YKYW - Nursing Student Blog

My NCLEX experience was pretty rough. I wasn’t the best of students in school and didn’t make the best grades. I struggled with tests because I had a bad habit of over-thinking the wording of the questions. I’ve had a lot going on in my life and have been very stressed out. My stress level has been so high that it made it very difficult for me to focus and study the material. Add my general performance/test anxiety to the mix and well, it hasn’t been pretty.

The night before my test date, we had tornado warnings, and so I was in the bathroom (for safety) with 3 other people and 6 animals when I wanted to be resting. I woke up early and made it to the testing site with plenty of time. When I feel anxious, I tend to experience GI issues. During school, I took a bottle of Maalox with me into the tests (yes, I’m odd). Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that for the NCLEX, I took some Zantac, and Immodium before I left my house and put two chewable Pepto Bismol tablets into my mouth as I went through the check-in process. It’s better safe than sorry, right? I had a few more chewable Pepto tablets in my pocket, and I asked if I could open them into a tissue and take it in with me. They said that wasn’t a problem.

As I sat down to take the test, my hands were trembling. I went through the tutorial and started the test. Egads! I had a ton of mother/baby questions and drugs — my two worst subjects! I kept watching the clock and was racing through questions. I kept telling myself to slow down. At one point, a question comes up that is based on a medical term that I don’t know. Frustrated, I put my head in my hands, closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. Wait! I do know that word because I studied it during 3rd semester; and look, there’s an answer that’s appropriate!

In the end, I had 75 questions and it took me right at an hour to finish. I only had two alternate response questions, and both were SATAs. No med calcs, no ordering of answers, nothing like that. When the test stopped at 75 questions, I was shocked. Surely I failed! With all those mother/baby and drug questions, there’s no way I had passed this thing. I wanted to shake the computer and beg for more questions. Don’t stop now; let me show you that I do know something!

When I got to my car, I couldn’t help it. I cried. I felt terrible and knew I’d let everyone down who believed in me and supported me. How would I tell them?

I spent the next 48 hrs as a basket case, obsessively checking the website to see if my results were available. On Friday morning, they still weren’t available when I got to work. After we finished the first surgery, I used my phone to check the Internet for my results again. They were available! I went over to the BON website and my name wasn’t listed. Oh no! Shaking like a leaf, I found a secluded computer to enter in my credit card information and looked at the screen:

Pass

That is such a beautiful word! Relief rushed through my body and I couldn’t believe it. I passed; I passed!

I was all giggly the first time I signed my name as “Jaxia, RN.”

I’m sharing this because I thought there may be other graduate nurses out there who were in similar situations. Trust me, if I can do it, YOU CAN DO IT!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2009 is full of love and laughter for us all.

I’ll be away for a week because I’m going on a cruise to celebrate my graduation from nursing school. Then, it’s time to really start preparing for the NCLEX!

Well, I made it. I did well enough on my exit HESI to score my highest lecture average of my entire nursing career. This has been a crazy semester, and I worked my tail off to get to the end.

I’m not sure what to do with myself now. It’s strange to have so much “free” time. I still need to prepare for the NCLEX, but I’m having a hard time getting motivated to do much … other than nap and catch up with friends.

It still hasn’t sunk in; I’m a graduate nurse!

I sit down in a few hours to take my final final of nursing school. I’m anxious, nervous, excited and … a bunch of other emotions that I can’t quite pin down at the moment.

We use the exit HESI as our nursing school final. We are allowed up to 4 hours to complete the test.

If you can spare a moment around noon central time, any and all good juju sent my way would be most welcome!

This semester, I’m in the ER for my clinical rotations. Right now, I’m about halfway through my clinical hours, and I’ve seen a ton of stuff!

- One patient had a GI bleed, and I was able to insert a nasogastric tube and do lavage. He lost so much blood that he needed blood transfusions, so I was able to monitor blood products, too.

- I’ve been involved in 3 patient codes and did chest compressions. One of them was an infant. Nursing school did not prepare me for dealing with patients dying.

- I got to set up continuous bladder irrigation and care for a tracheostomy.

- I watched a doctor intubate a patient. Another patient had a spontaneous pneumothorax, and I got to watch the doctor insert a chest tube.

- Not to mention the broken arms, motorcycle accident, broken legs, mangled fingers, chest pains, threatened abortions and various other things.

Every shift, I get to practice a ton of skills. If I only get the opportunity to start 5 IVs, it’s a slow night. Toss in a few tetanus and rocephin shots, IV piggybacks, and foley catheters and I’m a happy student nurse!

If you have the opportunity to spend some time in the ER during your clinical shifts, I highly recommend it.

Just prior to submitting an application for my first-choice job, I wrote (individual, customized letters) to the senior nurse recruiter, the education manager and the manager of the OR hoping to establish some name recognition … Is there a such thing as overkill? Maybe they’ll just read it for the excitement that it is?

Mere moments after submitting, I got a call to schedule an interview for next week.

Ohwow!Ohwow!Ohwow!Ohwow!Ohwow!Ohwow!

Now, I get to manage my nerves and practice my ‘elevator speech’ for over a week.

Hmm … what will I wear?! I need a haircut ASAP!

My psych clinicals were pretty interesting. We spent some time observing at a state mental hospital, and I was assigned to the forensic unit. Patients on the forensic unit are there because they committed some type of crime, and the courts are trying to settle issues of competency to stand trial. I enjoyed getting to see how they try to help patients with mental illness understand the judicial process.

It was a little disturbing to find out about how the hospital handles deciding when to confine a patient to the unit, and when they are allowed to go out on the hospital grounds without a chaperone. I must admit I was a surprised to find out that someone could commit a violent crime, yet work their way up through the reward system and earn full grounds privileges. It isn’t all that hard to get out of the hospital, and I’m not sure I’d want to live near the place.

The hotel experience was like a comedy of errors. Since it takes about 2 hours to get there, my school friend and I decided to get a room near the hospital for each of the two weeks that we had to be there. For the first week, my friend made the arrangements. We arrive at the hotel, and I go into the bathroom — there are roaches everywhere! Luckily, we were able to find another room at a different place. On the second week, we check in and our toilet overflows, so we wind up switching rooms around 1130p. It made for a very long night.

Oh! And, I almost forgot to write about the best part of the clinical experience! I was able to observe 2 sessions of ECT. Now, I don’t know about you, but I had a lot of misconceptions about “shock therapy.” As they were setting up one patient, the doctor asked me if I wanted to touch the patient’s foot so that I could feel the seizure.

“Do I touch it after you remove the electrodes?”
“No, touch it now and keep it there throughout the procedure.”

I had no idea I could touch someone while they were getting shocked! It was really a very cool experience. And, you could see a positive change in both patients within minutes of having ECT.

Going into my psych clinicals, I really wasn’t looking forward to it. All that “touchy-feely” theraputic communication just isn’t my thing. But, I was pleasantly surprised by the whole clinical rotation. As a TK learner, I appreciated getting to actually hear clanging and echolalia, see akathisia and talk to a patient with delusions and hallucinations … it was invaluable. I don’t think I could work as a psych nurse, but my clinical rotations did change my attitude about it.

On Thursday, August 7th, Dairy Queen is sponsoring a “Miracle Treat Day” where proceeds from Blizzard sales will go to your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.

With several days of temperatures over 100 degrees, it seems like a good excuse for a cold Blizzard treat!

(School starts again shortly, so I’ll have more updates about nursing school soon!)

I’m a bit slow, but I’m finally responding to Student Nurse Jack’s meme.

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

Working for Microsoft, adjusting to life in Dallas/Fort Worth, spending the summer at the lake with my friends

2. What are the five things at the top of your “to do” list?

— Getting a better grip on the fundamentals for nursing school
— Packing for my move
— Learning different swim strokes
— Reading for pleasure
— Working as much as possible to save up for the fall semester

3. What are five snacks you enjoy?

— Chips, salsa, queso and guacamole (although I’m allergic to most of it)
— Apples with peanut butter
— Homemade fruit smoothies
— Jalapeno garlic hummus
— Apple cinnamon rice cakes

4. Name some things you would do if you were a millionaire.

Travel as much as possible; invest wisely so I could stay a millionaire; pay off my debt; buy my first home

5. Name some places you have lived.

Houston, Tx; Dallas, Tx; Corpus Christi, Tx; Columbia, SC; Fort Worth, Tx; Bedford, Tx; Saginaw, Tx; Lewisville, Tx; Burleson, Tx; Grand Praire, Tx; Arlington, Tx; Richardson, Tx … basically, Texas.

6. Name some bad habits you have.

Procrastination, being too quick to find fault in myself and others, not taking enough risks, being too distrustful

7. Name some jobs you’ve had.

Customer Support Advocate, Account Executive, Technical Support Analyst, IT Manager, Internet Consultant, Web Analytics Project Manager, SEO Lackey

I won’t tag anyone, but if you want to fill it out, I’d love to see your answers!

While trying to keep abreast of stuff this summer, I found a great website that is really helping me study. Flashcarddb is a website that allows you to create flashcards online, and you can even share with other people (or choose to make your cards private, too). One cool thing about the site is that it uses the Leitner System to help you study.

I haven’t been using the online flashcards for long, so I’m not sure how much spaced repetition will actually help me, but it seems like it should.

If you are interested, here is a link to the cards I have already created. I’m trying to remember to tag all the cards I create with ‘nursing’ to make them easier for other people to find. Let me know what you think!