What's your guilty pleasure?

You know, that activity which can steal huge chunks of your time before you know it? That indulgence which surprises people to know about you and may even be embarrassing to admit to some people.

For me it is sports. I can get totally engrossed in it, and not just my special obsession--basketball. I love basketball, football, tennis, olympics--you name it, I'll probably enjoy watching it, although I do have some exceptions--wrestling and boxing. I don't particularly thrive on golf or baseball, but I can even enjoy watching them occasionally, particularly during the World Series.

Recently I've been able to once again exercise one of my indulgences in this area, listening to ESPN radio and the Dan Patrick show in particular. He's quite entertaining and never fails to get a laugh out of me. I used to listen to it every day when I worked in Bowling Green. Now that I'm keying again, I get to listen to the last hour of the show just like old times.

My consuming passion is college basketball, especially the UK Wildcats, of course! It makes me so sad that I can no longer listen to the games on the radio. I can get it on the internet, but not usually until after the fact so it's not nearly as much fun. I seem to be in the wrong area of the country when it comes to basketball fans. I find very few people to discuss basketball in Tennessee. I've even been known to go to games by myself since I don't have any sisters or friends in the area who will go with me.

Here in Tennessee it's all about football. Football would be second on my list of favorite sports. I'm not into the college scene so much, but I love the NFL. The Titans are my favorite team, but there are some others that I follow pretty closely too. Maybe someday I can even go to a game. And to think, back before I was a fan, I actually won some tickets to a Titans game and sold them! In my defense, they had just moved to Nashville from Houston, and I didn't really know anything about them.

So there you have it. That's my guilty pleasure. What's yours?

Mice and BPs

This morning I got up at the 5:30 (nobody should have to get up that early on a Saturday morning!) to be at the American Heart Walk by 7:30 where I volunteered to take blood pressures. I was about 15 minutes early so I decided to relax in my car since it was a bit nippy with a bit of a breeze blowing. I don't recall what I was thinking about at the time, but out of the corner of my eye I saw this brown leaf rustling in the breeze where the windshield goes under the hood. I know the leaves have showed signs of starting to turn, but I thought it a bit strange to have a brown one. As I took a closer look, it took on the formation of a MOUSE's head. Now anybody who knows my past history very well knows I have a thing about those nasty little creatures! My immediate instincts were to draw my knees up to my chest for fear the little monster would find some way to get from under the hood to the inside of my car and run up my leg. I nervously watched my floorboard for a few minutes then decided the nippy air was a better option.

It was an interesting experience today. I was actually working in the stroke screening booth which I didn't know until I got there. All I knew was that I was asked to take blood pressures. Another nursing student from Chattanooga State and I were taking the BPs while two other people would then take the results and do more of a health history and discuss risks with them. I always dread the getting up early thing, but I do enjoy the bit of socializing such events bring.

I met an interesting lady who was from Pennsylvania. It always amuses me that people from PA know instantly that I'm a Mennonite when people from Chattanooga eventually gather up the courage to ask me what I am all about. It turns out that her daughter was the organizer of the heart walk which is what brought her there.

I found my first irregular heart beat today. I was listening to this lady's heart beat when I was taking her pressure and it would just suddenly skip a beat or so. It rather startled me. So I got one of the people in charge to come over, and sure enough, I was right. The other nursing student who volunteered came over to me and asked me to take the blood pressure of a man she had just taken several times. She was quite alarmed because it was 170/88. This was definitely cause for alarm. So I pumped up my cuff, and sure enough, I got about 168/88. So I got one of the nurses to come take it. She also got a high reading and the poor man was quite scared by this time. She reassured him that it wasn't necessarily anything to get really alarmed about. He just needed to make sure he keeps checking it every week to establish if it was an unusual incident or if there was a problem. So that was my excitement for the day. Who would ever have thought that irregular heartbeats and high blood pressures would be exciting???

In a cellular funk

Yesterday I was in such a funk, I was ready to throw in the towel, but today I feel better. I'm still not totally over it, but definitely back on the upswing. In addition to getting a B on my Assessment exam, I got a B on my Fundamentals exam. Now one B I can handle, but two is just too much. Then I started looking at all my mid-term grades. With that second B, I managed to pull all my classes down to a B. Then my professor for Fundamentals e-mailed that she had thrown out a question which brought my grade up enough to keep me in an A for that class. The exam grade was still a 90 which in nursing school is a B. (Don’t tell me that B’s are good. I know that. They just aren’t good enough for me. Yes, I know I have issues!)

Considering the fact that I had studied for a total of 19 hours in two days for those exams in addition to every spare minute the week before, it was especially devastating to find out that my worst fears have been confirmed in regard to taking leave from work. I will no longer be able to put in for leave without pay. All leave without pay has been turned down and even some of the requests with annual leave. I spoke with my manager about it because I knew it was coming. He said he was quite torn about my situation because he wanted to do all he could for me since I had given so much to them for so long. I do still have 20-some hours of paid annual leave left, so I'm going to be putting in for 1 full day a week instead of 3 half days. That will only last me for 2 weeks, but by that time they have plans to have rehired some people previously let go, so hopefully I'll be able to get some more leave without pay.

After that I felt the need to do something extreme like drive really fast, or watch a cry movie, or listen to music really loudly. I can't afford a speeding ticket, and crying gives me a headache, so I pounded out my frustration on my keyboard at work while listening to the song I want sung at my funeral cranked way up. It did make me feel better after a while.

Currently, I'm working on my first care plan that has to be turned in next Tuesday. It wouldn't be so difficult except that I have to give the scientific rationale all the way to the cellular level for each of my interventions. I was working on it so long today that my frame of mind has turned totally cellular. Tonight at work after my fourth hour of keying, I was thinking to myself that my bum really hurt from sitting so long. But then I had to put it in more scientific terms: more than 32 mm Hg of pressure was being applied to the capillaries perfusing the tissue around my ischial tuberosity, thus occluding the capillaries and causing ischemia evidenced by reactive hyperemia which, if sustained more than 2 hours, would result in hypoxia which could eventually lead to cellular necrosis and a stage I pressure ulcer. I must admit, it tweaked my funny bone and I had to smirk.

I was invited to my first punk rock/beer party! I couldn't help but giggle at the thought.

Stressors

My assessment course reveals to me that I am at risk for depression with all the stressors I have going on right now.

I survived stressful day number 2 of this week. Yesterday I studied for 14 hours for my test today. After all that work, I totally blew it. I got an 88% which brings my average down to 91%, resulting in a B. I have to have a 92% for an A in nursing school. I'll just have to study that much harder next time. I hate being such a perfectionist! I don't think 2 of the questions were quite fair, but so it goes. The professor said he'd consider my case on the one.

Now I have to start studying for my test tomorrow morning at 9:00. I haven't even looked at it, but at least it's only over 3 chapters rather than 10 like the one for today. But on the other hand, Dr S. doesn't give straightforward knowledge kind of tests. She likes to give us application questions. I did ok last time, but then today I proved I can also bomb.
I can tell my stress level is pretty high because my lips are breaking out in sores which doesn't happen very often with me. I think it's a combination of stress and biting my lip. Additionally, my stomach is feeling quite acidic.

After our exam, we had a lecture then headed for the lab. I think everybody was feeling a little overwhelmed because most of us just sat around with these dazed looks for a while. Then I started asking several of them what their clinicals were like. It was quite amusing to hear tales of giving bed baths. It's my nightmare waiting to happen because the first time is so un-nerving. Somehow it always ended up being females bathing males (even worse nightmare). But we've been thoroughly instructed how to go about it, including the uncircumsized male!

I'm also a little upset by the turn things may take at work. We've been having overtime almost every night, and my supervisor told me last week that she doesn't know if she'll be able to approve my leave anymore. It will be up to S who will probably have to go to J who will probably say no because he doesn't have to look me in the face. I also can't just put in for sick leave without documentation. I can call in, but it goes down as an unscheduled, and we can only do that 3 times in 90 days. If they'd just hire more people!!!! What if I'm forced to quit because I can't handle it? And here I have over 700 hours of sick leave that I SHOULD be able to use. My stress levels are just a hummin'.

Alexian Village

I've had my first two days of clinicals with real patients. I went in feeling unsure of myself and came through it feeling excited. The first three weeks of my clinicals are at Alexian Village. This place is totally awesome. It a retirement community with three levels of living for the residents. The independent living, assisted living, & skilled nursing care are available along with physical therapy. The residents can move from one level to another as needed. This place is renowned as one of the best retirement communities and attracts residents from many other states leading to some fascinating people.

I met one lady who was one of the first women to ever enter the marines. She told me she chose to enter the marines because her brother did. She adored her brother and wanted to do everything he did. She worked in coding. She also worked as a teacher in Owensboro, Kentucky. She is still very sharp intellectually.

Another lady told me she was married to a doctor and her hobby was painting ceramics. She had some beautiful pieces in her room. She also told me about the house where she grew up. She said she loved to help her mother do the laundry which they did in an outbuilding using big washtubs and scrub boards. They had a well right off their porch and the outbuilding was down the hill. Her father would haul the water down for them to heat. Then he came up with the idea to run a pipe downhill from the well and let gravity carry the water down.

One lady told me she owned and ran a hardware store until she was no longer able to. Her children weren't interested in the business so she sold it and moved to Alexian. Some lawyers bought it from her and use the building for law offices.

One man couldn't remember what kind of career he had. So I asked him some other questions about his life and he quite eagerly told me he loved his college experience. I asked what he majored in, and he said it was English. I asked him if he taught English and he did at both the highschool and college levels. I guess there is more than one way to get at information in their heads.

I had the pleasure of feeding one lady who was quite spunky. I soon caught on that she's sort of a favorite with the CNAs. She told me I was beautiful and she wanted to be my friend. We bantered quite a bit, but when speaking about husbands, she became quite serious. She informed me that she had the very best, and she was quite angry at him for dying so young. In speaking of good days versus bad days, I asked her for her definition of a good day. She said it's a day when you help make somebody else's day better.

These are just a few of the jewels I had the pleasure of meeting.

Emotions

Wouldn't life be much easier without emotions? At least it would be much better if we could only feel the positive and not the negative emotions. But I suppose it would be like having a world with only bright colors. I've heard life compared to weaving a piece of cloth with multiple-colored threads. It's the dark threads of despair that give depth to the fabric of our lives.

I've experienced both ends of the spectrum today--from the elation of passing check-offs to the absolute pits of despair over an issue I can do nothing about. It's just so much harder to recover from the lows than to come down off those fleeting highs.

I've been struggling to study for the past several hours and just can't concentrate so maybe I can distract myself by blogging about my past week and the future.

I've been stressing out for the past week over check-offs on Thursday, Friday, and today. I've managed to pass all of them, bringing me to the pinnacle of elation. Thursday was the drug calculations test. I wasn't particularly stressed out about that one because I've always done well in Math--and I aced it. Friday was more stressful because there was such a range of things we could be asked to do since it covered any procedure we've been taught except administering medications. I just knew I would have to perform a sterile dressing. It seemed every time I practiced it, I would contaminate something. Then the morning of the check-off, a student returned from their turn and reported that the cleaning/care of a PEG tube was one of the things we might have to do. HORRORS! Nobody had even considered or practiced that because we didn't even have any to practice with! Now I was begging God for the sterile dressing. I ended up having to be the very last one so my stress level was through the roof. I reached into the hat and drew GLOVING!!! This was the absolute easiest thing I could have drawn. I can just imagine God up there smiling at me.

The check-off today was the most stressful one because we've only been in the lab twice for this class (Assessment), and nobody knew what to expect. We could be doing inspection or palpation in almost any category of the head and neck including skin, hair, nails, lymph nodes, eyes, & ears. My assignment turned out to be palpating the toenails of one of my classmates. I wanted to giggle the whole time from the nerves and the hilarity of it. So I squeezed her toenails and assessed her capillary refill, texture, contour, temperature, & pain/tenderness.

I also experienced the gloom of quizzes. I HATE them. Give me a test any day, but please spare me from quizzes. I think quizzes should be used as a generalized measurement to monitor the class's reading assignments. They should not be complicated questions about constitutional defects! It doesn't help any that I really dislike my theory class. I honestly think I could take the same material and teach it much more clearly and in a way that students could see the connection to the real world. But I feel so befuddled all the time! I'm just no good at theory gibberish. Keep it concrete, I say!

On a more positive note, my nursing fundamentals prof indicated that she may refrain from quizzing us tomorrow. I think a classmate was trying to convince her that we have had a bit much on our plates the past few days. Another exciting thing to focus on is that I begin my real live clinicals this week. I'll be starting at Alexian Village, a medical center in a retirement community, at the ungodly hour of 7:00 a.m. on Thursday.

Well, I can't say that I feel much better, but maybe I've distracted myself a little. I guess I could just go to sleep so I don't have to think any more.