Six Weeks!

Six weeks from today I'll be back in the classroom starting Semester Four. The summer is flying by. It's really hard to imagine settling back into that insane schedule. Next semester I'm taking Advanced Med-Surg and Psych. The big focus of this semester's med-surg will be cardiac, I think. A bit anxious about having to learn how to read those rhythm strips from EKGs!  yikes. 

We don't know our clinical assignments yet, but we know they'll be on Wednesdays and Fridays. Lectures will be on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and as soon as we get out of lecture we'll be racing to hospital to get our clinical assignments and then head home to do our care plans. We are not sure what to expect for our Pysch clinical in terms of care plans. We've been told it's a much different type of clinical experience. Most likely less bedside care and more therapeutic communication! Tuesday through Friday will be eaten up with clinicals, clinical prep and attending lecture, so that leaves the weekend and Monday as the days to get lecture readings done. *Sigh*  It's been nice to be free of classes and stuff this summer and I've enjoyed hanging out with friends and traveling... but it's going to be SO HARD going back to a minimal social life. I love saying "yes" to my friends and family, but I guess they'll get use to me saying "No, not this time." The first few weeks of school are going to be especially challenging as I'll also probably still be dealing with bits and pieces of my sister's wedding stuff to some degree, plus then the wedding weekend. Thinking it might be smart to really push ahead with readings and study guides in advance. Sigh. So not what I want to be thinking about! Probably should spend some time putting my lecture notebooks together with their tabs, notebook paper, cover sheets, etc... so that I'll be ready to go. Already have my text books!

I got back yesterday from a long weekend (4 nights) in the Outer Banks area. Went with a couple gals from nursing school. We were calling it a study trip. Not as productive as we had imagined, but we did pull our books out. Two of us rented kayaks and went paddling for three of the mornings. It was awesome. Then we hit the beach in the afternoons. Something went haywire with my sunscreen or sunscreen application, so I'm dealing with painful sunburn on my right shoulder and some on my chest. It's amazing how sensitive that skin is. Aloe and apple cider vinegar are my friends these days, unfortunately, clothes are not!

My back is so much better. No problems at the beach and generally not thinking about it at all these days. Still receiving chiro treatments and laser therapy. Probably will continue with treatments up until school starts. Not sure. And if things get bad again once I'm sitting cuddled with 10# textbooks, at least I've got Mondays that I can see her.

Well I need to get to bed...work in the morning. cheers.

First Day of Clinical

My first day of clinical was this past Wednesday. We are assigned to a long-term care facility in the local area for the first few weeks...then on to the big scary teaching hospital (just kidding). So this past Wednesday we at the LTC facility we 1) met our clinical instructor, 2) reviewed our clinical paperwork/assignments for the semester, 3) met our assigned patient and spent time with him/her during the lunch hour, and 4) met for post-conference.

What I had not expected was that I would wake up with a awful sore throat that morning (but what do you do??) and then mid-morning as we were going through our paperwork, I got a migraine! Geez. Thankfully I just got the aura/optical and not the pain.  Oh, and then I had a bit of low blood sugar about 11:30 am--quickly resolved by a granola bar thankfully. Physically a hard morning, but overall clinical was not as mentally stressful as I'd imagined...but it helped that we were not expected to be doing much in the way of skills yet. That will come next week when we have to start doing assessments and some of the morning care.

I still had class on Thursday/Friday and have felt pretty lousy since my sore throat was the pre-cursor to a cold! Ugh. Today (Saturday) I started the coughing and much less of the nose-blowing. Ugh. I REALLY hope that I'm feeling miles better by next Wednesday's clinical.  On Thursday I have my first lab skills test and then on Friday we have our big Dosage Calculations Test. If you don't pass the Dosage Test the first time with an 80%, you've got one more shot and if you are still unsuccessful, then you are kicked out of the program... so we might lose a few of our cohort I suppose. I'm pretty confident in my dimensional analysis abilities. I just need to review my conversions.

There's so much more I could say about the first three weeks of nursing school...but it's kinda a blur and with being sick...I just don't have the energy.

Well I need to get some more cough meds and then head for bed.