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!