I got a 92% on my test today! Awoohoo! Much as I hate to admit it, I think it might have something to do with all those required practice modules we had to do before this test. We had to complete 50% of the term requirement or we weren't allowed into the test. This brings my average up to 87.3%, 2.7% away from an A. That would be so awesome; this class is worth 7 credits.
Midterm evals for clinicals are on Monday. I'm not really worried about that. My teacher already said that my paperwork is great. I'm not saying that she won't have any suggestions for improvement, and actually I hope she does. I am gaining a lot of skill and confidence in this rotation and any constructive criticism is only going to further my competence.
In other news, Alex wants me to go to the doctor because I took my temp yesterday and it was 100.1F which means that I've basically been running a fever for almost 2 weeks now and I am just exhausted, even when I get a good night's sleep. I don't disagree with him but I don't have insurance now so it's going to cost me money I'd rather not spend. He does have a reasonable doctor who is very non-insured friendly, but it's down by him. He wants me to call and make an appointment today, even if it's not until next week. I am not sure why I am resisting this as much as I am. I can't function when I am this tired all the time. My life is exhausting as it is without adding a sickness to it. I just hope it's not something nasty I picked up in clinicals. I wouldn't think so, I'm pretty good about washing my hands upon entering and leaving patients' rooms. This week I had the same patient Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday they put him on contact precautions because his lab results came back positive for C. Diff. My first thought was, "Crap, I wish I had taken his vitals first," because you can't take dynamaps in isolation rooms so I had to take manual BP, use a disposable thermometer, and wipe my steth down completely with alcohol after I was done. My second thought was, "Great. He wasn't on contact YESTERDAY when I was in his room all day." Honestly, I'm not that worried because the organism is in his poop and you know I wasn't touching any of that.
Well I suppose I ought to get back to work. I only have 4 days left here, including today. Which reminds me, I seriously need to update my resume tonight.
I am so freaking tired! I know, this is nothing new for me but I've actually been getting a good amount of sleep this week. Tuesday night I got 12+ hours, Wed I got...maybe 6 or so (which is less than I prefer) but then last night I got 8 so I don't know why I feel like my head is about to fall onto my keyboard.
Except perhaps that I've been sick for a week. I don't know if I've continued to run a fever because I haven't taken my temp since Tuesday AM when it was 101F. I'm just not giving my body enough chance to recharge, I suppose, and I won't in the near future either. I would love to go home tonight and just go right to bed but I have too much stuff to get done.
I have a test on Wednesday and we have to show proof that we've completed half of the course requirements in the HESI and MedsPub modules or else they don't even let you take the test. HESI I can deal with. They say, complete 8 modules. MedsPub says, "Complete 90 minutes in this section", which is stupid. Last night I signed on and then let the annoying voiced lady talk while I cleaned up the computer room (which is such a welcome improvement. It was a shithole.). When she finished one page, I'd click to the next, and in that way I got a lot of the required time out of the way. I still need to study for the actual test too.
This weekend is going to be busy.
Saturday:
8:30-11:30am Skills Lab Class (and check off on CVL flushing and dressing change which I have to study for tonight)
1:30pm-?? My grandmother's 80th birthday party
7:30pm-??
Monster truck show at the stadium (I'm excited! Alex got the tickets
free from work and I've never been to one before so it should be fun!)
Sunday Alex has his motorcycle class from 7am-3pm I think, so I shall sleep, study, and go see my grammie somewhere in there since she is selling her condo and they close on Wednesday. :( Oh and I also have to do my paperwork for clinicals on Monday.
I just. need. to SLEEEEEEEEEP.
Seriously. I feel like I'm going to fall over.
I had a test this morning. Got a little better in the procrastination, but I still had some stuff to cover this morning. Anyway, I got an 82% but I should get credit added for one more question. The program tells you the questions you missed when you are finished, plus the correct answer.
The question doesn't really matter, but for the answer I put:
- Have patient ambulate as soon as possible
- Encourage coughing and deep breathing
The test program says:
WRONG
Correct answer:
- Have patient ambulate as soon as possible
- Encourage coughing and deep breathing
Hello! I called the proctor over and she told me to write down the question and my answer on my signature sheet before I turned it in. I talked to Laura and the same thing happened to her.
Exciting things in skills:
My
brother let me start an IV on him on Sunday! I didn't actually hook him
up to the IV line because I had used it in practice so it wasn't
sterile. I did have sterile venipuncture needles so I just used those
to practice hitting the vein. On the first try I missed. Since he said
I wasn't hurting him, I started moving the needle around to try and get
the vein. Still couldn't. That was my last needle of that type, so I
had to use a butterfly needle next. With that one I hit it dead on and
got a nice flash back! I was so excited! I feel good that I was able to
do it that time, but now I know that IV starts might not be as easy as
I thought.
In clinical on Monday I got to discontinue a Foley Catheter. Not much to it, but I think I did well and my teacher told me I did also. It's always exciting to get to do new skills!
Today I had my first test of this semester. It covered 16 or so chapters and I, like a jackass waited until last weekend to start studying. I had about 13 chapters covered last night when I went to bed at 1am. This morning I didn't even read the last chapters, I just went on to webct and read the notes and the powerpoints for those chapters.
I got an 86%
This does not mean I am going to do it this way again, though! Too stressfull!
My Nurse's Notes for today:
0800- sitting up in bed 35 degrees watching TV. Resting comfortably, no resp distress noted. t 98.8 p 94 bp 160/72 rr 18 O2 sat = 96% on room air. changed diaper, loose stool present. noted redness and irritation on gluteal folds and scrotum. reapplied condom catheter. left pt w/ call bell in reach, bed rails up x2.
1000- changed diaper, loose stool present. applied zinc ointment to reddened areas of gluteal folds and scrotum. pt expressed pain when cleaning fecal matter from area. condom catheter came off so a new one was applied. catheter tubing secured to leg with paper tape.
And how was your day? 
In all honesty it wasn't that bad. This is the first time I've
actually had to clean poo since I've been in nursing school and my luck
was bound to run out eventually. What was really a pain was having a
patient who was on contact precautions because of MRSA (methicillin
resistant staph infection) in a wound on his toe. That means I had to
wear a gown and glove for all patient contact. Gets hot after awhile
and you have to take it off when you leave the room and then put a new
one on. Ah well, another day, more knowledge put into my brain.
Also, I got a call from the HCA scholarship coordinator at my school who wants me to come in for an interview tomorrow, so wish me luck with that! My biggest hurdle is that I'm requesting an out-of-county hospital, so I have to be approved by that district.
Last Sunday Alex and I just hung out watching the NFL playoffs. We might have played video games too. Oh, and I actually answered the case study question I was supposed to do on webct for my nursing lecture! My teacher said my answer was Excellent! She also called me Nicole. Sigh...
So, yesterday I had to get up at 5:30am and have Alex bring me to my car (I left it at Grammie's). When we got there he said that Taylor still seemed sick (she was up part of the night coughing) she could go back with him so she didn't have to go to school but I still could. He is so wonderful. I went to clinicals and then got some stuff done around the house. I left around 7pm to go back down to Davie. Alex was teaching until 9:30pm so I had dinner with his family and then we did some science trivia afterwards. Then I hung out with Gareth and Lyn talking about how he needs to start applying for colleges soon since he's a junior. After that I grossed Gareth out with pictures from my nursing textbook. Alex called on his break to check in and I told him that I was doing a search online to figure out why Gareth has excess salivation. What I found was this website: www.stopdrooling.com hahaha! Alex got home around 10 with a present for me :) He got me a totebag that said "(heart) a nurse" Now I have a nice bag to carry my books and stuff in to clinicals! He is so sweet!
Well, I have a test next Wednesday and I am seriously behind in my reading!!
I have clinicals at the VA hospital this term. Yesterday was orientation, so we had to read these big booklets on safety procedures, injury prevention, policies, blah blah blah. That's pretty standard. We had to sign some forms saying that we read the books and understood them, also standard. What is NOT standard is the MOUNTAIN of paperwork we had to do after that. Seriously, form after form after form. That was yesterday.
Today we got fingerprinted. There are 10 of us. We got there at 8am. They finally finished the last students at 12:30. Meaning, the remainder of the time we sat there with our thumbs in our bums with nothing to do. I cannot stand when my time is wasted like that. Oh, and we're still not done! Apparently we also need to be given computer access (maybe, they still haven't decided).
And you would think that a hospital so security conscious would want to issue us ID badges, but you would be wrong. This means that we can't administer meds without the floor nurse in the room with us. Oh wait till they find out, I'm sure they will be so thrilled that they have to babysit us putting pills in a cup even though our instructor is a licensed RN.
Bah. Gotta love government hospitals
Today was Semester II orientation. I found out that I am doing clinicals at the VA Hospital. This is sucky for a couple reasons: no one from my old clinical group is there, and it's all the way in Palm Beach Gardens (at least a half hour away and that's with NOOOOOOO traffic on 95). As for the VA itself, I've heard both good things and bad, so I guess we'll see. Unfortunately I'm not working in this area after graduation, because I've heard good things about being a VA nurse. Although they don't have OB anyway, so I guess that wouldn't work.
I printed out the syllabus for each of my classes and started skimming through them. Not really a good idea. All that does is freak me out looking how much I have to accomplish in the next four months. Chest tubes and ostomy care? Ewwww. I also found out that I will rotate to a detox center for one day, and I will also have a shift where I act as the Charge Nurse(?) and head up the team of student nurses. Everyone gets a turn at this.
I
will have 6 exams this semester before my MedSurg HESI and my final
exam. A couple papers due for clinicals (same as last term, IPR, CHAT,
DHAT) except we are expected to be more thorough this time.
Today I need to:Take down the Christmas tree so it can go out with the trash in the morning
Tomorrow I need to:
Buy a couple books and sell my books from last termClean out my notebooks and/or buy new ones for this semester
This weekend I need to:Assemble my clinical supplies
Wash and iron my uniforms
Start reading
(maybe)Do a VA runthrough so I have some idea how to find the lobby
I went to Laura's house last night to study and got home at 5am. Yes, that's right. And somehow I still couldn't get to sleep until 6. My alarm goes off at 7, at which point I left a message on my boss's voicemail asking if she could do without me. I left her my cell and told her to call me if she really needed me to come in, and she didn't. I slept until 12:30 or so and have been studying off and on all day. I put in a lot of good work last night, but at this point my brain has just checked out. I'm too tired to retain anything at this point.
I'll probably still forced some more pharm down my throat later and then rejoice tomorrow when THIS CRAP IS BEHIND ME.
(PS I'm going to Disneyworld with Alex and Taylor sometime in the next couple weeks! Yay!)
You know, I had this whole blog post planned out where I told you my sorry grade, but rationalized it by saying that at least I passed the class.
Maybe I'll use that one tomorrow.
Because today, I got an 87% on my Nursing Lecture final! Awoohoo!
What's
especially nice about that is I only studied Sunday night and then
yesterday for it because I've been so focused on studying for Pharm.
Laura's Columbian coffee FTW! I've always been able to drink coffee right before bed. Not so with this stuff. It is crack in a cup.
I got an 87%!
Who cares that I am subsisting on a diet of coffee and cigarettes? Who cares that I am getting 5 hours of sleep a night and am so exhausted I can barely move?
87!
