Thank God for high cut underwear

Today, I decided high-cut underwear was another one of the little things I am extremely thankful for. We gave our first injections today in our medication check-off, and I’ve been dreading it all week. It wasn’t the giving thereof, it was the receiving that had me in a dither. I just wasn’t into having my bum exposed to the world of my classmates. Getting an injection in the hip from a nurse in a professional medical environment is totally different from getting one from a classmate that you’ll be practically living with for the next 2.5 years. But things worked so nicely this morning. I only had to pull my skirt down on my hip and hitch the underwear up a little and I had a nicely exposed flank perfectly primed for an injection.

Knowing this was coming, along with some of the other personally invasive procedures we’re having to do in my assessment class, I’ve had to make some adjustments to my normal garb. It makes me feel perfectly heathen-ish, but I’ve gone to wearing skirts and blouses and a veil on Monday (assessment), Thursday, & Friday (clinicals). It’s amazing how hard it was on me to do that even though what I’m wearing meets all the modesty criteria. After agonizing for weeks, I decided it was much more modest to wear a skirt than wear my dress up around my neck for my assessment class. I’ve also totally ruined a covering in a matter of 4 weeks from having to play the patient in a hospital bed. So I just decided that I must be practical and not let it bother me. I had strongly considered switching to a veil at the beginning of the semester before I really knew my classmates because I knew I was going to have to be wearing a skirt and blouse for my uniform. But I just couldn’t go against that “veils are the first step to losing the covering” that’s been drilled into me. Now that my covering no longer has a shape, I’ve had to switch anyway. Only one of my classmates has said anything, and she just commented that she likes my “thingy.”

As a whole, the medication check-off went fairly well, although my fears did come true in that I forgot some of the little things. I was just cruising along getting my meds out and doing the triple check as I was supposed to. I made sure the label was turned to my palm on the syrup that I poured. Then I drew my saline injection without checking the label on the vial. GRRR. But my professor was really cool about it. She told me that she knows when a student is just nervous or just plain stupid. Joey was my patient, and I think he was a little tense because he flinched when I stuck him. He told me later that it didn’t hurt, but he just couldn’t help the flinch. So now I’m looking forward to injecting all those flu shots we’re going to be giving later this semester. It will be much more fun because I won’t be giving it in the hip, and I won’t have to receive one in return.

I have a classmate who is even worse about the whole issue of privacy than I am. It was all she could do to go to a female gynecologist, and I’m right there with her on that. She is freaking out to the point that she is seriously considering dropping out. Not only can she not stand the thought of letting anybody practice on her, but she also can’t imagine herself doing some of these procedures (i.e. catheters, bed baths, etc.) on a real patient. She thinks she could to children but not adults. The only thing that’s keeping her from dropping is that she would lose her scholarship. So she has to stick out this semester or lose her scholarship. I think my experience of having to have total care when I was in the hospital has helped me learn how to just turn my mind off the embarrassment. I hope it will just help me be sensitive to what my patients will be feeling and give them as much privacy as I possibly can.

We only have 3 more class periods left before we start our “real” clinicals. What a thrill to practice on real patients! We’ve been given our rotation schedule, and I’ll be going to 6 different facilities including a children’s hospital, a retirement center, a school, a clinic, & 2 hospitals.

I feel a lot better about my classes now that I’ve cut my work hours down to 28. I am able to study after class before I go to work, and I can tell a big difference although I was concentrating on my check off so much that I’m behind in my reading again. Now that it’s behind me, I can throw away my practice syringes and my saline-saturated orange and re-prioritize my schedule. I just hope that I don’t go into a panic when I get that first reduced paycheck this week. If I could just get that scholarship I applied for, things would ease up a bit. But I guess I’ll leave that in God’s hands.

Spammers

The spammers have caught up with my blog. I really don't understand what joy these people get out of inundating innocent victims with their unwanted messages. I never even considered this could happen on a blog until I saw it on Sharon's blog. How do they find us? Thankfully, there are some safeguards developed out there to cut down on it, though it's not totally fool-proof. Blogger has word verification that can be turned on so you can't be a victim of a mass automated spamming.

Progress with the panic

Every time I think I’m getting a handle on things, I start looking around and realize how fast I’m sinking. I don’t even want to think about all the chapters I should have already read and haven’t yet. While I seem to have the biggest shortage time-wise in my class, I don’t think I have it quite as bad as some when it comes to the reading. I can at least read something once and get the general concepts. I have a classmate who is bemoaning the state of his reading abilities. He said what may take one person an hour to read takes him 5 hours. He literally poured over a chapter for that long and it’s not conducive to one’s peace of mind when one has 17 more to go.

On the bright side, I think things have finally been arranged at work to release me from supervising responsibilities on 3 days. I’ve agreed to keep running flats on Friday and Saturday. Tuesday through Thursday I’m planning to take off the first 4 hours of my shift to study. That means I’ll be down to working 28 hours a week. This should help ease my time constraints while putting a considerable strain on my bank account. But I’ve decided not to worry about it, for somehow God will see me through it.

My nursing theory class is the least favorite. We have to write a personal philosophy paper. I’m not really sure what my nursing philosophies are at this point since I have no experience in it. I need to get that paper done sometime this week or the next weekend. That class and Assessment won’t meet Monday because of Labor Day. I’m not sure if I should just totally put those classes on the back shelf and concentrate on getting the other two up to date or if I should do just the required on all of them and then concentrate on studying for my exam in Assessment coming up next time we meet. Ideally, I should study some of my Assessment every day, but being the procrastinator I am….

I really like my professor in my Nursing Fundamentals class. She’s quite interesting. I’ve been having the most fun in my clinicals. We’ve been doing some video watching, but there aren’t really any lectures per se. Often the videos are about a procedure, then the professors demonstrate, and then it’s up to us to practice. We’ve done vital signs, handwashing, lifting/moving patients, changing linens, and restraints. Yesterday was restraints and we took turns being tied up. Then everybody would leave the room and turn out the lights. You were left in the dark to see if you could get out of the restraints. We learned more by our “patients” getting out of the restraints than we did in just tying them up.

I really like the fact that my classmates don’t change for the most part. We have a few RNs doing the gateway program from associates to bachelors degrees who are in our theory and assessment classes. Otherwise, it’s the same 30 students. Since you go through all 5 semesters together, I can understand why the nursing classes become so close to each other. We practice on each other for all the procedures. A few of these people were already familiar to me from my Anatomy, Physiology, & Microbiology classes.

Next week we will be setting up in the University Center to take blood pressures. We’re split up into 4 groups for Thursday & Friday mornings and afternoons. My group is doing it on Thursday afternoon. That should be fun, and we should be really good at blood pressures after doing it for an hour and a half.

Besides doing our normal class assignments, we are also responsible to work through a Math book on drug calculations outside of class. We also have to do some online assignments in our Assessment class, and some online modules which most medical facilities require their employees to complete before working. They concern things like patient rights, safety and disaster responses, handling infectious diseases, and the HIPPA guidelines. I’ve done 11 of my modules and still have 1 more to complete then I can check that off of my list.

I’m looking forward to seeing how much I can get done this weekend and next week. I hope I’ll feel much better about things. My panic has already subsided somewhat knowing that I have a plan of action. I think I need to get myself out of the house to study so that I don’t have any distractions.