown me each step of the way that I'm on the right path, not just in nursing but in general. So far, every morning when I wake up, I know that I am where I'm supposed to be and that exciting things lie ahead. So, maybe it's cheesy, but life really is a journey, not a destination. Otherwise, my Creator wouldn't have put me here.

Hopefully, this blog will allow my friends and family who are interested to get a glimpse into my ADLs (nursing lingo for Activities of Daily Living). Enjoy!