YKYW - Nursing Student Blog

We start our unknown projects in Microbiology tomorrow. Is this a fairly typical part of Microbiology lab classes? We get a mixture of two different organisms, and we have to isolate them, and figure out what they are without any help from the professor.

It does count for a large percentage of our grade, so I’m a bit nervous.

My summer session started today. Microbiology isn’t a class I look forward to taking. The testing schedule is killer: June 6, June 11, June 14, June 18, June 26, June 28, July 3 and July 5, plus our unknown project. While those dates cover both lab and lecture, it’s still pretty intense.

The professor seems decent enough. Everything that I’ve heard about him said he was a good teacher. I’m going to be so very bored though. I’m used to labs where I can go in, do my thing and leave. If the first day of class is any indication, he’s going to walk us through everything in a slow and methodical fashion.

I have a feeling I’m going to be significantly more germ-paranoid at the end of this class.

At least it is less than 6 weeks. I can do this.

As for school, my clinical selections have been turned in, but I still don’t know where I’ll be. It will probably be late June before I hear anything.

Guess which nursing school student made a 99.6 in clinicals, a 99.1 in skills lab and an 85 in lecture? Yes, yes … the grade whore in me is very distraught over the B, but the realist in me is still doing the happy dance. Our class lost about 1/3 of the nursing students who were admitted at the beginning of the semester. I’m just so thankful that I made it through!

Yay!!

While it may not sound like much to some of you, my weekend was packed! On Friday, I met up with a friend from college (yes, from the first time I tried that whole education thing) who I last saw over 10 years ago. She was in town to celebrate the birthday of a friend, and they were kind enough to let me tag along. I had a good time — I got to catch up a bit with my friend, meet some new people AND I learned how to make sangria at home. Can’t beat that

On Saturday, SK and I took Toby to spend the night at the lake house. Since the drive is through hill country, I was looking forward to seeing the wild flowers in bloom. The sky was overcast for most of the weekend, but because of all the rain we’ve had recently, everything was green and in full bloom. Springtime is a wonderful time to drive around Texas. I guess we weren’t the only ones to think so — at one point, we stumbled across what seemed to be a VW convention! There were Volkswagons all over the place! SK even pointed out one that was painted like Herbie the Lovebug. I didn’t realize there were so many different kinds of VWs out there.

After we made it home yesterday, I did some studying, and then had dinner with Jac. I’m trying to be good this week and get in a lot of studying. I have a test on Friday, and my final is coming up soon! My first nursing major careplan is due this week, and I’m a bit nervous about it. We did get some feedback on our mini care plans, but there’s such a big difference between a major careplan and a mini careplan. This major careplan counts for 20% of my grade in my clinical class. 30% comes from the various skill checkoffs, and the last 50% is the subjective evaluation by our clinical instructor. I sure hope she’s in a good mood when she does mine! I wonder if she likes chocolate chip cookies?

We had our last checkoff of the first semester of nursing school today — inserting a Foley catheter. After next week, we are done with our lab class. The nice part is that we’ll have two weeks after the end of clinicals to concentrate on lecture. I don’t know about other nursing programs, but our lecture class is killing us! It seems like every time we get together, we’ve lost a few more people. It’s scary to see that happening to people I thought would make decent nurses. Just shows that I shouldn’t be the one judging

And, I have a decision to make. The campus I’m attending now is my second choice campus. I was told that if I asked for a change to my first choice campus for the second semester, I’d probably get it. But, I’m not so sure I want it now. Since I’ve already established friendships with some of my fellow nursing students, and I know that I have people I can count on if I need a helping hand. I’m sure I’ll meet new people, but will it be the same? However, the other campus is closer to home and has free parking. The clinical sites should be closer, too, which will be really handy when it’s time to start job hunting. Ah, decisions!

Easter weekend was really nice. We went to Florida to visit SK’s nieces and nephew (and their parents happened to be around, too!). I know you may not believe it, but I actually wore a dress to church.

Are you done laughing? :p

After three shifts of my hospital clinical for nursing school, I finally had a good day. After I picked my patient on Tuesday, I heard that she might be going home, but I didn’t have time to pick another one that day. Since I like to be prepared for the day, I made it a point to show up early on Wednesday just in case my patient had been discharged. Sure enough, she had been discharged. While flipping through the new admits, I saw that there was a lady in for suspected Crohn’s disease. My aunt, who is also my namesake, had Crohn’s disease, so I was very interested in learning more about this condition. I spoke with the patient, and she agreed to be my guinea pig for the day.

While doing her physical assessment, it came up that she worked in a hospital.

“That’s neat. What do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I’m a nurse. I graduated from the same school you are now attending 15 years ago.”

Oh no! As I new student (and someone who struggles with self-confidence), this could be a very.bad.thing. I was worried she would be critical and expect me to be further along with my skills. But, I took a deep breath, and continued with my assessment. When it came time to palpate the abdomen, I was very hesitant because Crohn’s disease targets the digestive system. She asked, “Do you mind if I give you some advice?” It turns out I wasn’t pressing hard enough. She was really kind about teaching me and it helped a great deal!

Since my patient was NPO (nothing by mouth) and we aren’t allowed to push IV meds yet, it looked like I wouldn’t be able to give any medications. However, as my shift was ending, the doctor ordered a one-time oral medication. After grabbing my instructor, we went to the patient’s room. I made the introductions, and my patient said, “She’s been really great today and such a sweetheart. She’s going to make a great nurse.” In front of my instructor! Then my instructor said, “She’s one of my brightest students. She does a great job!”

I’m not sure how I made it through the medication administration after that, because I was in a daze. It was awesome to hear the feedback, and really made me feel good about what I was doing.

Floating on the high of that positive affirmation, I didn’t even cuss the horrible traffic on the way home

It seems this has morphed into a nursing student blog instead of a blog about my life. But, my life centers on becoming a nurse right now and so it makes sense that my blog revolves around life as a nursing student.

With that in mind, my blog has gone through a makeover. If you read through a blog subscription service, stop by and check out the new blog design. Thanks to David for the nifty looking sexy nurse icon!

Cherokee Medical Nursing Uniforms Available In Tons Of Colors, Styles, And Prints!

I was piddling around on the Internet and decided to set up an Internet link directory. Silly, I know. It’s not like I need something else to do. I’m still working on the layout, but I thought I’d let ya’ll know about it in case you were interested in being listed in a link directory. I have several special categories (Gambling Directory, Texas Directory, Gay & Lesbian Directory, MySpace Directory, Nursing Directory, MMA & UFC Directory and Games Directory), and most of the general ones. If you don’t feel there’s a good home for one of your sites, just suggest a new category and I’ll take care of it.

Come one, Come all! Feel free to spread the word about my new web directory.

Instead of answering all the emails individually, I decided to make a post: No, I did NOT video tape my bed bath, and No, I do not need another volunteer on which to practice my bed bath skills. But I appreciate all your support and enthusiasm

We reviewed our first lecture test. One of the questions I missed was over subjective statements. In my own words, something is subjective when it is my opinion/observation/thought on something, and not a concrete fact. One of our test questions basically asked:

“Which of these nursing notes is a subjective statement?”

A. Client appears sleepy.
B. Clients states, “I am nervous and anxious.”

(and there were two other choices that are not relevant)

I picked A. Since it’s my opinion, I considered it the subjective statement. When I quote someone, I think that is objective. That’s a fact — it’s what they said. But, the teacher didn’t agree. She couldn’t explain why A was wrong, which is very frustrating. But because of a question that was tossed, I wound up with a 90. No complaints here!

My physical assessment check-off went great. When I stopped to pick up my grade, my instructor told me, “You are such a pleasure to have in class. I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into your skills. It shows, and I appreciate it.” That was so awesome to hear and really made me feel good!

Since we had our hospital orientation last week, I was supposed to have my first patient today. However, there was a mix-up with our medication check-off schedule. Now this week is crazy – I had my NGT (nasogastric tube) feeding check-off today, medication check-off is on Wednesday and there is a major lecture test on Friday. Three tests in one week? I think we can all agree that is just a wee bit excessive.

It’s Friday evening, and I’m sitting in the living room with Toby curled up in my lap. SK’s in the Cayman Islands right now and I’m jealous. I was supposed to go, but I had a test today in my nursing lecture class that I couldn’t miss.

The test went fairly well. Considering the highest grade in the class was a 92, and I made an 88, I cannot complain too much — especially since I didn’t get to study as much as I had hoped because I feel like death warmed over. I briefly considered driving up to Oklahoma to play poker tonight, but I just don’t feel up for it.

On Monday, everyone in my skills lab has to bring a bathing suit, towel, washcloth, sheet, soap and lotion. Our instructor wants us to give each other sponge baths so that we know how people in the hospital will feel. Being near-naked is bad enough, but it is always so dad-gum cold that I’m going to be blue! Not to mention the fact that the hot water doesn’t work very well, so I’ll be lucky if the water is even tepid.

Physical assessment check-off is next week. We have to do the whole thing in under 15 minutes. That’s just crazy.

(You can always tell when I don’t feel good, because my posts are very … disjointed.)