November Happenings

This week was pretty good. I didn't have any tests which was nice but I did have Sim Lab which was not as nice, but it still went pretty well. Tuesday night I went to a surprise baby shower for my friend Kristen so that was really fun. We had a great turnout (as you can see below). Wednesday and Thursday night I got to go to the ED for clinicals. I really enjoyed that especially since there's always something interesting going on and it's a great opportunity for me to practice IVs. Next week I have 2 tests but it's also the last week before thanksgiving break!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

It's been two year since we got married and we both agree that it has gone by quick! Justin says we have 75 more years...I dunno about that but we definitely have a lot of great years ahead of us!

Halloween!

My sister and newphew came and visited me Thursday - Sunday morning and we had a great time hanging out and eating lots of chic-fil-a. We especially had fun getting all dressed for the Halloween party!

 Mom & baby robots

Caleb's gotten so big! (left in March, right current)

 

Last week of October! My favorite day of fall is coming...Halloween! I love all the cute Halloween decorations everywhere (especially the cats) and dressing up! What will be even more fun this year are that my sister and nephew are coming to visit  starting Wednesday so we can all dress up together! Here's a Halloween picture of myself from the past:

7 Months Left!

7 months from today I will be graduating from nursing school! I have been dreaming about that day for awhile now and I know it will be here soon! I'm trying not to wish my life away, especially since I'm really enjoying what we're studying this year and all that I get to be involved with during clinicals. Wednesday I got to go back to the OR and see a cystoscopy (they were looking at the patient's ureter and kidney with a camera to find kidney stones which they didn't find) and a stint placed in the ureter to make it bigger(ureters are the tubes that connect the kidneys to the bladder). Thursday I went back to OB and saw another baby be born. Wednesday I also got to start my first IV and was successful!

Yesterday I went to Sinkland Farms with a friend, ate some delicious pumpkin ice cream, and got 3 very cute little pumpkins!

This week I have fall break (Wednesday-Friday) and since I don't normally have class on Tuesday all I have for this week was class today! I did no studying this weekend which was fun to do whatever I wanted and feel like a normal person for once! I do have 2 tests when I get back so I will definitely be studying for those this week!

Still Summer

Everyone has been complaining like crazy about the heat but I'm still enjoying it! Until about a week ago, I hadn't even realized that hey, I'm not usually still wearing shorts near the end of September. Too bad I haven't been able to enjoy it too much since I'm usually inside doing school stuff but it's great to still be able to drive around with my windows rolled down and exercise with the sun shining so warmly. I have no idea what this warm weather means for the coming winter...hopefully nothing too terrible!

This past week has been pretty good. I'm a third of the way through this semester which seems really crazy! I've been pretty busy with studying and clinicals so these 5 weeks have gone by fast!
Monday, my first friend from college had a baby; a beautiful girl named Emma.

I had a couple of tests on Monday that went well. I was a little bummed last weekend that I couldn't do anything fun like go to my friend's wedding in Richmond or watch the game Saturday but all of my studying definitely paid off on Monday.
Wednesday night at the hospital was ok, nothing too exciting there. Thursday instead of going to the hospital at night I went to SimLab earlier. Simlab is Radford's simulation center for nurses where we have different scenarios that involve all the skills we've learned so far and then some. Usually there's myself plus one or two other students and a patient who is a dummy. The dummy talks so it's not like you can just do your stuff; you have to interact with it as if it were a real patient. We are also videotaped during the scenario and then the instructor goes over it afterwards (usually to tell us what we did wrong). We don't really like it, but we always learn a lot. Since I didn't have to go to the hospital Thursday night, I got to go the homegroup. That was nice since I hadn't been able to go since school started.
I'm looking forward to watching the game against BC tomorrow on TV so hopefully tonight I'll get lots of reading in! Another test Wednesday!

Week Two

Most of this week, until today, was pretty crazy. First of all I was really nervous about my two tests Wednesday. I wasn't sure if I would have enough time to study and really understand all of the material. One of the chapters was on fluids and electrolytes which can be a pretty heavy concept- what causes it to be out of balance, what are the symptoms, what fixes it, normal ranges, etc. This was the chapter that was most heavily focused on the test and the one our teachers warned us about. So I read, made charts, wrote and rewrote until I started to have a grasp on it Tuesday night. I even memorized about 10 normal ranges for various things which I normally have a really hard time doing (I love math but for some reason I have a really difficult time memorizing numbers). I then had a really hard time falling asleep because I was so nervous and then I dreamed a "scenario" about everything I had been studying. (all I remember now is something about a guy having an embolism and me trying to figure this out) Anyways, the tests went well Wednesday and that made me feel really good about the rest of the semester since this first test was supposed to be the hardest. We'll see about that since I have the worst time remembering drugs, especially the funky names.

Clincials went pretty well this week; I got to give a lot of meds, which is one of my favorite things to do and I had a good discussion with my clinical teacher about me sometimes being afraid of patients and patient-interaction. I think she's going to help me work through some of that so I'm not floundering around patients the whole year.

Today was fun since I got to spend the whole afternoon with college friend and former roommate Niki. I hadn't seen her since last July since she lives in CA now. We had a nice time strolling around campus and Target :)