It All Makes Sense Now

So, I'm cramming for a nursing theory test. I feel adequately prepared and not scared at all, which is usually a good indicator that I need to study more.

But thats besides the point of this post. I've been taking the practice tests in my NCLEX review book to help me study. For every answer, the book gives you a rational for why each answer is right or wrong, and gives totally fucking useless helpful strategies for determining the correct answer to a problem:

 "Test-Taking Strategy: Read each option thoroughly and eliminate options 1, 3, and 4 because they are comparable or alike in that they are incorrect so they can be eliminated."

Total Newb.

Whelp things haven't been too exciting here in nursing school land.

 My OB rotation for clinical (which i was mortified of) has been mellow. Like really mellow. Like sit in my teachers office all day watching birthing videos and eating donuts kind of mellow.  It's great for reducing my anxiety level, but bad for my waist line and the learning of things.

 Really, for 5 out of 6 weeks of this rotation I didn't to a damn thing, didn't even lay eyes on a single patient. This was due to multiple factors, mainly our instructors unwillingness to change our clinical days to days when there aren't new grads training. Also, the census has been incredibly low. Multiple days they've had only one patient in the whole department!

So, imagine my surprise when I show up to Community Hospital in my shiny white scrubs, smile on my face because I think I am about to get some extra study time for an upcoming test and maybe i'll snack on cinnamon roles or whatever other incredibly unhealthy food one finds in a hospital.

I open the door to my teachers office, and she's grinning from ear to ear and enthusiastically calls out, "we've got patients!" My stomach dropped, my hands started shaking.

I got assigned to follow the admit nurse, who was awesome! For a while... She let me listen to lungs, listen to hearts, OMG even take vital signs that got put in a real chart! And then- I lost her! This nurse moved liked lightning, and i struggled the whole morning to keep up with her. Eventually, I turned around and she was gone, never to be found again. I had no idea what to do wanted to work on building a therapeutic relationship with the patient, so I stayed in the room with the last patient we had been seeing, chatting in spanglish.

A covering nurse came in and started in IV, it did not appear to go well (but I know nothing and who am I to judge anyway?). She asked me to clean up her mess, and vanished, never to return again to the patients room. And neither did the original nurse.

Let me just reiterate here that I know nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Now my patient has to pee. Well shit. Can she?? I sure as hell don't know. She looks like she's in immense pain from her contractions (duh) and she's hooked up to the IV. Does she need a bed pan? Can she walk to the bathroom? Those are great questions that you have Patient, let me go find an adult to answer them.

I go to the nurses station and see neither of the previous nurses, so I put my tail between my legs, throw on some puppy dog eyes, and ask the group, "so.... I'm with the patient in 207.... and, uhhh, she has to pee." Blank stares. A kind soul takes pity on me, asks the situation and where the nurse I'm supposed to be following is. I say "no clue", and then this incredible Super Nurse takes me under her wing.

I follow her to the patients room where she finds the room is totally unprepared for a laboring woman. She does ten things at once to put the room in perfect order. She explains to me that the patient can get up to pee, the toilet needs hat so we can measure output, we have to make sure the patient doesn't feel like she has to poop, because pooping means pushing, and pushing means babies popping out, and no one wants to have their baby in a toilet.

And then the clock hit 1300 and it was time to head home.

Next week I change rotations to med surge, where I've heard we get much more experience. I am terrified and excited, which really sums up my general feelings about nursing school!

Starting again, again

HOLY SHIT I'M IN NURSING SCHOOL!

 Five and a half years after applying to my program.

 It's been a long time since I even remembered I had a blog, let alone read it (and it's not as embarrassing as I thought it was gonna be). But one month into nursing school and I already have hundreds of pages to read and what feels like millions of details and concepts to learn every week and thus I'm already starting to procrastinate and I ended up back here!

 To sum up the last few years: I got my CNA, got scared of working in nursing homes, slacked off enjoyed life by playing music and going on tour all over the US, developing a taste for beer, hanging out, and more hanging out. And oh yeah, becoming a medical assistant.

(Tangent- when I went to get my associates degree for medical assisting, the counselor told me I also qualified to get an associates in english and community health, I figured why not. Now that I have just started working towards my fourth associates degree, I wish I would have politely declined those two freebies. Getting an extra associates degree feels like raising it to an exponent of 0.)

 I worked as a float in a pretty busy medical clinic, and I enjoyed it! I got to see and learn a ton of cool things (thoracentecis, cutting moles off peoples bodies, cutting skin tags off old mens balls). I quit six months ago to dick around in Europe for three months, and then get in an additional three months of doing absolutely nothing before nursing school started. Do I have regrets about the choices I made leading up to nursing school? Yes and no. Sure it would have been way smarter to work as a CNA, or really just to work anywhere the last six months (turns out if you don't have a job, no one pays you, and maybe when youre in nursing school you can't work so much and now youre broke, whodathunk), but at least I know how to give injections and take vitals- which together constitute one whole day of my nursing school education!

 So here's to blogging again- and hopefully salvaging what little brain power I have left to re-learn how to spell, not write exclusively in run-on sentences, and maybe learn how to not kill people as a nurse!