"We’re always thinking that someday we’ll be happy; we’ll get that car or that job or that person in our lives that’ll fix everything. But happiness is a mood, and it’s a condition, not a destination. It’s like being tired or hungry, it’s not permanent. It comes and goes, and that’s okay."

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Fifth Week of Nursing School

October 23rd, 2012

To My Fifth Week of Nursing School,

            I can't seem to confidently and precisely measure blood pressure as I would like. My simulation professor said I have good technique, but I'd rather be more precise and within the 2 mmhg required for next week’s midterm evaluation. I'm debating on getting a better stethoscope to see if I could hear the blood pressure pulses clearer and get a better read. I decided to skip out on Pathophysiology lecture this week because I wanted more time to study for the Professional Nursing quiz. I ended up doing better than I thought on the quiz, so maybe skipping wasn’t such a bad idea? Unfortunately now I have about 6 hrs of lecture podcast to catch up on for the Pathophysiology midterm in 2 weeks. I also ended up not going to the Making Strides for Breast Cancer Walk as I had previously planned because I wanted to spend more time studying for today's Adult and Elder midterm. I went into the test nervous and tired and came out wishy-washy and tired. It seems this is a consistent state I fall into when it comes to exams
            I've noticed that no matter what I just cannot sleep the nights leading up to an exam. Since we have had at least one exam every week, several nights I'm only been "sleeping" for 3 hr intervals. Maybe, it's because I’ve started drinking tea and diet coke in addition to my everyday coffee. My increased caffeine intake and anxiety over tests is wearing me out. I wouldn’t say I’m stressed over the difficulty of the material covered in our program, but it’s has more the accelerated aspect of the program that is difficult. I can’t seem to catch my breath. It’s kind of crazy, but even though the work is piling up and my subconscious is keeping me awake, I don’t believe I am consciously freaking out just yet.
            In on campus clinical we went over medicine administration and learned how to give subcutaneous/intramuscular injections on dummies. I was excited to do injections because I felt like this was my territory, being diabetic and giving myself 3+ injections per day and all. Surprisingly I learned something new! I had no idea that drawing air into the syringe and injecting the air into the vial would create a pulling pressure to fill the syringe to the needed dosage. Of course adjustments for air bubbles need to be made, but overall the technique was eye opening. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work with my insulin syringes. I think it might have to do with the fact that my syringe is much smaller than the syringes available in the lab. I'm disappointed because I found that I won't actually be allowed to give injections in the hospital setting until next semester after the dosage calculation exam and enrollment in pharmacology. Bummer…

Goodbye Fifth Week of Nursing School,
Clos3tGirlyGirl

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