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!