A few days later...

So I won't write about my sphere lab experience because we did not get to go into it this last week. We were scheduled wrong, so our date with the creepy robot dude is on hold until next Thursday....can hardly wait...

We spent the lab catheterizing, changing dressings and shortening pen rose drains all in preparation for the finals. The finals can quite possibly be the worst, most nerve wracking life experiences in your time during nursing school.

Especially the LAB FINALS-->You pick out of a hat what you are going to do then you are put into a little room behind the curtain, with an instructor just staring at what you are doing, marking you. They don't speak, they don't maintain eye contact, they make the occassional noise to clear their throat or breathe in deeply, but they write....and they write....and they write...but you don't know what they are writing down on that paper.

So then every sense in your mind just starts to wander, you can't remember what you are doing, your pulse and heart rate increase through the roof, your blood pressure begins to boil and the room starts to spin and you start to sweat and confusion sets in....then you think your done but your not actually sure of what happened over the last half hour during your lab exam. You just walk out of the room, hoping you didn't forget the important points and that you did your job well. And asking if you passed or failed is out of the question because they won't tell you that either. You just wait for your marks to posted and what a horrible wait that can be.

So that is where my focus is at, the last 3 clinical evening shifts, and the last two days of school this week and then next week my two final days. Four exams in two days- should be fun. But then in the end we have a month off at christmas and what a wonderful time it will be. Just rest and relaxation until January when a whole new set of classes and schedules begin.

Anyways off to research my four patients for tomorrow....hopefully I won't drown and be buried with the work that is at hand. Organization is something I still need to master.

A little delayed or maybe just busy.

I will admit my blog has been severely neglected due to the new fade of facebook but I figured why not attempt to maintain some link between the two and update my blog and be on facebook.

So here I am back again, at last count the semester was nearing a finish. I can now say that I have 3 wonderful evenings of clinical left and exactly 12 days of school left until this semester is over. It's a little scary because then it means I am that much closer to being done school for awhile until I decide whether or not to be brave and go back to school yet again. It's really a toss up at the moment, I think I am alright with where I am at currently (education wise).

So we have 3 clinical days left and they are 8 hour evening shifts. We are basically being tossed to the wind in the last week. We currently have two patients per student, that is quite a lot of work but acute care is so different from long term care. But next week on our evenings we are being given 8 patients to care for between 2 students. I am quite terrified of being put in this situation but I am confident that I might be able to handle the caseload. We'll see, at least I don't have to get up at 5:30a.m. anymore this semester.

Anyways other than that, school is school. We get to go into the sphere lab tomorrow with the creepy robot that totally freaks me out. It is a robot but talks, breathes, has a pulse, heart rate, blood pressure etc. It is really ugly looking too, it doesn't look remotely human but they use it to train us to think critically. We'll see how it goes, it shouldn't be all that bad except for it's just creepy. I was so nervous the first time I went into the sphere lab by myself, this time it shouldn't be too bad because there are 4 people per care team, so maybe just maybe I will be alright.

Well off to study and play with robots tomorrow...what nursing school puts you through.

No place for November

I can hardly believe it is November already which means I have 34 more days of school to go this semester...well that's including the weekends so it would actually be 25 more days. I was talking to a friend who goes to the school I go to that said this semester was condensed this year, for what reason we are still unsure. But as of December 7th my fall semester at school is done which is kind of frightening because I have 4 exams in two days. But apparently the other thing I learned is that when you do in class exams by some rule they are unable to give us cumulative exams for the whole semester, so that makes me a little happier. And I only have 12 days of clinical left as well.
Which brings me to my next point. At the college/university here, there has been an outbreak of the mumps! apparently five cases have surfaced in a short period of time causing panic. So on Monday before we go to clinical we must get our mumps vaccinations or we cannot attend clinical. We were only informed of this today, why they wait until the weekend to tell us is another story, the school and instructors confuse me greatly! But such is life right?

So Monday morning I will march and get my mumps vaccination so that I do not miss a day of clinical. Otherwise you have to write a 5-7 page paper for every missed clinical day....They are punishing us. But my favorite quote is that "Nursing is my passion, but nursing school is cruel and unusual punishment."

We went to Chapters and bought a few books, that's always fun. Looked at the starbucks mugs but did not buy any...I have to curb the collection, I have quite a few odd starbucks mugs now. I always like to buy them when they are on sale for like $2.99 after months of being unable to sell them they mark them down quite low, just watch the sales. Then we wandered the mall for a bit. Then headed over to Ashley's house for a bit to try on some shoes...I hate trying on shoes when people are watching me, so having three people watch me try them on was a bit intimidating. But the shoes are cute!

~Anyways off to enjoy the rest of my weekend...have a good weekend~