High Honors ...

I ended up with an "A-" in my nightmare main theory class, an "A" in my EOL (End of Life) class and an "A" for my clinicals. I could not be more proud of myself, I am not naturally a straight A student. It was an AWEFUL quarter! Yeah, it's over, halleluiah!

One more round ...

Wow, 5TH quarter is finally over! Hallelujah! I am greatly looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands back into patient care and giving medications. I just pray God keeps me safe (or rather my patients).

:o)

I think I can, I think I can!!!!

I am sooooooooooo done with this quarter! I have two take home questions for final that are worth 20 out of the 80 points on my final and I really don't want to do them! I have the first question answered mostly and I am totally stuck! Ugh! I just have to keep telling myself yet again ... I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

Light at the end of the tunnel ...

I am so happy the quarter is almost over. I feel like there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. I had no idea how rough this quarter would be. I am so glad that I made it to my last 6 clinicals "early" and was not held back. I am looking forward to next quarter. I am certainly nervous though ... all hands on is exciting and very intimidating. I hope I get a really awesome preceptorship location. I am keeping my fingers crossed, just 2.5 more weeks to go this quarter and only 3.5 remaining months to go!!! Yippee!!!

Computers ...

My laptop has been on the fritz for a while so I made sure (or so I thought) to copy my "Nursing School" folder that has EVERYTHING from 1st quarter until now that I have worked on, onto my external hard drive. When I went to pull up my research paper that I have worked on for 4 quarters to edit for the (hopefully) last time it wasn't there!!!! My laptop is so messed up now that I can't get anything off of it, can't email it, can't print it and can only view it in windows "compatibility mode". I nearly burst into tears; I was sickened by the thought that at 1130 at night I would have to re-type all 8 pages ... I am barely better than a hunt-and-peck typist, it would take me all night to retype all 2,036 words! Fortunately my husband eventually was able to get a copy of the file off of the laptop so I could edit it on our desktop and print it for class tomorrow. I still have so much more on there that I want to get off, what a mess.   

Crazy!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH ... yeah that’s about all I have the energy for this quarter. I am literally surviving week by week! I am barely able to keep up and all other activities have fallen to the wayside!

I feel like the little engine that could " I think I can, I think I can, I think I can"!

Oye!

Trust in God ...

I am wracked with anxiety over nursing school. I made my clinical instructor mad and now my life is beyond stressful. I can barely stand my current level of stress in  this situation! I am so overwhelmed! I just want to graduate and become a good nurse. I am over this nursing program and the poor quality of education I have been subjected to for almost 2 years. The first two quarters of the program was great, hard work but very educational. The 3rd quarter had a yin & yang feel with theory being hellish and clinicals being so much fun. When we got to 4th quarter we thought that it couldn’t get any worse than this (clinicals were still fun) with the low quality of non-leaning that was going on but … holy horse poopy … hold the phone …. 5th quarter has blown it all out of the park. AHHHHHHH, I just want to get this program over with!

Mental Health

It takes a special nurse to work in most specialty fields. I believe the same is true in mental health nursing. I have my clinicals for a few days at Western State Mental Hospital this quarter and it has been interesting. It is truly a complicated and difficult thing when someone is mentally ill.

UGH!

I am sooooo over nursing school. This quarter feels like a total waste of time! I am looking forward to my preceptorship next quarter. I am requesting ICU, ER or PICU. All emergent care settings ... floor nursing is sheer torture to me so I hope I get some sort of emergency care.

Summer ... summer time!

Ah, I love being on summer brake! I have been CRAZY busy! I have been working a lot of hours at the hospital, with the military, traveling a lot as well as working on our fertility treatment stuff. Busy, busy! Summer break is already half way over. Just a few more weeks of freedom and then its back to late nights of studying! :o)

Fun Stuff

I got to do my first NG tube the other day at work! (For non-medical people it is a tube that goes in your nose, down to your stomach to relieve pressure and etc.) I had done an oral tube on an intabated pt (patient) a few days prior and that was crazy easy. The lady I put the NG down "wanted" the tube because her stomach hurt so bad. At first she pulled her head back and up but then she cooperated and it went down so smoothly! It was a great first experience on an actual person. :o)

Summer Brake ...

I can not describe how happy I am to be on summer brake! I am going to be really busy with work, military and fertility treatments. Yet, I am so glad it I will not be doing "concept maps" or homework! Hallelujah!

Almost brake time! Halleluiah!!!

I just have 2 more days until summer brake baby! After that just 2 more quarters and I am done! I am looking forward to graduation in March! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can! Wheeww!

Medication Error ... ggrrrhh!

I left my brain at home during clincals the week before last.

I picked an interesting pt even though she didn't have any IV meds. My pt was a 31yr old female injured in a MVA accident. Car vs. logging-truck. Her 8mnth old was in the car and ended up without any injuries at all. She had a C6-C7 fx, T4 fx, 2 pelvic fx, multiple lacerations to her legs and L wrist. She was such a trooper; she took her first 20 steps just 2 days after the accident. I made sure to "spoil" her today since she was the only pt I picked. She kept me busy since she needed help with transferring to her bedside commode, positioning in the bed and basic hygiene care.

I left my brain at home because I gave her 2 Percocets ... which were prescribed for her but I gave them to her 2hrs too early. (The RN & I completely overlooked the last dose given on the computer system they use at the hospital.) I reported it to the RN right away, contacted my instructor, helped write myself up on an incident report with the RN & explained to the pt what occurred. I made sure to reassess the pts vitals, which were stable and charted that her respirations were normal. It is very discouraging to make a mistake. I lost my confidence for the evening. I am glad that the pt did not suffer from my mistake. She had, had only 1 other dose of Percocet and the since she had not exceeded the daily dose of Tylenol she was ok. The doctor told the RN to give Oxycodone for any remainder brake through pain for the rest of the evening so that she would not receive any more Tylenol. I made sure to pay close attention to my pt for the remainder of the evening.

I ended my evening by helping my RN (I owed her one) by preparing a gentleman who had expired. We had to remove all of his lines, place a toe tag and put him in a body bag. We closed the door & were as respectful as possible of course. I have helped in the past with 2 other pt who had expired but this was different, the pt had been expired for longer this time and the smells were much stronger this time. It was a sad way to end the evening but I did learn a lot.

All in all I am learning and getting experience during my clinicals. Since I am a hands on learner it is really nice to be in a hospital setting using the skills I was taught in a classroom. It is still hard to make the nurses slow down enough to let me actually do all the steps myself but the speed will come as I gain experience. :oI

Clinicals

So ... I don't really like theory so far but our clinicals (working at the hospital) is going well. I have had more opportunity this quarter to do more interesting skills such as IVs, enemas (fun, fun), lab draws, IV meds and etc. My instructor is WAY laid back which is a good and bad. I am not too stressed out while we are there but I don't really feel like I learn anything at all from him. I try to ask the nurses on the floor questions when there is down time but some of them are too busy or not very good at or even interested in "teaching". All in all I'm hanging in there. I am still not very motivated ... I'm hoping that kicks in soon before I get myself too far behind & into trouble.

Motivation

Well I started my 4th quarter of nursing school, the break was far to short. I am finding it hard to be motivated! I'm not exactly sure what the problem is but that is not a great start. The main teacher this quarter seems to have it together and that is at least exciting! :o) I am going to start working out on Monday ... hopefully that should help!

Another Quarter

Well I am about to start another quarter ... I am excited to get it over with really. I try to remind myself to enjoy being the "student nurse" while it lasts yet, it is stressful. I am happy to study the more acute abnormal system problems. I am not sure how well a two year RN program can really prepare me to be a nurse. I am VERY excited that I am working as a nurse tech at a local hospital in the ER. There are a lot of experienced people to learn from and there really is nothing like hands on experience!

1/2 way ...

It's official, I am half way done with nursing school! Thank God! LOL! This quarter was a VERY rough quarter, I am soooooo very happy yo be done!

Almost 1/2 way done!

Well I am soooooo close to being half way done with nursing school, wild! It is crazy to think that by next year I will be working in a hospital as an actual RN. SCARY! I know that I will learn more in my next half of school but it hardly feels like enough time to REALLY understand anything! I like that I can do my ADN in 2 years and have an RN license yet, I defiantly plan on going back to get my BSN. In the mean time, I just need to soak up as much information as humanly possible!

This quarter was pretty ugly, our main theory instructor was by far the worst I have ever had teach me in college! Unfortunately, that is saying a lot! The only saving grace was that our clinical instructors were fantastic! I was able to enjoy at least some of our OB / PEDs rotation! :o)

To be a student RN

Oh to be a student nurse ... ooooohhhh the pain! I thought I would create this blog to manage some of that stress ... LOL! That and none of my ranting really belongs on the rest of the blogs I have. Ha, ha.