Hi all...I am so sorry for being a slacker, but as you will read I have exams for a week! Ugh...last night was my first brain break. I was a blob in front of the TV and watch the premiers of some of my shows and read a book and snuggled with the hubby. Can't wait until he is done with mids...mids suck.
Day 19: My patient for the day was a new admit. So there wasn't much I could do since she was being prepped for surgery and loved her pain meds. I did give her a partial bed bath though. When I was checking her vitals she complained that she sounded like she was wheezing...so testing my newly acquired skills from what I will now call "Wasted Mondays," I listened to her breath sounds with my stethoscope (very professional) and guess what!?! I HEARD THE WHEEZE!!! Not like the nurse cared anyway. And not like I can do anything officially, but tell the nurse...so the skill seemed wasted. Its not like the nurses at my hospital are taking a vested interest in our education anyway...which makes me glad that we are switching hospitals next semester.
For the rest of the day I ended up helping Indy with her patient, colon cancer. The woman was a year younger than my dad and looked 30 years older. It was strange that I didn't feel the lest bit of sympathy for her...that makes me sound uncaring, but getting emotional involved with patients at this stage in my "career" is not the best idea. All she wanted done was her teeth brushed and to be left alone to sleep in a HEAVLEY drug induced haze. The meds this poor lady was on would put down a horse.
Day 20: I spent the night making little gifts for everyone in my clinical group. It was an attempt to relax all of us before the math test we were going to take that afternoon. The math test would determine whether we could calculate the correct dosages for medication administration. We had to pass the test with a 90% or we would be put on remediation and take the test again. If we didn't pass the second time we were kicked out of the program. So no pressure.
I once again had a new admit patient. This lady freaked out about EVERYTHING. Just looking at her was apparently painful to her. She moaned and groaned when I took her vitals. She jumped both times I took her temp. She screamed bloody murder when the ultrasound techs came to look at her pancreas, and screamed even more when her blood was drawn. She didn't want anything from me, so once again I helped Indy with her patient...same patient from the day before and we helped the CNA with one of her patients.
Indy's patient wanted her linens changed and demanded more meds. So we changed the linens with her in the bed. Every move we made caused her pain. It was a painful process for the two of us. We spent a good portion of the morning chasing down her nurse because the second her meds got remotely close to low her husband would be on us like white on rice. We got a lecture from the patient advocate about the little pink rose on the lady's door. Apparently someone along the line pissed the lady off during her treatment so the advocate had to get involved and now everyone has to go above and beyond for this patient. Indy and I just stood there like "what the hell do you expect from us? This is our second week of clinicals in first semester!" We told Prof. Papa about it and she told us to come to her next time. So we just did the minimum with her and helped the CNA.
We helped the CNA with, what we guessed was, a patient who had let his diabetes get away from him. The CNA gave him a FULL bed bath (with our help), changed linens, and cleaned his teeth and mouth. I now have a new found respect for CNAs. I have always respected them, but after looking in this man's mouth...oh dear god...look up what happens when you are a mouth breather, on antibiotics, have diabetes, and haven't gotten a good tooth brushing in awhile...it still makes me gag!!
The math test was easier than I expected, but I didn't pass it...88% ONE BLOODY QUESTION!!!! I bawled, I soaked Jeremy's shirt, I called Prof Papa...freaking out. I had to stew in my own juices over the weekend while trying to study for my Fundamentals quiz on Monday and my Patho/Pharm test on Tuesday. Not to mention I had to start and finish the first part of my Well Older Adult project. Let me tell you how awkward it is to walk in to some random 93 year olds house and interview her about her health. She did make me miss my Great Grandma...so I called and talked to Great Grandma for a half hour after my interview. I would have much prefered to do the interview on Great Grandma, but it couldn't be anyone in my family.
Day 21: I found out I had to stew in my own juices about the math test for one more day...through a Wasted Monday. At least I made $21 and spent it all in gass. We went over what we are going to need to do to pass off on medications in lab and what our shift assessment is going to be like. If felt sort of useless to me. What is the point of going through all of this if I wasn't going to pass the math test anyway? I took the quiz in lab...ridiculous quiz that come to find out hardly anyone passed. So dejected, exhausted, and bogged down in clinical paperwork, WOA, and test studying, I went home.
Day 22: Lecture all day!! Fundamentals lecture was useless. We went over nursing theory in a two hour session when I originally went over theory in a semester long class at UCCS. I was a little peeved about the whole thing because theory is what we will be tested on in class and what we found our papers and clinical work on and to devote two hours to something so basic is ridiculous. So I am planning on making a proposal to the school about adopting UCCS's Theory class format. I was kind of cute that Prof Plant dress-up in an old school uniform.
Health Assessment went by quickly...she went over my favorite system...cardio...very lightly which was so lame and frustrating. We spent the rest of the class doing something called "seminar" where we sit in groups and talk about the little sceniro we read in our books and what we would do in that situation. Needless to say it started a pretty heated argument between Texas and Vanilla Bear after class. Prof Stick (cause she is tall and skinny), had to jump in and break it up. Vanilla Bear had made a snide comment that was pretty funny, but Texas took it personally...and well, words went a flying. It was pretty awkward because I am friends with both of them. I checked on Texas after to make sure he was doing alright, he was pretty upset. (I give an explaination of the whole thing later).
After analyzing the whole fight with the people who were waiting for the path/pharm test to start, the test started. There were answers I knew and some I didn't. The point was I passed the test. I waited around until class ended to get my math test back. Indy had to review hers too. She missed by one question too. After about ten minutes of reviewing we realized they made a mistake on the test and guess what!!??? I FREAKING PASSED!!! Indy and I were ssssssooooooooo relieved!!!! We don't have to take the test again until next semester like everyone else! That was a big load off my chest. I called Jeremy and woke him up to tell him the news!
Day 23: Still going but all the test results are in and more lecture this afternoon. Tomorrow clinicals. So follows round 1 one test scores:
Fundamentals (lecture): 80%
Fundamentals (lab): 76% (barely passed, but I am still counting it as a win since so few passed)
Math Test: 90% (after correction...THANK YOU LORD!!)
Health Assessment (lecture): 92.5 %
Patho/Pharm: 84%
Now I know what to expect and how I need to study for Round 2.
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