I have a new tradition for most Tuesday nights, and it's karaoke. My love for karaoke started last summer when I went to a bar after a concert with some friends. This bar happen to have karaoke that night, and no one was really participating in it, so one of my friends (who was in RENT with me) talked me into singing "I Will Survive." I was hooked. I don't sing to show off any talent or to impress anyone. Karaoke for me is about letting loose and hoping that you make someone in the audience sing along, or even just laugh at my musical choice. Unfortunately, this particular bar had a really shitty karaoke night, and I didn't know about any others (I also didn't have any friends that cared for karaoke), so I didn't think of it much until a couple months ago.
My friend from nursing school, Lacey, lives in the fan and has this love affair going with a restaurant/bar called Sticky Rice (all you Richmonders know exactly where I'm talking about). As it turns out, Sticky Rice has karaoke on Tuesdays. So I convinced my friend, Rob, to ditch his usual Tuesday night bar for some quality karaoke. And we had an absolute blast.
Almost every Tuesday since, we've returned. Every time we return, we bring new people.... well usually I'm the only one bringing new people. So our little karaoke group has expanded from a few seats at the crowded bar to getting there early to monopolize a booth and 2 tables to cram all together.
I know some people who don't like when their groups of friends intermingle. I just don't understand that. I looked around at so many people that I know and love last Tuesday and absolutely loved that they were all becoming fast friends. From my work friends to my nursing school friends to a college friend and even a dude I met at a concert a few weeks back. In fact, 2 of them are even starting to date because of our little karaoke crew.
As I mention in almost every post, it's very difficult for me to have time for myself these days. I spend most of my time in the hospital, at work, in the classroom, or running in my neighborhood. It's nice to look forward to such a mundane day such as Tuesday and plan out my karaoke songs throughout the week. It's fun to bring people into the group who are accepted immediately by so many people whose company I enjoy. My friend, Erin, told me that after she had such a good time this past week, I'm never able to sing karaoke without her again.
It's amazing what brings people together sometimes, but apparently for this crew, it just takes alcohol, a microphone, and some music. I wonder how many people will be inducted into the crew next week.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Adjustments
In the last two weeks, my life has turned upside-down. It all started when I ended my 3+ year relationship. You see, this was my first ever break up (aside from a week and a half "break" a few months ago), and I guess I didn't realize how it would affect every aspect of my life. So these past couple weeks, I've been adjusting to my new lifestyle.
First of all, there was the obvious adjustment. I had to get used to not talking to him, not knowing what was going on in his daily life, and not sharing what was going on in mine. Especially since we were feeling the same kind of pain, it sucked not being able to sympathize with him.
Call me crazy, but when I'm feeling down, I tend to rely on my strongest support systems to build me back up from nothing. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed. Most of my family and closest friends provided little support, if any, and that might have hurt even more than the initial break up.
Luckily, I did have friends come out of the woodwork that were there for me when no one else was, and one of my ex's and my mutual friends even reached out to me after a week or so. The people who did provide support were the ones I didn't expect to, and the people who didn't support me were the ones I needed most.
While it's going to take far longer than 2 weeks to overcome such a change in my life (while still balancing a nursing program that is getting exponentially more difficult and a new promotion at my job), I'm finally realizing who I can count on and who I lost.
I guess I learned the hard way that when you break up with someone, you lose more than just one person.
First of all, there was the obvious adjustment. I had to get used to not talking to him, not knowing what was going on in his daily life, and not sharing what was going on in mine. Especially since we were feeling the same kind of pain, it sucked not being able to sympathize with him.
Call me crazy, but when I'm feeling down, I tend to rely on my strongest support systems to build me back up from nothing. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed. Most of my family and closest friends provided little support, if any, and that might have hurt even more than the initial break up.
Luckily, I did have friends come out of the woodwork that were there for me when no one else was, and one of my ex's and my mutual friends even reached out to me after a week or so. The people who did provide support were the ones I didn't expect to, and the people who didn't support me were the ones I needed most.
While it's going to take far longer than 2 weeks to overcome such a change in my life (while still balancing a nursing program that is getting exponentially more difficult and a new promotion at my job), I'm finally realizing who I can count on and who I lost.
I guess I learned the hard way that when you break up with someone, you lose more than just one person.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Clean slate
I love the idea that a new year means the decisions made during the past year can be wiped away and forgotten so that only new, better decisions can be made instead. While we all know that this isn't true in life and that many decisions can haunt you for the rest of your life, the whole idea makes people try (for at least a little bit) to be better people than they were. I don't usually like making resolutions that I know I can't keep. When I was a kid, I resolved to stop biting my nails every year, and by January 15, I was gnawing away again. Last year I made the resolution to stop texting while driving, which lasted until about May (a record for me!). This semi-success encouraged me to try this out again this year (so far, so good). But mostly, I just want to be slightly better in life than I was last year. I don't have many measurable goals, but concrete ideas to help me achieve this. So aside from my no-texting-while-driving resolution, here are my other ideas:
1) Make a decision, and stick to it. I've found myself going back and forth on a lot. Big things, little things, I just can't make up my mind sometimes. I'm realizing now that my "analysis paralysis" is holding me back from actually enjoying my life because I'm too worried about what the repercussions will be. So I need to figure out a way to feel confident in my decisions and stick to them.
2) Laugh/smile more. It sounds stupid, and I'm generally a happy person, but I've heard that smiling even when you aren't genuinely happy releases dopamine in the brain which actually makes you feel happy. It's like you're tricking yourself into being happy by "faking it." With my busy lifestyle, it's important to find joy in the little things, so that's what I'm going to focus on.
3) Give more. I believe in Karma, and giving makes me happy. Whether it's time, money, kind words, or something else entirely, the act of giving simply out of kindness and not reciprocation is rare in this world. I want to show random acts of kindness through giving what I can to the community and my loved ones.
So that's my 2011 plan.
Happy new year!
1) Make a decision, and stick to it. I've found myself going back and forth on a lot. Big things, little things, I just can't make up my mind sometimes. I'm realizing now that my "analysis paralysis" is holding me back from actually enjoying my life because I'm too worried about what the repercussions will be. So I need to figure out a way to feel confident in my decisions and stick to them.
2) Laugh/smile more. It sounds stupid, and I'm generally a happy person, but I've heard that smiling even when you aren't genuinely happy releases dopamine in the brain which actually makes you feel happy. It's like you're tricking yourself into being happy by "faking it." With my busy lifestyle, it's important to find joy in the little things, so that's what I'm going to focus on.
3) Give more. I believe in Karma, and giving makes me happy. Whether it's time, money, kind words, or something else entirely, the act of giving simply out of kindness and not reciprocation is rare in this world. I want to show random acts of kindness through giving what I can to the community and my loved ones.
So that's my 2011 plan.
Happy new year!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Support
Recent events in my life have made me realize how many true friends I have, and I'm so very lucky. I'm not popular by any means, but I've realized just in one day that some people who I considered acquaintances or co-workers or old friends are actually genuinely concerned about my happiness and are willing to go out of their way to make my life a little bit better. I've been hugged and told that I'm loved by more people today than I can ever remember. I've been invited to monthly "girls nights" and weekly "family nights" and by people who I've only talked casually to. I've realized that my co-workers and management make up a family that helps to bring everyone up who needs a boost. I'm just so grateful to have such a caring support system.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Academic
I've always hated school. I used to fake sick to come home early as a kid, I would lie to my parents when they asked if I had any tests to study for, I would blame my less-than-stellar grades on anything and everything except for my own laziness. The frustrating thing is that I'm actually pretty smart. I was one of those kids who got to high school and skimmed by as a mostly B student without studying and turning in most assignments late (if at all). I wasn't surprised when I didn't get into my first choice college, but still bummed nonetheless. I chose Longwood University because, well, they kind of believed in me. I didn't know it until later, but Longwood is full of kids like me: underachievers who could have been at better schools if they had just tried a little bit.
So Longwood really turned me into a student. Those B's that I made in high school weren't going to come to a college freshman who didn't know how to study. I learned very quickly that if I wanted to stay in college, I was going to have to figure out how to study. I don't know the exact moment that I figured it out. Maybe it was after I found out I had to re-take a class because I failed too many tests. Maybe it was when a teacher sat down with me and forced me to do work. Maybe I just grew up and realized I wasn't going to accomplish any of my life goals without a college degree. All I know is that Longwood taught me how to be a student. My major was not easy, and even towards the end of my college career I had doubts on if I would graduate on time, but I know that my degree is even more special to me because 1) I got it in four years exactly, 2) I picked a hard major and stuck with it, 3) I never cheated, and 4) I never used any sort of drug like Adderall to make life easier.
So now, I'm in nursing school and really proud of myself. I started class and a full time job immediately after graduation, and while it's been stressful, it's been well worth it. Some of my classmates get frustrated because I don't seem to work as hard sometimes and still do exceptionally well. This isn't because I'm smarter than anyone, I just know how to take tests now and I know how to take good notes. While I've only been in nursing school for 5 months, I haven't run out of energy yet. And even though my classes are only going to get more difficult than they have already gotten, I thank Longwood for the skills I learned that will get me through the next 10 months, and and the rest of my life.
If I had learned nothing else from those 4 years, that would be just fine with me.
So Longwood really turned me into a student. Those B's that I made in high school weren't going to come to a college freshman who didn't know how to study. I learned very quickly that if I wanted to stay in college, I was going to have to figure out how to study. I don't know the exact moment that I figured it out. Maybe it was after I found out I had to re-take a class because I failed too many tests. Maybe it was when a teacher sat down with me and forced me to do work. Maybe I just grew up and realized I wasn't going to accomplish any of my life goals without a college degree. All I know is that Longwood taught me how to be a student. My major was not easy, and even towards the end of my college career I had doubts on if I would graduate on time, but I know that my degree is even more special to me because 1) I got it in four years exactly, 2) I picked a hard major and stuck with it, 3) I never cheated, and 4) I never used any sort of drug like Adderall to make life easier.
So now, I'm in nursing school and really proud of myself. I started class and a full time job immediately after graduation, and while it's been stressful, it's been well worth it. Some of my classmates get frustrated because I don't seem to work as hard sometimes and still do exceptionally well. This isn't because I'm smarter than anyone, I just know how to take tests now and I know how to take good notes. While I've only been in nursing school for 5 months, I haven't run out of energy yet. And even though my classes are only going to get more difficult than they have already gotten, I thank Longwood for the skills I learned that will get me through the next 10 months, and and the rest of my life.
If I had learned nothing else from those 4 years, that would be just fine with me.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Post-Clinical
Well today was the first day of the many clinicals I'll be doing for the rest of my time in school. Let me tell you about my day. First of all, I'd like to tell you that names (and maybe some particulars about their personal situations) have been changed in order to protect the privacy of the residents of the nursing home I visited today.
First of all, it only took me 20 minutes to get there! Plenty of time! Off to a great start. My group was all very excited to start hands-on experience. Properly armed with stethoscopes, pens, pen lights, power bars, and hand sanitizer, we marched into the nursing home (name will be withheld) and onto a locked down floor that only treats patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. The floor needs to be locked down so they don't wander away, but they have plenty of areas to socialize, and even a nice little courtyard to hang out in when the weather is nice. Since the place I went to today is one of the nicest nursing homes in Richmond, I was impressed with the care most of these patients got, but it still made me cringe at the thought that I might be as confused and dependent as these residents someday.
So we got divvied up into groups of 2 or 3. I was with my two best friends in the program, Brandy and April, and we were assigned to a care partner, who takes care of the basic needs for a number of residents. My first assignment, take a tray of breakfast food into a patient's room and wake her up so she can eat it herself. In this very first room, I walked in and she was sitting on the toilet. At least that boundary got crossed right off the bat, which made it easier to interact normally with people while doing such a private thing. If you're wondering how I reacted, I smiled politely, said good morning and introduced myself, and told her I would leave her breakfast on the table for her.
My next duty was just a tad more complicated than the first. I was directed to take a tray of breakfast to a patient's room and feed her. This lady was extremely doped up on medicine and never once opened her eyes, but she was with it enough to tell me when she was full and when she wanted a bite of cereal instead of peaches. As I was finishing with this patient, the care partner I was working with told me that she would be in the "tent room," whatever that was, which was supposed to be to the left of the room I was currently in. Well after wandering the halls for 5 minutes looking for a sign, I asked someone. Well turns out I misunderstood and she said "tub room," which is where residents are given showers. This led me to my next task.
I open the door to the tub room to find a naked geriatric woman sitting on this contraption being hosed down by my care partner. Now I could struggle to try and describe this interesting chair, or I can just show you the picture below.
See, it's like a wheelchair with a hole in the middle. That hole is to be able to wash what needs to be washed with the patient seated so he/she doesn't fall. At first I thought it looked kind of barbaric to see someone hosing down a lady, but I realized the woman was really enjoying herself. You see, they only get this treatment twice a week. The other days of the week, they get a sort of spongebath (don't worry, I'll get into that more later). Anyway, so my care partner tells me to observe her wash and rinse the resident (who was pretty able to do most of the washing herself), and then I would be drying her off and dressing her (by myself! Eek!). So I gave the resident (we'll call her Mrs. Tops) a towel to dry herself where she could (as nurses, we're taught to encourage patients to do as much as they can by themselves before we assist them) and I had another towel to dry her off in harder to reach areas. Keep in mind, she's still in this chair contraption, which has now been wheeled to a different area of the room that can be curtained off for privacy while she gets dressed. I did a pretty good job of drying and dressing, I should say. I figured out that I needed to get her underwear and pants around her ankles and her shoes and socks on before asking her to stand up, which is when I dried the REALLY hard to reach areas, and then finished getting her dressed. Mrs. Tops seemed pretty with it the entire time too, but pretty quiet, like she was afraid to say anything because it might not make sense.
So at this point I was feeling pretty cocky. So I ran into April and Brandy and bragged about my latest accomplishment. That's when our care partner asked the three of us to give a bath to another resident we'll call Melissa. This lady was a complete hoot. All she did was laugh and joke about us washing her "boompa" or something like that, which I assume was some word for one of her private areas. She was a little bit more difficult to clean, dry, and dress because she was bigger and also unable to wash or dry herself at all, but the 3 of us made a good team, and Melissa was happy to be clean after just a few minutes. Then we took her into the TV room to socialize, sleep, and watch Sister Act, as the case was.
Since we made such a great team, the 3 of us were asked to give a bed bath to a resident I'll call Mrs. Durrette. She was a sweetheart. Completely easygoing and patient with us. Unfortunately, she was at a stage in her dementia where she knew she was losing it, but couldn't help it. It's almost better when they get past that point and just don't even realize they've completely lost their memory. But I digress... this "bed bath" is not actually a bed bath at all. We just asked her to sit on the toilet and used a basin with warm water and wash cloths to wet her body, then wash, then rinse. When we asked if she was getting too cold or if the water was too hot, she never complained and always said everything was fine. I told her we were nursing students and that we appreciated her letting us learn on her. She jumped into a story about how she took care of mentally challenged children, but she did get confused and thought she was still working. After we finished up washing, drying, and dressing her, we took her into the TV room like we did with Melissa.
Then we made up some beds, changed some linens. Luckily, we didn't come across any soiled linens, but we changed some because there was food from breakfast and other gross looking stuff in the sheets that I figured they wouldn't want to sleep in. Then, the three of us (and another classmate, Yue Ming) refreshed their ice waters. You see, everyone (except for those who have a risk of choking on liquids) gets one of those big plastic mugs to keep ice water in, and we refresh it at 11:00am. So we went into every room and refreshed the water. That certainly took some time. When I was refreshing Mrs. Tops' water, she said she needed to give it to her children first before she could drink it.
We had some spare time after that before we were going on our lunch break, and I started talking to a man I'll call JB. I have absolutely no idea why he's on this unit because he has a really sharp mind. He does word searches all day, and he talked to me about his extremely interesting life. From how he met his wife, to his college alma mater which happens to be very close in distance to my alma mater. He told me about his service in WWII and a very honorable position he took after his service and then where he went to get his doctorate. I had such a good time talking to him that I promised we would continue talking after lunch, but he didn't look like he believed me.
So then I went to lunch. Boring.
When I came back, it was lunch time for the residents, so I was assigned one I'll call Carla. I was supposed to feed her, but she didn't seem to really like me feeding her. She also spoke 90% spanish, which didn't help me much. It took her forever to eat her meal, but after struggling with feeding her a few brussel sprouts, about 5 bites of half-pureed steak, and some baked beans, I let her eat her brownie, and for whatever reason, the bumped up her appetite and she ate almost everything on her plate. Yay!
Well after lunch is a quiet time where residents usually nap or watch TV (Sister Act came on again). Also, someone passed away on the unit while we were feeding for lunch, which was kind of eerie since I went into every room that morning to re-fill ice water. Anyway, since no one was really doing much of anything, I sat back down with JB and talked more about his interesting life, including how he personally knew a very famous General and his family. Now you may think this is his dementia talking, but he had a cap with the organization's name on it that he proudly wears all day. I excused myself after chatting with him for about 30 minutes to make sure that nothing needed to be done, but I promised to say goodbye before I left. As I walked away he grabbed my hand, looked me square in the eye, and sincerely said "thank you." When I asked him why he was thanking me he said "just for talking to me." Yes. Nursing is definitely for me.
I basically didn't do anything else except watch bits and pieces of Sister Act before my instructor said it was time for a quick meeting with my classmates and then we would be free. So I said my goodbye to JB like I promised. He squeezed my hand and told me he would see me Wednesday, and I told him he better have a lot of word searches finished that he can show me then. He doesn't know that I'm going to make him a word search online with a general theme of all the things we talked about throughout the day. I think he'll appreciate that.
All in all, I was very pleased with everything I did. I didn't deal with any poop (success!) and I wasn't even close to as grossed out about the other stuff as I thought I was going to be. The care partners and residents at this facility made it very easy on us. While I won't be doing most of this stuff as a nurse, I wouldn't really mind it if I had to. These people are well taken care of, and it's nice to know that I'm contributing to their comfort during the final stages of their lives. All of the residents were wonderful to us, my care partner was more than helpful (she's been working there for 32 years!), and I can't wait to go back Wednesday.
Also, I'm thinking of starting a brand new blog with just posts of my clinical experiences. We'll see. Until then, I'll just post everything on here.
First of all, it only took me 20 minutes to get there! Plenty of time! Off to a great start. My group was all very excited to start hands-on experience. Properly armed with stethoscopes, pens, pen lights, power bars, and hand sanitizer, we marched into the nursing home (name will be withheld) and onto a locked down floor that only treats patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. The floor needs to be locked down so they don't wander away, but they have plenty of areas to socialize, and even a nice little courtyard to hang out in when the weather is nice. Since the place I went to today is one of the nicest nursing homes in Richmond, I was impressed with the care most of these patients got, but it still made me cringe at the thought that I might be as confused and dependent as these residents someday.
So we got divvied up into groups of 2 or 3. I was with my two best friends in the program, Brandy and April, and we were assigned to a care partner, who takes care of the basic needs for a number of residents. My first assignment, take a tray of breakfast food into a patient's room and wake her up so she can eat it herself. In this very first room, I walked in and she was sitting on the toilet. At least that boundary got crossed right off the bat, which made it easier to interact normally with people while doing such a private thing. If you're wondering how I reacted, I smiled politely, said good morning and introduced myself, and told her I would leave her breakfast on the table for her.
My next duty was just a tad more complicated than the first. I was directed to take a tray of breakfast to a patient's room and feed her. This lady was extremely doped up on medicine and never once opened her eyes, but she was with it enough to tell me when she was full and when she wanted a bite of cereal instead of peaches. As I was finishing with this patient, the care partner I was working with told me that she would be in the "tent room," whatever that was, which was supposed to be to the left of the room I was currently in. Well after wandering the halls for 5 minutes looking for a sign, I asked someone. Well turns out I misunderstood and she said "tub room," which is where residents are given showers. This led me to my next task.
I open the door to the tub room to find a naked geriatric woman sitting on this contraption being hosed down by my care partner. Now I could struggle to try and describe this interesting chair, or I can just show you the picture below.
See, it's like a wheelchair with a hole in the middle. That hole is to be able to wash what needs to be washed with the patient seated so he/she doesn't fall. At first I thought it looked kind of barbaric to see someone hosing down a lady, but I realized the woman was really enjoying herself. You see, they only get this treatment twice a week. The other days of the week, they get a sort of spongebath (don't worry, I'll get into that more later). Anyway, so my care partner tells me to observe her wash and rinse the resident (who was pretty able to do most of the washing herself), and then I would be drying her off and dressing her (by myself! Eek!). So I gave the resident (we'll call her Mrs. Tops) a towel to dry herself where she could (as nurses, we're taught to encourage patients to do as much as they can by themselves before we assist them) and I had another towel to dry her off in harder to reach areas. Keep in mind, she's still in this chair contraption, which has now been wheeled to a different area of the room that can be curtained off for privacy while she gets dressed. I did a pretty good job of drying and dressing, I should say. I figured out that I needed to get her underwear and pants around her ankles and her shoes and socks on before asking her to stand up, which is when I dried the REALLY hard to reach areas, and then finished getting her dressed. Mrs. Tops seemed pretty with it the entire time too, but pretty quiet, like she was afraid to say anything because it might not make sense.
So at this point I was feeling pretty cocky. So I ran into April and Brandy and bragged about my latest accomplishment. That's when our care partner asked the three of us to give a bath to another resident we'll call Melissa. This lady was a complete hoot. All she did was laugh and joke about us washing her "boompa" or something like that, which I assume was some word for one of her private areas. She was a little bit more difficult to clean, dry, and dress because she was bigger and also unable to wash or dry herself at all, but the 3 of us made a good team, and Melissa was happy to be clean after just a few minutes. Then we took her into the TV room to socialize, sleep, and watch Sister Act, as the case was.
Since we made such a great team, the 3 of us were asked to give a bed bath to a resident I'll call Mrs. Durrette. She was a sweetheart. Completely easygoing and patient with us. Unfortunately, she was at a stage in her dementia where she knew she was losing it, but couldn't help it. It's almost better when they get past that point and just don't even realize they've completely lost their memory. But I digress... this "bed bath" is not actually a bed bath at all. We just asked her to sit on the toilet and used a basin with warm water and wash cloths to wet her body, then wash, then rinse. When we asked if she was getting too cold or if the water was too hot, she never complained and always said everything was fine. I told her we were nursing students and that we appreciated her letting us learn on her. She jumped into a story about how she took care of mentally challenged children, but she did get confused and thought she was still working. After we finished up washing, drying, and dressing her, we took her into the TV room like we did with Melissa.
Then we made up some beds, changed some linens. Luckily, we didn't come across any soiled linens, but we changed some because there was food from breakfast and other gross looking stuff in the sheets that I figured they wouldn't want to sleep in. Then, the three of us (and another classmate, Yue Ming) refreshed their ice waters. You see, everyone (except for those who have a risk of choking on liquids) gets one of those big plastic mugs to keep ice water in, and we refresh it at 11:00am. So we went into every room and refreshed the water. That certainly took some time. When I was refreshing Mrs. Tops' water, she said she needed to give it to her children first before she could drink it.
We had some spare time after that before we were going on our lunch break, and I started talking to a man I'll call JB. I have absolutely no idea why he's on this unit because he has a really sharp mind. He does word searches all day, and he talked to me about his extremely interesting life. From how he met his wife, to his college alma mater which happens to be very close in distance to my alma mater. He told me about his service in WWII and a very honorable position he took after his service and then where he went to get his doctorate. I had such a good time talking to him that I promised we would continue talking after lunch, but he didn't look like he believed me.
So then I went to lunch. Boring.
When I came back, it was lunch time for the residents, so I was assigned one I'll call Carla. I was supposed to feed her, but she didn't seem to really like me feeding her. She also spoke 90% spanish, which didn't help me much. It took her forever to eat her meal, but after struggling with feeding her a few brussel sprouts, about 5 bites of half-pureed steak, and some baked beans, I let her eat her brownie, and for whatever reason, the bumped up her appetite and she ate almost everything on her plate. Yay!
Well after lunch is a quiet time where residents usually nap or watch TV (Sister Act came on again). Also, someone passed away on the unit while we were feeding for lunch, which was kind of eerie since I went into every room that morning to re-fill ice water. Anyway, since no one was really doing much of anything, I sat back down with JB and talked more about his interesting life, including how he personally knew a very famous General and his family. Now you may think this is his dementia talking, but he had a cap with the organization's name on it that he proudly wears all day. I excused myself after chatting with him for about 30 minutes to make sure that nothing needed to be done, but I promised to say goodbye before I left. As I walked away he grabbed my hand, looked me square in the eye, and sincerely said "thank you." When I asked him why he was thanking me he said "just for talking to me." Yes. Nursing is definitely for me.
I basically didn't do anything else except watch bits and pieces of Sister Act before my instructor said it was time for a quick meeting with my classmates and then we would be free. So I said my goodbye to JB like I promised. He squeezed my hand and told me he would see me Wednesday, and I told him he better have a lot of word searches finished that he can show me then. He doesn't know that I'm going to make him a word search online with a general theme of all the things we talked about throughout the day. I think he'll appreciate that.
All in all, I was very pleased with everything I did. I didn't deal with any poop (success!) and I wasn't even close to as grossed out about the other stuff as I thought I was going to be. The care partners and residents at this facility made it very easy on us. While I won't be doing most of this stuff as a nurse, I wouldn't really mind it if I had to. These people are well taken care of, and it's nice to know that I'm contributing to their comfort during the final stages of their lives. All of the residents were wonderful to us, my care partner was more than helpful (she's been working there for 32 years!), and I can't wait to go back Wednesday.
Also, I'm thinking of starting a brand new blog with just posts of my clinical experiences. We'll see. Until then, I'll just post everything on here.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Pre-clinicals
Tomorrow is my first day of clinicals! I can't believe I'm far enough in nursing school to be doing this stuff already, like interacting with real live people! I'm feelings a lot of emotions about tomorrow:
1) Nervous. Since this is completely new, this is normal I know. I'm nervous for 2 reasons. First, I'm afraid I'll kill someone or do something wrong. Now the former probably won't happen since I'm just going to be doing shit jobs (no pun intended) like feeding patients, changing linens, bathing patients, and yes, cleaning up poop. But I'm really scared I'm going to fail out. If we do anything wrong, we get a failing grade. If we get a failing grade, we are kicked out of the program, and I have spent way too much time, effort, and money to fail out now. For example, if there is a wrinkle in my scrubs, I fail. If a strand of hair falls out of my tightly wrapped bun (no pony tails allowed) onto my shoulder, fail. If I walk into or out of a patient's room with gloves on, fail. My white socks must cover my ankles. My shoes must be completely white, covered toes, covered heels. I may wear a white shirt under my scrubs, but no longer than 3/4 length sleeves. No jewelry allowed except for a wedding band or small stud earrings. It's ridiculous and also not how real life nursing will be. Another fear of mine is showing up late. Automatic fail. Which is why I'm leaving the house an hour early to drive the 45 minutes to the nursing home I'm due to arrive at 6:45am to. Great.
2) Grossed out. Did I mention the poop? Yeah there will be a lot of it. And other bodily fluids. And genitalia in general that I'm going to need to clean. Sick. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to tell in my later post of "post-clinicals."
3) Excited! I'm going to be a real nurse! While I probably won't be doing these duties as a real RN (we have underlings like nursing students and care partners to do silly things like bathing and feeding), it's still a big step in my education. I've learned a lot and I'm excited to put my knowledge to good use and help people. I hope to establish some connection with some patients and realize that this profession really is my true calling. I'm also excited to find out what kind of nurse I'll be. I can guarantee I won't be like Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Nurse Jackie, or Beverly Allitt
4) Exhausted. Remember how I said I'm leaving really super early to get there on time tomorrow? That sucks. I also worked a closing shift tonight and am working a double shift tomorrow, doing the same round of clinicals all day Wednesday, and then another double shift Thursday before taking my final exam Friday. Yes, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Also, I forgot to eat dinner tonight and my mom forgot to buy me power bars like she said she would, so I have no idea how I'm going to eat tomorrow. Oh well. I'll be sure to let you know if I pass out, go into a psychotic breakdown, or hallucinate.
Well that about sums it up. It's very late now and I need to get up in just a few hours, so it's bedtime for me. Goodnight, Blog World.
1) Nervous. Since this is completely new, this is normal I know. I'm nervous for 2 reasons. First, I'm afraid I'll kill someone or do something wrong. Now the former probably won't happen since I'm just going to be doing shit jobs (no pun intended) like feeding patients, changing linens, bathing patients, and yes, cleaning up poop. But I'm really scared I'm going to fail out. If we do anything wrong, we get a failing grade. If we get a failing grade, we are kicked out of the program, and I have spent way too much time, effort, and money to fail out now. For example, if there is a wrinkle in my scrubs, I fail. If a strand of hair falls out of my tightly wrapped bun (no pony tails allowed) onto my shoulder, fail. If I walk into or out of a patient's room with gloves on, fail. My white socks must cover my ankles. My shoes must be completely white, covered toes, covered heels. I may wear a white shirt under my scrubs, but no longer than 3/4 length sleeves. No jewelry allowed except for a wedding band or small stud earrings. It's ridiculous and also not how real life nursing will be. Another fear of mine is showing up late. Automatic fail. Which is why I'm leaving the house an hour early to drive the 45 minutes to the nursing home I'm due to arrive at 6:45am to. Great.
2) Grossed out. Did I mention the poop? Yeah there will be a lot of it. And other bodily fluids. And genitalia in general that I'm going to need to clean. Sick. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to tell in my later post of "post-clinicals."
3) Excited! I'm going to be a real nurse! While I probably won't be doing these duties as a real RN (we have underlings like nursing students and care partners to do silly things like bathing and feeding), it's still a big step in my education. I've learned a lot and I'm excited to put my knowledge to good use and help people. I hope to establish some connection with some patients and realize that this profession really is my true calling. I'm also excited to find out what kind of nurse I'll be. I can guarantee I won't be like Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Nurse Jackie, or Beverly Allitt
4) Exhausted. Remember how I said I'm leaving really super early to get there on time tomorrow? That sucks. I also worked a closing shift tonight and am working a double shift tomorrow, doing the same round of clinicals all day Wednesday, and then another double shift Thursday before taking my final exam Friday. Yes, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Also, I forgot to eat dinner tonight and my mom forgot to buy me power bars like she said she would, so I have no idea how I'm going to eat tomorrow. Oh well. I'll be sure to let you know if I pass out, go into a psychotic breakdown, or hallucinate.
Well that about sums it up. It's very late now and I need to get up in just a few hours, so it's bedtime for me. Goodnight, Blog World.
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