Ramblin'

Remember the whole feel-like-a-slab-of-meat-a-butcher's-about-to hack-into thing form a few days ago? Well, it turns out that the reason that I felt that way was because I was coming down with a cold. My first for the year. It couldn't have had worse timing.

What I've been doing for the past few days is

1. Finishing the "mini" care plan for Med surg. This took upwards of 20 hours and that was with 12 people working together. That was turned in on Tuesday.
2. Clinical. Originally I was supposed to observe in the cardiac catheterization lab for a second time but, as one of our clinical instructors choose to go on vacation and cutting out 2 days of us being in the hospital, I had ask if I could stay on the floor this Wednesday and it was granted. Then I came down with the cold. I could just picture myself coughing and sneezing over all the patients and giving my germs which, instead of being just a cold, turned into pneumonia. I went to the cardiac cath lab.
3. Studying and more studying! I just had my second Med/Surg exam and I am killing time 'til 2:30 when the results will be posted. I was so, so worried about this test. I don't have any idea of how it went, but I never do. I have been studying in (almost) every spare minute and I still feel like I should have studying more. However there truly is only so many hours a day my brain can handle thinking about respiratory diseases, especially if you have a cold and an inclination to hypochondriacism.
4. NOT going to choir. The way I see it is that even with a half hour break I took around 9 pm I still had a clear 2 hours extra study time. There would have been no point in me going either because I can't talk, at least when I do talk I sound as if I smoke 5 packs a day. I could have gone and sat in a corner listening, bored, feeling guilty for not reading, and contaminating the whole choir. No, I did the noble thing and stayed home.

That's really everything except...

Melissa came to visit me! Yes, my niece! The child of my sister traveled all the way from BC to see me! Ok, fine. To see Auntie Gail and be in her wedding, but it's All About Me! She and the GMP were only here for about 2 hours before they kept on their way to Pennsylvania, but I should see them again on Sunday.

Dizzy from hypoxemia in my brain. Can't breath. Stupid fly keeps dive-bombing me. Must go. Write later. I'm sick!

On this day of September 26, 2005...

A guest blogger was born... This is just Emilie on Debb's computer. Howdydoody! Today was a long day for each of us... and other random music and nursing majors as well. Debb spent 10 hours in front of a computer screen on a project that should have only taken 5, according to the professor. I was exhausted as well from a long day... and night of studying. Frustrated mostly with the fact that I spent hour upon hour reviewing for a test that didn't find it's place in the history of Monday. But we made it! Hurrah! And now we must go to beddi-bye. Yes. Dream land awaits... may that be sweet ones for everybody! And I promise tomorrow I wont seem as crazy as I might seem at this moment.

Goodnight! With love in Jesus,

Ellie

*whimper*

I hurt. I let Myrna and Jeremy and Emilie and Madison convince me to go, nay participate, in Almost Anything Goes. AAG's was someone's idea of a fun time. You divide the students by class and then make them compete against each other in a disgusting show of "school spirit" and "class spirit". The prize for the winners was going free to Six Flags today. Everyone else has to pay the discount price of $10.

It involved things like rolling around on the floor blowing at ping pong balls and slithering through inner tubes in groups and popping balloons with your butt while other people hold it. My knee and both hip bones are bruised from incidents while blowing ping pong around, my pelvic bones feel like they have brand-new flat spots on them form popping balloons that were blown up to the size of my fist, my elbow has the skin worn off from being hauled about on a mattress born, not in the arms, but the legs for my classmates (think very, very bumpy), my head still is pounding, and my voice sounds a step less weird than Dark Vader's. In a word, I'm a wreck. And all that for nothing. The sophomores won. Senior's were behind by one point, but we didn't win. Not that I could have gone to Six Flags anyway. (See paragraph after next)

And it stopped being Sabbath. That makes me very sad. I wish it could always be Sabbath. In other words I have been studying since 7 in the morning. That means I had six hours of sleep and those of you who have lived with me know that I like to get about 10 hours of sleep when I can. I'll do with 8, but I want 10.

My Med/Surg class has a huge, huge case study that is due on Tuesday and a very important test on Thursday, and Klavdia and I have our observation papers due on Wednesday and my group still needs to work on the major case study that is due (I think) next Wednesday. This morning and afternoon I have been working on the case study until the other students that I was working with told me that I had stopped making any sense at all and I when to read people's blogs but hardly anyone had written at all, so write people! I need entertainment! Anyway, I thought that I would write myself so you all would have something to read.

I looked really good yesterday and I got lots and lots of complements, some from people I don't really know. Well, I know them by sight because you know everyone by sight on AUC, but that doesn't count. And now I feel like a piece of meat hanging in the butcher's freezer. *Whimper*

I love Sabbath

I have been so stressed out, crazy-insane-busy all week and it will start all over again on Sunday. But right now I have 24 hours where I can put all those worries and fears aside and just be happy. I have decided that there is an art to being happy.

One of my classmates (in nursing of course, I hardly ever see anyone else it feels like) is always so happy and cheerful. It's not a front or a show either. She's the kind of person that *dances* into her patient's room in the morning, humming all the way. She seems so care-free, so glad to be there that no matter how lonely or sad or depressed they are, they always smile back. That's the kind of person I want to be.

Today we are having student church out on the campus mall and it's supposed to only get into the high 60's today. I really love Fall! This weather is just perfect. It took me a while but I no longer hold the fact that winter is the next season against autumn. That's not its fault, so just enjoy it for itself.

There is also at least one person on campus who believes us when Jeremy and I tell them we aren't dating. So that's nice, especially after a certain nursing student who is engaged and in OB right now tried to convince us both, separately that we should be dating after we explained that we weren't. She is very persistent. I think she's high on baby hormones.

Lot's going on with school and projects and tests, but I'm not going to think about that (sing-song) because it's Sabbath!

What do you think?

Emilie found this. She thinks it suits me but I'm not so sure. What do you think? Ignoring the quasi-astrology mumbo jumbo, that is. Just does the discription fit, how ever they came up with it.

Your Birthdate: January 17

Your birth on the 17th day of the month suggests that you are very lucky financially, because this date indicates a solid business sense. Although you are probably very honest and ethical, this birthday enables you to be shrewd and successful in the world of business and commercial enterprise. You have excellent organizational, managerial, and administrative capabilities enabling you to handle large projects and significant amounts of money with relative ease. You are ambitious and highly goal-oriented, although you may be better at starting projects than you are at finishing them. A sensitivity in your nature, often repressed below the surface of awareness, makes it hard to give or receive affection.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Look what I can do!

I’ve had a hard time recently copying things from Word where I edit them into blogger so they can be posted.  I just discovered that the reason why that is, is that there is a Blogger for Word application that allow you to post without having to copy and paste!  So I’m just giving it a whirl and see if it really is more convenient.  I might, might post more frequently if this actually does make it easier for me.

go away

Not really! I just wanted you to know that I did write an update, I just wrote it on Meditations . If for some reason you are acually interested in how my week was, go there.

aaaagh!

I have to have my first care plan/concept mapping done tomorrow for Ms. Pusey! By clinical. That's at 6 in the morning! Why didn't I know this????

Quickly (as usual)

I have been crazy busy lately so no time to update you all. I have my first Med/Surg test on Thursday and Wednesday is the third day of clinicals and the first day with Mrs. Pusey-Reid. We are all dreading those two days.

The closest you get to an update is a photographic one. I spent too long already working on flickr so you'll have to try to extrapolate a story from them. Some of the pictures are quite good, if I do say so myself. And I do!

Two "Praise God"s

I can't find any way to write the title that looks both grammatically correct and non sacrilegious. The point is that two very important things have happened.

1. I have internet
For the past three weeks, which is since I came to college, I haven't had internet in my dorm room. If I wanted to find out what was going on in the worked I would have to use the computers in the nursing A/V lab. There are 34 second year students and 41 first year students and I don't know how many pre-nursing students all for 4 computers in the lab. Translated that means not a lot of time.

At first I (thought I) just needed to fill out a form and the IT department would allow internet access to my room. I dutifully got the form and filled it out. It asked for a MAC number. That's ok, I had gotten directions for how to find that when I picked up the form. I return to my room and wait for my computer to magically go on line. It doesn't

I try again to get the MAC number, maybe I did it wrong. There are two MAC numbers. I write both of them out and present them to the IT department and wait for my computer to magically access the internet. It doesn't. I give up.

When I go home I get a brand new computer. Get computer set up (except for the internet) and bring it home with me. Wait two days for the IT department to be open and carry the box up to them. There will be no mistakes! Come back to pick it up...and wait half an hour to talk with them. Miguel is very popular today. I finally get my turn. "Sorry, I didn't have an USB keyboard, just a mouse." Run to the dorm, get keyboard, run back to IT. Wait again for my turn. When I come, lo and behold it works! Praise God, and glory halleluiah!

Please remember that in all of the above I was in class for an average of six hours a day, generally when the IT department was open. It was a very tight juggling act of time some days. Everything happened with at least a day in between.

2. I survived my first day back at clinicals
This is such a miracle! I can't even tell you. I not only went to sleep within half an hour of going to bed (which is unheard of for anyone on the 1st day back, and very rare in any of the subsequent days), but I did well!
(Pause for a Nap)
(Return after a nap and a meal)
Sooo, where was I? Oh, yea. Clinicals went well. We are on a telemetry floor/vent floor and we had two students per patient today. One person is responsible for medications and the other for patient care. I don't know if it will be like that for the whole time and I don't know if I want it to be. It's easier to get things done that way but at the same time it will hardly be like that in "real life" and it seems almost too easy.

I was in charge of patient care and I had every thing done and was just hanging around the floor from 11 until 12 when I took the noon vital signs and gave report to the nurse. I then hung around for another half hour waiting for everyone else to do that. The pt. I got was the only one not on a ventilator and I think that might have something to do with how quickly I got everything done. I had a lot of time to talk with the pt. He led an interesting life and seemed quite willing to talk if someone would listen. Not all that crotchety at all when you have the time to listen.

When we left we found out that he had told the nurse when she came in to see him that he enjoyed having students take care of him and that we did a very good job. It isn't often that a pt. tells the nurse that a student did a good job. Maybe the instructor but not the nurse! The nurse also told me that students leave the floor not being able to give report as well as I did on the first day.

I thing today is good to make up for yesterday being awful. I don't want to go into that a lot but just to give you an idea I'll tell you one then that wasn't so good. Well, it was the 1st day of Pharmacology but that's not it. For departmental forums we watched a video about shaken baby syndrome called "Elijah's Story". It was about an 18 month old boy who was shaken to death by his father and it had all the family, including the mother and father (who is now in jail), telling the story. It had videos of Elijah a few months earlier and the video of the father reenacting what happened for the police after he admitted what happened. It was heartbreaking.

Public health announcement: Please, please folk if you are taking care of a child and you might lose your temper get out of the room or house. Call for help. Anything is better than having to deal with the pain and knowledge that one moment of temper you took the life of a child. This can happen to anyone parent, babysitter, or nurse! (Yes, there was story in out textbook about a nurse that shook a baby to death.)

Anyway, that story set the rest of the day off for me. Worry upon worry: anxiety on anxiety until I was walk around campus crying by the end of the day. I don't think I would have ever gotten to sleep if I hadn't gone through each thing I was fretting about and just given it over to God to deal with. I was asleep in twenty minutes. And today was better.

Random bored stuff

So it's 7:30 at night and I'm working. That really should be "working" as I am the only person in the lab so I'm not really doing anything at all; a little studying and a little internet surfing is what I'm being paid $7.25 to do. Sounds pretty cushy, right? Well, it's boring. I can't call and talk to people because there is no reception in the nursing department and the department phone died a sad and long overdue death today. So here I am.

I'm going home tomorrow for the weekend, Labor Day and all, you know. I have to get my new computer, and my stethoscope that I forgot, and the toaster that I was told last year that I couldn't have but just found out that I can, and, and something else that I can't remember right now.

I went to Choir last night. I will officially say that I am only in one (Pro-Arts) that I am auditing (you have to be registered for it so there are no class conflicts). Because I am only in one choir I am not getting any scholarship money which is fine with me. It makes it easier to drop if I am having a hard time fitting all my studying in without 2 1/2 hour a week.

The reason that I'm not in Fiat Lux is that Frank told me that it would be on Wednesday when it was really on Thursday, which is my day for serious studying and that cannot be encroached on. So I have 3 extra hours a week to study. Oh joy.

People here now. Bye