One week from now I will be enjoying the freedom from school for a whole 14 long, fun-filled days!! It will be oh so wonderful! Maybe the BEST part will be some quality time with my Erin :) I sure have missed spending time with her. I am lucky to see her everyday, from afar, as I type away at the computer, read, review power point slides, research medications and study for exams....BUT I am looking forward to actually hanging out with her!!! First on our agenda is a little getaway for three whole days!! Then, a few days at home followed by a week at the beach with her family!! The poor people at the beach are not prepared for my paleness...it's a whole new level of pale! Hopefully I can get some sun and not burn...SPF 50 reapplied every hour, here I come!
This week we have no new lectures...thank goodness, my brain is already beyond full. Today we had exam #4. It was so wonderful getting to leave right after. TOmorrow we have our exam review and then a study group to prepare for our cumulative final on Monday. WEdnesday and Thursday are my last two days in the hospital for this first clinical rotation! I am excited about this! I have enjoyed my time on this unit and have met some really incredible nurses. My patients this past week were aonderful as well. This expereince in clinical, though terrifying and oerwhleming, has only reaffirmed why I am going to school...I want to be a nurse! I want to be a great nurse! Being in the hospital is about 1000% better than sitting in a lecture hall talking about being in a hospital. Don't get me wrong, I still feel so inadequate and anxious being in the hospital, but having a better idea of what it means to be a nurse has been so beyond helpful. Learning about diseases and conditions in lecture and then having a patient with these same diseases really helps to learn. "Putting it into practice" I believe is what we are doing.
Our program director told us to take a note of how we felt the night before our first day at clinical. I did this in my blog...now we have our last two days, just a few weeks later, and my perspective is quite different. Again, I still feel overwhelmed and most times feel like I have no idea what I am doing! BUT, I also have confidence in taking vital signs, and doing a head to toe assessment. I have had the experience of changing wound dressings, having a patient in end stage dementia who wasn't always oriented to place and time, elderly patients, middle aged patients and a whole slew of other experiences that I don't need to ramble on about. I have done more than I thought I could and know this is only the beginning. I cannot wait for the spring when we do our pediactric and OB rotations...I will be in my element!! One more semester to get through...which will be psych and advanced med/surge. And I am nervous again!!
Our last day of class for this course is spent in our lab at school. I, of course, have a whole list of questions that have to be answered and typed up before Friday to turn in. We will have a two and a half hour simulation involving blood products, and learning how to take care of patients with stomas (ie a colostomy; where the intestine is emptied through the abdomen into a bag). Following our lab, we have one-on-one meetings with our clinical instructor where she will give us our final evaluation. Hopefully these go well!!
5 days and counting :)
One more day babes! You got this!! Xi
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