5 Weeks Down

Here's the gist of Week 5 of Semester 3:

I was selected as one of two students to give meds at clinical on Wednesday. That was a great learning experience! Thankfully I got much more sleep the night before--compared to my first WCP clinical day. I'll learn on Tuesday if I got another "S". Sure hope so.  My patient care felt very rush/disorganized because I was selected to give meds (and my instructor sits down with us and quizzes us on ALL the drugs our client is taking (even ones I'm not giving) and about how to administer and big side effects. So that took about 45 minutes. Then immediately after receiving meds, my patient had to leave the unit for x-ray, which took about an hour. So things felt very jammed up at the end and I didn't get to do 1-2 skills that I had hoped to do because we simply ran out of time and it was time for us to leave the floor.  But giving meds was fun and a great learning experience. I was nervous about being selected to give meds, not knowing how intense my instructor was going to be...but since I could tell her about the drugs/rationales, it went well. There were two things that I needed correction on, but unlikely that I will do them again the next time. :D

Pleased with results on my Pharm exam that I took on Thursday. It was challenging, and with the ones I got wrong, those were the ones that I probably read too much into the question and wavered back/forth about. But since I took the "I will not change my answer pledge" last summer, I didn't change my answers. Bleh.

Yesterday's (Friday) clinical went great.  Very pleasant and cooperative patient. Felt like I was much more organized and efficient--at least compared to Wednesday.

Also, yesterday's  weather was just amazing. It was mid 70's when I left clinical around 2:30 pm. I came home from clinical and changed clothes and grabbed lounge chair from the garage and a few blankets and went out to my back patio and watched the sun set. I was sooo sleepy from being up at 4:30 am and about 4 hours of sleep the night before, that I realized that I was simply not going to get much studying done. So I ended up joining some friends for dinner downtown (including SweetFrogs) and then went back to their place to play games. I was pretty sleepy and loopy. My brain was just not functioning very well at all--so playing large group "Catch Phrase" or whatever it was...was an exercise in futility for me. I simply could not come up with words at all...to describe my catch phrase or even to guess with my team. We also did Telephone Pictionary which my brain was better suited for at the moment (no time limits). Then played Dutch Blitz (like Nertz), which was also challenging since my motor/visual skills were struggling to keep up with the fast pace. But laughing all evening--was such good medicine! I was a bit loopy in my exhausted state...at least I got home safely! 

Waking up this morning after 8 hours, I felt a little hung-over in my loopy state. It's taken me a little bit to wake up and get moving. I need to spend the day studying for my Nursing 112 exam which is on Monday and need to make decisions about what worship service to attend tomorrow to get maximum study time in. There's a congregational dinner/meeting at church tomorrow night that I'd really like to go to, so I need to make a plan for which worship service to attend and how to maximize studying this weekend to make that possible. I also obviously need to get sufficient rest this weekend, so that I'm rested going into next week. Unlikely that I will do SOSI therapy (Sunshine. Oxygen. Social Interaction) this weekend...just not enough time. Plus I think Game Night probably covered the Oxygen and Social Interactions parts.  AND did get some sunshine absorption yesterday afternoon on the patio... 

Well, off to make lunch and get some studying done. 

Blessings.

I don't share many photos on this blog...simply for lack of time.  However this year, I am posting a picture a day on Facebook. Here's link to my "2011 in Pictures".