Wanna ask me open ended questions?

Autumn. Fall. It's usually my favorite season. But not this year.

In the aftermath of Ike, the schedule for this semester is as messy and scrambled as Paul McCartney and Heather Mills' divorce. It's got the hospitals involved, the required clinical hours involved, the lectures and exams involved. There are hospitals that don't want to deal with us just yet, leading us in the dark as to when we can come in for orientation and to actually start clinical, there are a week worth of materials need to be lectured, there are postponed exams need to be taken. So far, for my clinical section, we have settled 2 orientations out of 3 this week, 2 exams next week, 1 exam the week after, and that's it. It's just this mammoth of uncertainty at the moment.

Also, this week is known as the Brother #2's wedding week, also known as the week my studying time will be cut down due to family related event in which I will put pageant like smiles on my face as I greet the soon to be in-laws of Brother #2 with higher than usual pitch voice to convey as much as glee as I can squeeze out of my current frustrated, anxious, dark, and gloomy state. I should put a name tag that says "Hello my name is Cee, yes I am the sister, and I'm also a nursing student, so forgive the less than bright and cheery appearance, I'm trying my best to think of rainbows and roses for this occasion that I truly am happy about, but it's just that nursing school is kicking my ass and Ike just ruined what was a bearable semester into one that will undo me. So if I have a faraway look on my face when you're talking to me, it's not that you're boring or I don't like you, I'm just trying to recall the materials for my exams next week."

The thing is, the sufficient study time to pass me is there but I'm just feeling I'm going to be so damn exhausted all week, I already am. This week will be the death of me.

Please send fluffy cotton candies, ponies, chocolates, rainbows, pots of gold, and fairy dusts to the newly opened Things to Keep Cee From Pulling Out Her Hair and Headdesking Too Much donation box, I greatly appreciate it.

Scribbles from a bored student

If I could take pictures without it being obvious to the instructor, you would see both friends on my left and right texting the outside world on their phones. Neither of us paying attention. Such model students are we.....

Anyway,

I shadowed in the OR yesterday and in level II nursery today. I put in my first Foley, scrubbed the patient with disinfectant, fed and changed a premiee, it was an interesting experience overall. I definitely enjoy working with the preemies the most, wasn't too crazy about the OR. Well, I guess being a scrub nurse could be fun, getting to watch the procedure up close and being occupied throughout rather than being the circulating nurse.

I also had the chance to walked around the NICU and talked to the nurses there as well. That was the best part of today because I've always wanted to be a NICU nurse, so having to see and hear about what it was like was great. The nurses there were such a riot, they're so funny and wonderful too, I love them.

'Tis a fabulous weekend, I hope yours is/was too. :)

Perhaps something deep this time....

“I’m a generally healthy person, which is why when the doctor told me I had a cancer I immediately told him it couldn’t be true. None of my family and friends that I know of have cancer, why me?”

I have yet to shake the face and the words of that patient out of my mind. I’ve seen these tall hospital buildings every single day for the past six weeks; in my head I know of what is inside. I knew of a wonderful woman who died of cancer and I’ve seen her in the condition she was in shortly before she passed. It should feel "normal"--however that feels--when I stepped inside Designated hospital for the first time last Tuesday, yet I found it overwhelming to see rooms with a post-op hysterectomy patient or end stage kidney disease patient who has 20 medications. Then I remember about the children’s hospital next door where little persons suffer too and it doesn’t get any more real than this.

Three months ago I watched a glimpse of a surgery on Discovery Health Channel—and Grey’s Anatomy, but soon enough I’ll be in the Operating Room witnessing a surgical procedure in person. Holly coolness Batman! That was my first reaction, but then I started worrying about fainting during a surgery, thus making a doofus out of myself. Then I thought about how my patients for the next 7 weeks aren’t people with a regular fever or a stomach ache or a broken leg, I’m not going to be in a doctor’s office taking vital signs and asking health history questions.

My patients for the next 7 weeks are people who recently have a part of their organ—or a whole organ—surgically removed due to aggressive and/or terminal diseases, and on top of taking vital signs, I may be putting in a Foley catheter or NG tube, hang an IV solutions, help them change positions on their beds, administer—and knowing—their medications and injections, recording their intake and output, and whatever it is that a first year nursing students are allowed to do—which is not a lot, but hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

This is it, the grave diseases and disorders I’ve only known from books and TV’s are right in front of my eyes. I can see and hear them in the patients and their charts. I may be a student nurse, but the word ‘nurse’ is there nonetheless and I pray that I’ll be a great one at that. I pray that I’m sensitive to their needs, that I’m thorough and careful in my assessment, that I know how to conduct myself, that I’m pro-active, that I think fast and critically, that I am not afraid. Most importantly, I pray that I remember they’re still a person and treat them likewise.

As my friend, A, said with painful enthusiasm, “We’re gonna be damn good nurses!”

Amen, sistah, amen!

Ok, back to studying and stop using writing as an excuse for procrastinating.

Dang, that’s to many –ing’s right there…..

OK.

must.stop.writing.now.

Tuesday, I don't like you.

Tuesday in the life of Cee.

4 am
Wake up. Get ready and put scrubs on, only to take the pants off again because I put them on backwards. This is normal when you get dressed half asleep.

5 am
Bus leaves from the park and ride.

6: 10 am
Bus gets to the transit center near school. Put bag in school's locker, almost forgetting the stethoscope. This is also normal when you're half asleep.

6: 35 am
Meet with group mates and instructor at the school lobby. Walk to Designated hospital together.

6:45 am
Breakfast at McDonalds, which is located inside the cafeteria of Designated hospital and the children hospital. Yes, McDonalds inside a hospital--children's hospital nonetheless, go figure....

7 am-10 am
Group is introduced to the floors on which we will have our clinical for the next 7 weeks.

10 am
A hint of back and foot aches due to hours of constant walking and standing up. We repeat "we'll get used to this" like a mantra. We also understand the existence ugly looking shoes on the nurses and techs. "Maybe," we think, "Those ugly shoes are comfortable after all...". Thus begins the battle of holding on to your I'm-never-ever-wearing-those-ugly-shoes principle versus giving into them ugly shoes for the sake of your feet and back.

10:05 am
Group goes into a patient's room and watch instructor does an assessment on the patient.

11 am
Instructor sends us to our respective floors to gather information from a patient's chart and the Designated hospital's computer system, and eventually meet said patient and do a short assessment.

12 pm
Clinical orientation ends, "real" clinical starts next week.

12:30 pm
Meet back at school with lunch for a post-clinical conference.

2 pm
A bunch of us nap in an empty classroom while the other bunch study a few feet away. I question my decision to nap instead of studying for a second and decided that nap takes precedence to studying.

3 pm
Wake up from a hell of a fabulous power nap. Feel sorry for the aforementioned studious friends, they should have napped and ditch the books.

4 pm
Pharmacology lecture starts. Those who have clinical earlier in the day mutter curses.

7 pm
Pharmacology lecture ends. Those who have clinical earlier in the day appear zombie-like.

8 pm
Step foot in my room for the first time since morning, 16 hours earlier.

9 pm
Crash.

DUNZO!

I am D to the O, the N the E with summer school with a B to boot!

Now I have been doing little to nothing ever since school is done (have about a week of break before a string of orientations and eventually the semester) and was actually quite confused of what to do with this oh so much free time. But fear no more for I have made a to do list, which consist of:

1. Get my car an alignment service and get it inspected.

2. Clean my room, it looks like my closet flew in and exploded there. Not pretty. This brings me to number 3.

3. Fold the clean clothes, it's been in the basket for...hrrmm a week? I think....

4. Pick up a new book to read, probably My Sister's Keeper.

5. Get my friend her long overdue birthday present, which brings me to number 6.

6. Wish my other friend a belated 'Happy Birthday' (what? I was busy studying...), which brings me to number 7.

7. Get Dad's birthday present. Don't worry, I actually remembered calling him on the day. This brings me to number 8.

8. Figured out where to have a my birthday dinner--a proper one--before we go clubbing and get trashed for the night....

9. Get up early tomorrow morning to take the newly-arrived-to-the-U.S. of A cousin to see the counselor at his school. Thing reminds me of number 10.

10. Call the student life office and demand them of my I-20. Damn, I would've been rich if I had a dolla' for everytime they said "It'll be ready soon, I'll call you." Apparently their standard of 'soon' is different than mine, I thought 'soon' meant within a week or two and they thought 'soon' is 3 months and going. Bah.

11. Figured out the time and dates for my three orientations and the CPR class. Yes, they're making me go to three, go figure. One for International Students, One for new Undergraduate Nursing Students, one is for something else I couldn't remember which is why this is on the to do list. Bah Bah.

12. Pay Fall Semester tuition. BAH BAH BAH!

That is all.