PICU

I know I’ve been MIA lately, but I promise it is just due to sickies and our first round of exams. 

I got to rotate through the PICU today during Peds clinicals.  I’ve determined that I love the ICU part but the P part, not so much.  I just wanted to pick up those little babies and hold them, but when they’ve got intestines on the outside and tubes going everywhere, it just isn’t possible.

I did learn a whole lot today though.  I learned that I can do anything, even if it makes my eyes tear up a little.  And I learned that not all parents are with their children in the hospital.  Now, I realize that it isn’t always feasible for a parent to miss a bunch of work or whatnot, but then come be there at night, have someone else come in, do something so that your child is not alone in the PICU.  And definately do something so that the nurses don’t talk about how you never show up to be with your child. 

There was a child with a head injury so I learned a whole bunch of cool neuro shit too, but I can’t tell you about it because it would violate HIPPA and all that.  Unfortunately it is just different enough for me to not be able to mix up and all that.  And I learned that the educator is my best friend (BFF!!!) because they spent 1.5 hours with me just showing me patients and teaching me stuff.  I will share the acronyms and stuff I learned in a later post.

Oh, and Disappearing John is now an educator and I can see why he loves the job.  I bet he is a great one too!  I feel like I had so much more to say but my mind is a little discombobulated right now, and yes, that is the technical term.  I’ll go play some Lego Star Wars on the Wii with my hubby and see if it gets better.

~Flo

Seriously?

Okay, here’s the thing, we are not dumb.  No one uses actual film anymore.  So if you are carrying around one film canister, I have a pretty damn good idea of what is really in there.

~Flo

Ha! Ha!

You know that math test I was talking about yesterday?  Well, it seems as though everyone failed it.  I guess that is what happens when you have an exam on the second day of school with no info on what exactly will be on the exam and then you have IV drip calculations when none of us have done IV’s yet.  Luckily we have 2 more chances to pass it and I doubt I’ll need more than one, especially since I’ve seen the test and have a much better idea about what is on it and what I need to study.

~Flo

A test? Already?

So we had our first day of school today, me and the kids.  The kids had a great day and are very happy to be back to playing with friends all day.  I had a good day too.  I have one more class tomorrow that I didn’t have today and I’ll have a much better idea of how the semester is going to be once that class is over.

First of all is that we have a medication test in each class that we have a clinical in, so this semester we will end up taking 3 medication math tests.  The first one is for peds and it is tomorrow.  I’m a little concerned because it came up so quick and now I’m procrastinating from studying for it.  The other issue I have is that they want to know what the safe doses are and right now, since I’ve only had one day of peds, I have no idea what they are.  Oh, did I mention that we have to get 100% on this exam or we fail out of the clinical portion of the class, which essentially means we fail the class? 

Peds is being taught by two teachers and I’m not sure why.  We have this class 2 days a week and on one day is one teacher and on the next day is the next teacher, but they are both at both classes.  It seems like a strange arrangement and I don’t think I like it.  Mainly because the teacher who was not teaching today kept interrupting and contradicting the teacher who was teaching today. 

We had our first class of the second half of patho/pharm and I LOVE our new teacher.  She totally rocks and I felt like I actually already learned something.  It really goes to show you that some training on getting the information out of your head and into the heads of your students is so important.

And my last thing for today is that I started working out today.  My goal is to get back into shape by the end of the semester.  It is so important to be fit for myself, the kids and my new profession.  I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be an out of shape nurse, especially because you have to do so much running around and lifting and bending and all that.

~Flo

Does anyone else see a problem?

School starts on Monday 1/12, and we already have assignments to read for then. BUT financial aid checks are also being mailed out on Monday 1/12. So can someone explain to me how I’m supposed to pay for these books that I need to have the reading done in time for the first day of classes?

Hooray! Hoorah!

My fingernails are bitten to the quick, and the bags under my eyes make it look like I’m going on an extended vacation, but it is all worth it in the end.  I passed my first semester of nursing school and now I’m on to the next which is pediatrics and ob/gyn.

I almost don’t know what to do with myself for the next month until school starts again.  And I know that I’ll be ready to hand my kids over to preschool when that time comes.  But until then I think I’m going to catch up on my book reading and movie watching.

~Flo

Almost there…

I’m almost at the end of my first semester of nursing school.  I had my last clinical, took my last exam before finals and now it is just study, study, study until next week when we have finals.  I’m so proud of myself for pulling through the tough spots and doing what needed to get done no matter how tired I was.  My marriage is strong, my kids still feel loved and I’m passing all my classes (most of them with high B, low A).  All in all it was an amazingly successful first semester. 

Now I get three weeks off and then on to the second semester, which covers Pediatrics, OB/GYN and Geriatrics.  All of the students I’ve spoken with who have gone before me, claim that second semester is the hardest, but I’m thinking that first semester was pretty hard because we had to get used to a whole new style of learning and testing.  Damn those NCLEX style questions

Even though it was a successful semester there was quite a bit of drama, especially with one student and one teacher in particular.  This student is like me, a “nontraditional” student who is a wife and a mother.  But, unlike me, she is pretty uptight, and boy did this play out during her clash with one of our professors.  It isn’t over yet so I can’t tell you how it turns out, but it looks to be bloody.

~Flo

Who’s your Momma?

Our clinical rotation works like this, on Monday a group of eight students is at the hospital, then on Monday when they are done our group, of seven (we lost someone already) goes in to pick up our assignments and then on Tuesday we have our clinicals.  This means that on Tuesdays, we usually have the patients that have already had student nurses the day before.  I always take advantage of this and see who had my patients so I can ask questions.

Lately, I’ve had a rash of patients that I’ve been told by the previous student were difficult, mean, non-compliant, etc.  What I’ve noticed is that for me, they don’t act that way.  Now, I’m not mean, and strict and evil, but I’m not afraid to put limits on what I’ll do and to reinforce my role in our therapeutic relationship.  Mostly I think it is because I’m a mom and I’ve heard all the excuses, so I act a bit like a mom to my patients.  I walk in, introduce myself, tell them what we are going to do and see if they have questions, then I get what needs to be done, done and I’m finished.

For the last three weeks I’ve had patients who were terrors to their student nurses the day before and angels to me the next day.  And all the patients have thanked me and told me how much they enjoyed having me care for them.  In the end I think everyone just wants their momma…

Kind of an anti-Thanksgiving…

Thanksgiving this year was a bit of a bummer.  Sure, we are living in a small apartment to save $$ while I’m in school and all that, but I could have cooked.  Instead my IL’s thought going out to eat would be a good idea.  I’m all for not having to clean, but eating some weird turkeyloaf type thing that has both dark and white meat at 2pm is not my idea of a good Thanksgiving.  But what made it worse was my own parents couldn’t bother to give me a call to wish me or their grandchildren a Happy Thanksgiving.  I even called first and left a message.  AND my Aunt, who lives in the same town I do, called last week to tell me that my grandma would be in town, but hasn’t returned my calls this week so that I could go see them.  So, it was a fairly unThanksgivingy Thanksgiving.

On a positive note, although I still believe my Pharm teacher is random, I got an 85% on the last test.  If I can keep that up, passing will not be a problem   Off to study now that the bittiest is napping.

~Flo

Frustration

I’m really frustrated with my pharmacology class.  It seems like no matter how hard I study, or what I study, it isn’t what she tests on.  Luckily, I’m not the only one who is having an issue with it, unluckily we still need to get a 75% to pass the class, and if we don’t pass we are totally SOL on the program.  I feel like the professor just picks random shit and puts it on the test, stuff that was never covered in lecture, or on the outlines or anything.  Or the professor picks something that works for many drugs, like nausea being a side effect.  Ack, I’m doing so well in all my other classes and this is just really frustrating me!

~Flo