A Few More Pictures

 

 And I finally figured it out...

a few more pictures from NYC!

Erin and I signing our marriage license after the judge married us.

 



 

Erin and I with Judge Milton A. Tingling. 

 

 

 

After we got our official marriage certificate!!

 

Can I get a witness??

 

 Cheers to the legally married couple!!

 

What a day it was.  Not even close to our real wedding back in October 2011, but still so wonderful to be legally married to my Erin!!  A HUGE thanks to our sister for coming to witness and for being such a huge support to us.  We are two very lucky ladies :)

Legally Married!

Erin and I went to New York City to make our marriage legal in the eyes of the law...well in 13 states at least!  We also had a fantastic witness get up at 4am to make the trip with us.  She is pretty great!  Timing of our legal marriage was also perfect...the day after DOMA was deemed unconstitutional.  Now Erin and I are recognized as a legally married couple by the federal government.  Hopefully this helps to get more states on board with legalizing and recognizing same-sex marriage.  Here are a few highlights of the day...June 25, 2013.



Up at 4am to be on the road a little after 5am!

 

 

After we were legally married...posed in the Wedding Garden :)

 

 

 

* It won't allow me to add more pictures to this post, I'll try another to add a few more pictures!

Trial Run

I am thoroughly enjoying my time off...unfortunately it is gong by WAY TOO FAST!! How is it Thursday already?!  I haven't even looked at my school work...I will most likely start organizing and maybe do a little reading sometime today or tomorrow...or Saturday, or Sunday.  I do have orientation material I have to go through before day 1 of clinical which is a few short days away!

I am lucky to have two carpool buddies for our first clinical placement.  We met at K.'s house and all drove together to see the best route and timing to get to the hospital.  It was ridiculously hot out and halfway to the hospital torrential downpour came.  Traffic was a mess and what should have taken maybe 30 minutes turned into about an hour drive.  This was midday, so hopefully at 6am, traffic will be a lot less.  I plan to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and do my our trial run, just to see what the traffic situation is at that hour.  I am a little perplexed with the carpool situation.  I live closest to the hospital and it seems (this coming from me who has NO sense of direction) driving to K or A's houses to meet and drive together is not a great plan for me.  I would be driving the opposite direction to just then turn around and drive back.  The plus side of this is having my classmates to decompress with after a long 9 hour day and also to maybe calm my nerves on the way to the hospital.  I will take my Erin's advice and try it for a couple days.  Worst case, I can just drive myself, best case my carpool buddies will drive to my house and we leave from here!  I'll keep you posted.

Part of me is so excited to be in a hospital and see nurses working, interact with patients and practice the skills I have learned.  The other part of me is TERRIFIED!  I am scared that I will screw up, make major mistakes, get so nervous I forget everything or make my patient angry!  The list could go on and on!!  Our clinical instructor sounds really nice.  We have only had email interaction, but the tone of her emails sound very understanding and thorough.  In the meantime, I will enjoy my last few days of break!!

Junior Year

Week 5 has come to an end.  I have passed another course!  This week was stressful (I am noticing a theme here).  All that panic and self-doubt around my lab final and I did fine.  I passed and was even given praise by the instructor (who also happens to be the program director) who tested me.  Whew!  I told her, in the form of word vomit when I was done, how terrified I was and that a huge load was lifted!! 

I am still in shock I am actually in nursing school and somehow succeeding...blows my mind.  The amount I have learned in these last 5 weeks is astonishing.  We have progressed into our junior year.  I am not sure how long we will be juniors, I suspect it will be longer then a couple weeks.

After our final today, we began our first break.  A whole week off!!  I am planning many fun things, as well as a lot of relaxing, sleeping in (maybe), house projects, and spending as much time with my Erin as possible!!  It works out that her school year ended Wednesday and she also has most of next week off before she starts teaching summer school.  Hooray! 

My clinical car pool buddies and I are planning to do a trial run to our hospital on Monday to see the best route, where to park and where to go for our first day.  This will help alleviate some stress that first day.  I know the stress and anxiety about going to the hospital in a little over a week will stay in my mind on this break.  I am just going to remember to keep breathing.

I am off to enjoy my free time....ready....BREAK!

Volunteer Experience

Last night, my nursing school friend and I spent three hours at a free clinic helping to do vital signs on patients.  Most of the patients were Indonesian and did not speak English.  There were two interpreters to help communicate.  We think the volunteering is a requirement of our next course, but we wanted to sign up regardless to get a little experience before we start our clinical in two weeks! 
This clinic is run by nurse practitioners.  We had the opportunity to see the intake process and then take over the intake process.  I had to ask the patients why they came to the clinic, if they took their medications and then get vital signs.  I took their temperature, pulse, respirations, blood pressure, height, weight and calculated their BMI.  Everyone was so friendly and seemed to be appreciative of the services they receive at the clinic.  I learned from a volunteer nutritionist that many Indonesians are diabetic, overweight and suffer from high blood pressure.  Most of the people I interacted with had high blood pressure and, according to their BMI, were overweight or obese.  I also had the chance to sit in with a nurse practitioner while she examined a middle aged woman.  The NP had been seeing this patient for the past six years, so she had developed a rapport with her and her 12 year old son.  Her son was quite the charmer, so adorable and friendly.  As I watched the examination I noticed the NP do the techniques we have learned in school.  I also noticed how she asked questions understanding the cultural differences.  One example, when the NP was asking about the diet of this patient, she asked if she eats a lot of fried foods or if she ever cooks with a wok.  The NP gave this woman a few brief examples of how to cook and not always fry her food (to help manage her weight and help lower her blood pressure).  This was a brief experience, but I was able to interact with patients and gain just more confidence with vital signs.  I am fortunate to have had this opportunity, especially before starting in the hospital in two short weeks!!

Week 5

Week 5 is well under way.  This is the second half of our third course.  There is less content that we had to learn, only two days of lecture, unlike last week we had four long days of lecture.  This sounds like it would be a breeze!  Of course, they have other plans for us.  We have been kept extra busy in lab.  We have our lab final tomorrow and I am currently in complete panic/freak out mode.  We were just told yesterday what our final will actually look like and consist of.  Today, in our four and a half hour lab, we went through four scenarios, samples if you will, of what our final will be.  This difference was today we worked in our lab groups, and got into pairs within these groups to take one section of the assessment we will do for the final.  We also had actual patients!  Paid actors to lay in bed and be our patients.  It was challenging and overwhelming and at times fun to actually talk, touch and assess actual people!  We were also exposed to different lab instructors.  This was to help us relax tomorrow since we have no idea what instructor will be grading us. So this lab final is a beginning shift assessment.  Individually we will hear a report which is what the nurse before our shift will report to us.  For our exam it will be a tape recording.  We listen to this report on a patient, this patient will have some issues, of course, and we must do a variety of assessments including an intervention on the patient.  Tomorrow we will have mannequins as our patients and the instructor grading us will be watching from another room (we will be videotaped again) and be the voice of the patient when we interact with him/her.  I. AM. SO. NERVOUS.
The instructors said over and over that the exam will be easier since we won't be working in pairs and our whole group, we will be doing it all on our own and be able to do exactly what we feel is necessary.  I sure hope they are right.

I left lab today feeling completely and utterly incompetent.  We had four different scenarios and three of the four went pretty well.  WE are new to all of this, we have only learned so much and our instructors expect us to make mistakes and to have many questions.  They expect us to know what we have been taught and not beyond that.  Well, one of our instructors, did not quite follow this mindset, in my opinion.  Our patient was in pain and the actor portraying this elderly patient did a phenomenal job.  To make a long story short (and to save myself from getting all worked up again) I will just give a nutshell version of the story.  Our lab group of ten students had five groups of two.  Each pair had one section of the whole assessment (five sections total).  This instructor was constantly interjecting (none of the other instructors did this), she rushed the groups, made comments pertaining to what we were doing that contradicted what other instructors had taught us.  When we finished with the assessment, our instructor more or less scolded us for not doing the one thing we hadn't been taught yet!  We explained that we had no idea this was possible, we hadn't learned that and didn't know that was in the scope of practice for nurses.  Her only real reply to us was that we really should have pharmacology before we take med/surg (both courses we haven't had yet and clearly the curriculum isn't up to us!!).  My nutshell of a story is dragging on...sorry!  I was so beyond frustrated, annoyed and overwhelmed.  I left that scenario thinking, I can't do this, I am not meant to be here, I am incapable of this whole assignment and I will fail.  This is supposed to be a learning exercise and all I got from that experience was a complete loss of confidence.  I am hoping I do not have that instructor for my exam tomorrow.  I talked to my lab partner and friend for awhile after class today and she helped to restore some of my confidence...now I need to pick myself up, study my skills and do the best I can tomorrow.  My exam is at 8:30am, I am in the first group.  After I hopefully pass this exam, a few classmates and I plan to go get mimosas and study for the lecture final on Friday.  This fun never stops!!

Exhausted

Week four is complete!  We are halfway through our 3rd course.  It feels like time is flying.  The days are long and the weeks go so fast.

Today I got to campus at 7:15am and was in panic mode.  We had a four hour lab where we learned how to insert a Foley catheter (we even got to bring it home to practice...not on a person, just with the device) and had to be tested on two skills.  I decided last night to solely focus on my lecture midterm today instead of spending time on lab tests.  The lab tests weren't that difficult and weren't weighted very much.  My lecture final is worth 40% of my grade.  So, at 7:15 this morning, my lab partner and I went talked our way through the four skills, not knowing what two skills we would pick out of a hat (or graduated cylinder) to be tested on.  We then had a small group gathered and started talking through questions for the lecture midterm.  Full on stress and anxiety!

My lab tests were making an unoccupied bed and transferring a patient from a bed to a wheelchair.  The other two I didn't pick were helping a patient use a bed pan and performing perineal care on a mannequin.   I did get to be a patient with a broken left hip needing to use a bed pan for another classmate.  After practicing the Foley catheter and performing my tests, it was time to have a little lunch and then take my midterm.   During lunch, the small group I sat with hashed out more last minute test cramming.  We took the exam, which was our first no book or notes exam.  It actually went pretty well.  I felt a lot more confident and was glad I didn't have to look up answers.  I used a lot less time!

This week has been eye opening.  I have realized the last four weeks have kicked my butt.  Today, I woke up and felt like I had been hit by a truck.  I hurt from being so tired.  The adrenaline, excitement, nerves have definitely worn off, and now it's just straight up hard work.  This week especially, I had long labs, long lectures and would come home and just sit reading, watching videos and going through required tutorials.  On average it was about 3-4+ hours a night.  Whew!  I am mentally needing an evening off.  My Erin had her last Friday of work until September, but is unfortunately at a graduation until later this evening.  I have missed our evenings of just lounging, talking and relaxing together.  I have one more week, then I get a week off!  Quality time with Erin in my very near future!!

This post may be all over the place, it may not make sense...my brain is done!  Here's to a great weekend!