Week 6 | Preparing for First Test

This coming week is going to be a bit insane!

1. We have our first lecture test for the Nursing Fundamentals class (NUR 108) on Friday. It includes anything covered in readings and lectures for the past 5 weeks, plus anything covered in readings for skills lab (theory content)  for the first 3 weeks.  And we've probably read at least 700 pages, I would guess.
2. This first test includes Fluid & Electrolytes, which was our lecture content for this past week... F&E includes all things related to excess and deficits. It's overwelming material and with only really a week to digest and memorize the signs/symptoms, causes, etc... mercy!
3. Not only is the test this week, but we still have to prepare for the lecture that will follow the test on Friday! Believe it or not, the content subject is STRESS! haha. Thankfully we don't have a graded quiz on that material--so I wonder how many people will actually do the reading before Friday. It's possible the instructors may put up a narrated lecture online, which can help, but we are still responsible for the readings.
4. We also still have to prepare for clinical (Wednesday) and do readings for skills lab this week (Thursday).

I honestly do not know how people who have families and/or work are able to manage it all. Perhaps they don't get much sleep. But that hardly seems sustainable--and definitely not healthy. I've been sick the past two weeks with a head cold and while I feel better now, it was still very hard to push through to do my school work when my body was so tired. Glad I'm not getting sick this week...that would be AWFUL.

I studied all day yesterday (with regular breaks to capture stinkbugs that have mysteriously found their way into my house) and picked up again at noon today. Will spend all of the next two days focused on school stuff. It's sad, I have not left the house (except to walk to my mailbox) since I got home on Friday afternoon. I do need to go to the grocery store, so hopefully I will leave house before clinicals on Wednesday!  

Secondary to school, the homeowners are coming into town on Thursday (day before exam) and so I'm also thinking about cleaning bathrooms, Swiffering the kitchen/hallway floors and decluttering the downstairs. This past week I've "taken to" the kitchen table for studying. A little too close to the refrigerator, but is better than the sofa (temptation to snooze) and better than the office upstairs (warm/chair that hurts my back). Since the homeowners will be here for the next three weeks, I'll need to find another location other than the kitchen table. I enjoy having them in town, but it's really hard to get and stay focused on school when there are people around. So I may be living at the library a lot over the next three weeks! 

Here's a photo (my first for this blog, I think) of my current study setup. You'll notice that my 7.9 lb. Fundamentals textbook is supporting my laptop. So no textbook reading going on this evening...just working through an online F&E tutorial today along with focusing on normal lab values for the 6 main electrolytes (reviewing various sources).

Well, enough of my procrastination. I think I will cut off the studying for this evening. I will spend the next 20 minutes printing off school documents & assignments, then maybe take another 20 minutes to Swiffer the kitchen floor and carry up belongings from den to my bedroom...every little bit helps. And then I'll climb in bed for a little lite reading to relax me. Oh, and probably another glance at normal lab values so that my brain can be memorizing them all night long. haha.

Passed the Dosage Calculations Test!

Passed the required Dosage Calculations test...not only did I pass. I aced it. Very good feeling to have that behind me for this semester.

Today was our orientation day at the local teaching hospital. LONG DAY. Up at 0430 to catch the 0620 bus from satellite parking. Then sat around lobby for about 30 minutes before our instructor showed up at 0700. Guess I could afford to take a later bus...but the then the buses are fuller and that holds a risk too.  We ate breakfast together during pre-conference and discussion of what the day would hold. Went over a LOAD of hospital specific paperwork (terribly overwelming!) and then headed over to the ID office to get official hospital IDs...which ratchets up the reality notch a little tighter. Then headed to the unit where my clinical instructor normally works. Our instructor reserved a day room for us to use and brought in a hospital bed for a mini-skills lab (turning, positioning and transferring patients + vitals). And just as we were leave that unit, the fire alarm goes off. Thankfully not as obnoxious and painful as the ones in my elementary school. BUT, it.went.off.for.thirty.minutes! Mercy. Apparently this happens "all the time" b/c of the construction going on around the hospital (or steam from a shower). So that was somewhat exciting and then quickly pretty awful.I felt bad for the patients. If you are in the hospital you already feel like crap...why not taunt you with an alarm that would make any normal person a bit agitated?  But we got to see their procedures in action--so that was good.  Did see a couple firemen in their mega gear looking for the cause of the alarm. I think they narrowed problem down to our floor. I never thought about it, but those guys probably have to listen to their fair share of alarms.

Never heard what the culprit was as we went ahead and left the unit to head down to the until where we'll spend the next eight weeks. The fire alarm was unexpected and stole our time, so we didn't get to do the "hunt and find" exercise on the unit (where's this, where's that...), but we did get an instructor led tour of the unit so we won't be completely lost next week when we show up and have to find stuff!

Then we headed off for training on the hospital's electronic medical record/charting program. That about did me in...at one point I got so restless, fidgety that I could not focus and spent like 10 minutes reading the same page over and over and over. ugh. I was the LAST person to finish. I'm guessing a lot of people just ran through it and didn't fully comprehend everything. I really spent a long time looking at some of the documents that we printed out (that we will be using a lot). Hopefully I will be ready when times comes for me to actually DO what we were learning.

Now my brain is FRIED. But I've got to plug away for a few more hours this evening and try to get through our reading on electrolytes and fluids---probably one of the tougher concepts we have in in our fundamentals class.

For anyone who might stumble upon this post in the future and is applying to my nursing school...definitely take the Health Assessment class in the summer (along with Dosage Calculations) so that you are not taking Health Assessment (226) at the same time as Fundamentals (108). I'm so glad that's out of the way and I have those experience going into 108. Also very glad I'm not working! It's challenging WITHOUT a job and without dependents/family counting on me. I feel fortunate.

Well, I need to hang this up and hit the books. cheers.

Second Clinical + First Skills Test

Today was our second clinical day. Again at the long-term care facility. We definitely had more client interaction. Our main focus for today was to complete an aging assessment interview and to get vital signs taken and to assist with anything the CNA's need help with (within our learned skill set to date). I spent a considerable time after breakfast with my client in her PT and OT sessions--basically just observing. At times the number of nursing students seemed to equal the number of PT clients in this a fairly small room. It was all we, the nursing students, could do to stay out of the way. When it was time for my client to do OT, the number of students/clients had dwindled and it was not nearly so crowded. During OT, I realized that since the OT's were doing some group Range-Of-Motion exercises, I could do it along with them. Certainly helped the time go by and keep me alert. I really liked the OT because he didn't ignore us (the nursing students), but explained a few things and tried to open our eyes to what he was doing and why. He was helping to broaden our vision...and I applaud that he didn't just roll his eyes at us--but it felt like he saw us as future care partners.

Next week we head to the mega teaching hospital in town...we'll get our official ID badges, orientation to paperwork (by our instructor) and then attend the hospital's training for their electronic charting. It will be a longer day than normal, but since our first clinical day was canceled (due to circumstances beyond everyone's control) we still have to make up those hours...so those extra hours for hospital orientation will fill part of the those hours we need.  Our clinical instructor told us that she's going to see if she can create a mini skills-lab for us at the hospital--teaching us how to use the equipment in the rooms, where things are kept etc...so that we can be ready to roll on our first clinical at that site.

Learned from our clinical instructor that there's an opportunity for us to make up remaining clinical hours by helping with a local public school's hearing/vision screening day. That will be in early October.  I am so grateful that they are helping us find ways to make-up a clinical day, rather than tacking it on at the end (when we are studying for finals)...plus you NEVER KNOW (!) if there will be another missed clinical day (due to sickness or some other random event).

Tomorrow is our first skills lab test. We will receive an index card with three skills we have to demonstrate with our lab partner. I'm grateful it's not a percentage grade, but a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grade. But still I'm nervous. I hate being watched or giving oral presentations--I best get over that quickly...because that's the only way the faculty can know if we are mastering our skills.  Here are some of the skills that we can be testing on:  making bed (occupied + unoccupied), vital signs, ROM exercises, positioning/turning, bed pan/urinal, hand hygiene (self + patient), bed bath, back massage, oral care, applying/removing TED stockings, ambulation (walking and with crutches, cane, walker), transferring patient from bed to bedside commode, wheelchair/chair and so forth. There are certain things that apply to all skills that we have to demonstrate as well (review physicians orders, ID client, educate/explain what you are doing, hand hygiene, pull door/curtain etc...). My head is swimming with information. I think I just need to take my time and think it through while I'm doing it...and not get anxious and rush.

Well off to bed to get a decent night's sleep. Still sick and my brain just gets foggy after awhile.

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.

Dosage Calculations | First Week of Classes

Here's a link we were given this week to find further Dosage Calculation problems for Nursing Students:


http://www.alysion.org/dimensional/analysis.htm


If you are considering nursing school...you would be very wise to go ahead and learn about Dimensional Analysis! In my ADN program, we are required to take a Dosage Calculations Test every semester!  First semester we must pass with 80% proficiency or better. If we do not pass, we have ONE more opportunity to retake it. Second, Third and Fourth Semesters we have to pass with minimum of 90% proficiency.  I'm thinking there are only 10 questions.


There are people who do not pass and have to end up dropping out of the program b/c they did not pass the required Dosage Calc Test during their first semester. If you've been reading my blog, you'll know I took the Dosage Calc class this past summer in order to prepare me. It's not a required class--but it can help if you are feeling a bit insecure about your math skills (and unit cancelling). Our class focused on using the Dimensional Analysis method (there are other methods--fractions/proportions which are being phased out of many nursing programs). 


Obviously, the last thing I wanted to do was to get into this competitive program, quit my job and then get dropped from the program after week 2! So it was worth the $150 for the class (tuition/book) and the time. It was frustrating at times...but now I feel adequately prepared and confident I will do well. For all the problems that I do now...it's rare for me to get one wrong. So I am confident I will do well. Our first official Dosage Calculations Test will be Sept 17th.


Some other problems that some 2nd Year students found are located here and here. The answers are provided for the first link...but they don't offer DA for how to check your work. The second link does not have answers attached (sorry).


Well, this was the first official week of fall semester. All in all a good first start! I have clinical on Wednesdays, lab skills on Thursday afternoons and then lecture/theory on Friday mornings. Those three components make up our NUR 108 course which is called "Fundamentals of Nursing" or Nursing I. Not sure what the equivalent is for other ADN programs. Clinical did not meet the first week and will start next week. For our first 3 weeks we'll be at a long-term care facility (aka nursing home) and will be "gently" broken into the clinical experience that way. After that I will be at UVA for clinicals. Which kinda adds another layer of excitement/stress.


Donated platelets today and ran into a gal who is starting her 2 year at the same school. It was good to hear from her about her experiences. Everyone's experience is different, but I like hearing about it. Helps prepare me.


Not much freaking out. I do have moments when I have to calm myself down and basically remind myself: "This is something you can do...THOUSANDS of nursing students survive and graduate every year. You are intelligent and organized and will do well".  Positive self-talk...but it's true. I have totally surprised myself in my ability to do well the past year with some tough classes. It will get tougher, and I may struggle...but I can do this. I think nursing school is going to be a multi-vitamin to my prayer life!


I do need to apply an update about expenses thus far (Boy am I grateful for my scholarship!!!)

Countdown Begins

Next Thursday it all begins. Not nervous yet. But it's kinda like a first date. Only excitement and hopefulness in weeks or days leading up to it...but as the days approach irrational fears kick in and nervousness ensues. What am I doing? Am I cut out for this? Will I survive? Do I have what it takes? Have I just signed myself up for another 2 years of being single? 


The fears jump out when I least expect them and I have to talk myself down with "Think about it, Joy. There are thousands who have gone before and survived! There are those who survive the program while managing their families. You are smart, tough and determined...You too can make it!" Then I pray and ask the Lord for peace and grace and faith. He has not lead me into this to abandon me. So after 60 seconds of crazy heart-palpitating nervousness...the peace comes. I expect I'll be having more and more of these moments over the next six days. Once classes start and I have a sense of how things will be...I will be okay.  It's the Type A in me that wants to know how it will all go down before it goes down! ha.


I noticed we've been given online (Blackboard) access to our NUR 108 class already. Have I gone and peaked?  Nope. Normally I am waiting--practically holding my breath while waiting for online access to our class...so curious.  But not this time. Thankfully I've been distracted this past week with adventures in DC, so while I got an email that I had access...I just ignored. I better take a peak tomorrow--to see what I'm not aware of. They did send us a snail mail letter with all sorts of readings for our first day of Skills Lab (Thursday) and lecture (Friday)... but I have yet to buy my books. Such a slacker! Actually I've been waiting for my scholarship monies to be made available to the bookstore. I was hoping to buy books this past Monday when I was on campus (taking ITE 118 credit-by-exam), but the line was like 40 people long! Now I remember why I've bought my books online up until now! But with my scholarship it's preferred that we buy our books from the campus bookstore. No big deal, just less convenient (and more expensive!)


Work is over! I'm giddy to contemplate what it will mean to have those 40 hours a week to spread around to other necessary activities. Running/going to gym (school's) again! Yay! Join a Group Bible study again! Cooking more! And of course more time to study and practice my nursing skills. AND, Lord willing, maybe find room to date or at least spend more time with my friends. 


I just got home from spending most of the week in DC with a new friend, but today before I left town I drove up to the National Health and Medicine Museum located at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It was nice to just lazily walk around and see what they have there (they are preparing to move it to another location). One of their ongoing exhibits is "From a Single Cell" which provides some unique views of teeny tiny babies who are just a few weeks old in-utero (but did not survive for some reason).  They also showed the Discover Channel's 50 minute DVD "Conception to Birth" where they followed nine women through various parts of pregnancy and birth (and death). I think there were about four women that they actually showed laboring and birthing (non-graphic)...I shed a few tears and gulped back a couple sobs as the babies popped out. Just so amazing and beautiful. All too poignant as my friend Rebecca just birthed her second daughter while I was in DC! :0)


Well, I better get to bed. Hope to do some mass cooking tomorrow, see the new baby and perhaps pick up textbooks if the bookstore is open. And if I'm feeling on-the-ball...maybe I'll even get some reading done for school. hmmm?

Preparing for Semester Two

Grades are back and I am grateful to have managed an A in the Dosage Calculations class. There was no certainty about it--as we left our last class with only one known grade (which for me was a B on our first quiz). So I was pretty giddy when grades were posted this past week).  So...another 4.0 semester. Yay!

I attended and passed the CPR certification (for healthcare professionals) this past Saturday. So I've FINALLY jumped through all the hoops of the initial stuff. Please do not stop breathing. That would not be good.

Fall semester (Semester 2) starts the week of August 23rd, with my first class on August 26th. I still need to buy textbooks and the "nurse in a bag" thing with all our supplies for the semester. Feeling oh-so grateful for my scholarship!! Still need to buy petite uniform trousers and sew on patch to the top. My to-do list is a mile long. The first thing on my schedule (the day after my last day of work on Wednesday) is a Dentist appointment...next thing is to get my car to the mechanic (exhaust issue, idle issue, oil change, state inspection...). Nothing urgent...just ideal time to do it. I also need to go shopping to pick up some "business casual" clothing items for the fall semester. My closet it rather bare--as it's currently more casual and less business...but then again, it IS SUMMER! And I'll also need to be enrolling in health insurance (I'm looking at doing it through the National Student Nurses' Association--accessible via www.studentinsuranceusa.com). I'll also probably be obtaining liability insurance through NSNA too.

My last day of work is Wednesday of this week. I have a friend who has invited me to dinner on Wednesday night--so it's a GREAT excuse to not work late my last night (& to celebrate a little). It's going to be a crazy week. I feel for the new hire--just too much to absorb. He'll do great--he just needs to get to know people and get a few Sundays under his belt. God is good.

Later.