A disaster or not?

From the time I got up this morning, my day has gradually been deteriorating in quality. I had a niggling headache when I woke up. That wasn't abnormal since I've been battling migraines for the last week. By the time I got out of class, it was a full-blown, rip-roaring migraine. I allowed myself the rare luxury of calling in sick to work. I tried to sleep it off along with dosing myself with my trusty Excedrin Migraine. I'm now down to a dull throb and the room no longer tilts when I get up.

Since I've been working and going to school full time, my culinary exploits have been few and far between. Besides, I only brought the most basic cookware with me to Chattanooga while the rest sits all lonely and unused in my attic back home in Kentucky. So when I saw this roast on sale at Wal-Mart, I thought longingly of Sunday dinners at my Mom's. So I decided to purchase it, and it's now sending out a lovely aroma.

I decided I also would make some cream cheese fruit dip for the peaches I bought. I guess my brain is still on ice because, before I realized it, I had put twice as much sugar in as I normally do. I was hoping the cool whip would cut the sweetness some. Not enough. What to do? I hate when things are disgustingly sweet--like frosting. So I rummaged through my cupboard and came across some pumpkin. Now pumpkin is fairly tart so this might work. So I whipped in the pumpkin and added some ginger and cinnamon. Ok, it was better, but who wants pumpkin fruit dip? It tasted very similar to a lovely pumpkin torte I like to make so I went ahead and made a graham cracker crust and spread the filling over it. The jury is still out as it sits chilling in the refrigerator.

Mi profesor

I delight in the off-beat humor of my Spanish professor. Every day he gives us these little nuggets of his personal philosophy on life. He claims he tells us these things "to fix in your brain the concept of..." I think he just loves to tell stories and to make us laugh.

Because of his Catholic upbringing, he constantly pokes fun of the Catholic religion and especially the pope. He claims that the Catholics contribute to poor economies by having too many children which is caused by not using birth control. He says, "Abstinence does not work because the Catholics have baby factories; they are called matresses."

He also gave me the secret to the large families in my own religious background. He says, "Give them TV's and they no have babies. They no have TV's, they have lots of babies."

All Things Español

I am already 2 weeks into my summer semester and thoroughly enjoying it. I told my boss that I'm starting to feel more like my normal self. It's no longer an effort to be pleasant and joyful.
The class I'm taking is Spanish. Although I didn't have a choice, I was leery about taking this as a summer class because learning another language in 6 weeks didn't seem very doable. I really want to retain what I learn since it's such a necessity with our rapidly changing cultural mix. I've already had 2 non-English-speaking Hispanic patients. It's quite frustrating to be unable to communicate.

My professor is what makes the class a pure delight. He loves to tell stories, and sometimes I leave with an aching jaw from laughing and smiling so much for an hour and a half. He freely admits everybody thinks he's loco. Initially, I didn't think I was going to be able to catch on because his accent was so strong (Costa Rican) and he "wasted" so much time telling stories and joking with us that we were never going to learn the lesson. Yet, when the first week was up, and it was time for a test, I found that I actually knew the material. I have even gotten used to the accent to the point where I only occasionally miss what he is saying.

He loves to poke fun at religion and politics, and his sense of humor can be a bit ribald at times. However, when he suddenly realized he had a mujer mennonita in his class, he became a bit more cautious. The day after his discovery, he told the class how he was severely discriminated against when he first tried to get a job in this country in the 70's. He lost his respect for "christians" because he believes christianity should be a religion of love, yet they treated him like he was a dog. Only Methodists and Mennonites were an exception. He said Methodists are a religion of equality, and Mennonites believe it is their mission to help people. Now I have become Sarita because, as he pointed out to the class, adding 'ita' to somebody's name is a term of respect; and I am bueno and a person to be respected.

I decided on Wednesday (my day off) that I was going to immerse myself in all things Español as I studied. So I've been listening to Selena while driving. I rented several Spanish foreign films. Then I made some enchiladas. I don't drink tequilla, so I'm sticking to agua. Now I'm actually starting to understand some of the words in the music and the films.

I Passed

Thanks to all of you for thinking about me and for your prayers these last several weeks. It's not a pretty thing to doubt your abilities or your intelligence. I have gained a new-found appreciation for the feelings of students for whom learning is difficult. (Too bad I'm not teaching any more.) I also know what it feels like to be driven to the very limits of your endurance stress-wise. I felt like something had to either give or I was going to crack. I did pass all my exams, and my confidence has been restored.

I did find out some information contributing to the "tightening down" of the nursing school. The nursing school is rated on it's first-pass rate of the graduates on the NCLEX, and four of the December graduates did not pass. Although they probably wouldn't admit it, I think the raising of the passing requirements and narrowing of the grade ranges are partially a reaction to that. There is a particularly high level of concern for my class since we will be the first to fall victim to the new NCLEX exams which are much harder. Statistically the pass rate drops whenever the NCLEX changes.

I will be quitting my job this summer since I won't be able to work and do my preceptorship for the fall semester. This is very scarey for me. I have never been unemployed since I graduated from high school 17 years ago. Given my adversity to debt, I'll be living very frugally for the next 6 months or so. I have resigned myself to the fact that I may have to take out a student loan if I something goes wrong and I start scraping bottom. I have determined I shall enjoy my time of unemployment. I wonder if I'll feel like a slacker.

I Feel Like...

...a heart must feel in Cardiac Tamponade

...a lung must feel in a tension pneumothorax

...a cyst that is about to rupture

...the brain when the CSF pressure is greater than 200 mm H2O and a lumbar puncture is performed

No more clinicals

Today was the last day of clinicals for the semester. In reflection, the highlight this semester was definitely the ICU and the ER.

ICU was so intense and there was always something happening even though I had only one patient and my nurse had two patients at the most. It was totally fascinating to see the major complications you read about in the text books but don't usually get to see on the regular floors. It was quite a let down to return to floor nursing when there would be long periods of time when I had nothing to do despite the nurse having 6 patients. If I hadn't been able to help with all 6 patients, I would have gone stir crazy.

My ER experience was last week. I haven't really decided if I'd want to work there or not. It's certainly different when you have patients who have signs and symptoms, but no formal medical diagnoses. All the regular clinical rotations we have patients assigned and you must prepare, prepare, prepare. You go in knowing the patho of the medical diagnosis intimately, so it's a switch going into a situation where there is nothing "known" about a patient. It's like solving a mystery. I think after I've got some experience under my belt, I might really enjoy working as an ER nurse.

Several things stood out in the ER. I had my first opportunity to start an IV. I was 2 for 2 and so elated about it. Of course, when I started the first one, I was so elated that I forgot to occlude the vein when I withdrew the needle and blood just spurted everywhere. Fortunately, my patient was the coolest. She said she had to learn to draw blood herself, and she didn't mind a bit being my first stick because she knew what it was like. She just laughed at my blunder. She kindly said I was really good because I didn't hurt her at all. She hardly even felt it. The second one was an African American so it was a lot harder to see the vein, but I got it on the first try and even remembered to occlude!

The second thing that stood out for me was being in the trauma unit when 4 traumas came in at the same time or within minutes of each other. I now know what it means to "fire" on a patient. It was amazing how they can scrounge up so many doctors since each patient has a team. It is so intense from the time the chopper arrives. I went to help bring down a patient from the first chopper which brought in 2 patients. We had security to ride with us and hold our elevators. We had to stop once in the hallway to reassess a patient's lungs, and nobody had a stethoscope except the student (me)! DUH! Since I had the first patient, I got to watch the chaos get even more chaotic as each patient came in. Everybody was shouting this or that and the nurse had to be charting everything that was going on while the doctors were assessing and other nurses were drawing blood from the femoral. I still haven't figured out why the femoral. Maybe it's the most easily accessible artery. Then there were all the x-ray techs with their machines hovering in the background and then pouncing as soon as they were given orders on what to x-ray. I got to see some really cool fractures. To sum it up, it was quite impressive.

It's sort of sad that my clinicals with my classmates are now over. Next semester will be preceptorship (assuming I get past these exams).

Just another statistic

So today we had a couple of bomb threats to several of our buildings on campus, making us part of the statistics shared by 7 other states receiving bomb threats and subsequent evacuations in the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Fortunately, I was not in one of those buildings so I just read the e-mails and calmly kept working on my research proposal. I guess that's one of the advantages of the nursing school being located in one of the buildings isolated from the mainstream of campus life.