Wowza!

Whew...what a week and a half it has been!  I have totally neglected keeping up with this blog.  I now feel as though I am in an accelerated nursing program, it really smacked me in the face!  This program has been challenging and every obstacle/challenge I face I think "this is hard, how will I ever get through" and then somehow I do.  Right now, I feel like I am sinking and barely able to stay afloat.  I am trying to take deep breaths, although that is rather difficult at the moment.

So, my last post was the night before my first day at clinical.  I now have four hospital shifts under my belt and I SURVIVED!  I feel I have had probably the two easiest patients I will ever have.  I am thankful for this and realizing soon I will not be so lucky.  It has been a nice way to transition from working on lab partners in the comfort of our school lab.  My clinical instructor is also wonderful, very reassuring, very helpful and also very strict (which keeps us all on our toes).  She is also a psychotherapist; so she is very into mental health with us and with our patients.  We did a deep breathing exercise in the last post conference (two hour meeting immediately after our shift on the floor at the hospital).  It was very helpful and almost put us all to sleep!  I have had the opportunity to do head to toe assessments, take vital signs a whole bunch of times, observe a catheter being removed, transported a patient, removed a med-lock (IV portal) from a patient's hand and (probably the most exciting and terrifying) administered two IV antibiotics and given a subcutaneous injection! When I type it all out it seems pretty impressive...still, I know I have barely scratched the surface.  I HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO LEARN!  I am taking it day by day, and in the hospital, hour by hour and minute by minute.

Next week in clinical, I get to do my OR observation.  One of my classmates did her OR observation and told us all about it.  I am beyond excited to observe a surgery (or possibly 3 as my classmate did!).  Of course, that day also comes with it's own long write-up assignment.  Whew!  I have been noticing my hands have been sore from all the typing I have been doing.

Between 8+ hour lectures, exams, care plans, midterm self-evaluations, lab assignments and required teaching in clinical I am beyond overwhelmed.  I have been staying  up until 11pm, 12am and even 1am to finish work.  I have been waking up at 4:30am on clinical days.  Needless to say, I am dead tired.  Ok, ok, enough whining!  It is all worth it, or so I keep telling myself.

I am off now to get a jump on my care plan due this Wednesday.  Tomorrow and Tuesday I have 8 hour lectures.  I need to get a fidget; after about hour 4 I can no longer sit still! 


Pretty much how I have been feeling: ;)