"Exhaustion takes over, will this someday be over?"

on thursday i spent my clinical day in the children's ER, just to see what it was like. well, being a thursday morning, it was steady... but not really busy. not all crazy like on tv, and the only blood i saw was in the 3 IVs that i helped to start (okay, i just held the kids down, especially the screaming girl), and the blood that squirted onto my nice, white scrubs from an iv needle. okay, who was the genius that decided that student nurses need to wear all white?? i've had blood on my uniform, and pee, and baby poo. really.... students nurses are more clumsy, and given the dirty jobs, like the enema i gave in the ER that day (my very first enema! yipeee.)
yeah, the ER was interesting and obviously not a boring place to work. but i didn't really have a good day. maybe it was because i was out of my comfort zone, in a new place. maybe because secretly, deep down inside, i was hoping to see some action - a car accident or something - yes, i know that sounds terrible, and i DON'T like to see children hurt, but i was in emerg and had a patient dealing with an ingrown toenail. come on!

i've been feeling pretty crappy lately. extremely exhausted, feeling like there's no end in sight. i was drained. i was exhausted. on my other day at clinical, i was back on my ward, and i had a terrible day. to sum it up, the nurses all seemed to know what was going on with my little patient, except me, and i was made to feel like complete idiot in front of a bunch of them (since they assumed i should know everything too) and then later in front of my instructor when she asked me to do something that i wasn't very familiar with, so i asked her about it and she asked if i had read up on it, which i had not, (which i admit was very bad of me, but i wasn't really aware of this procedure, so how was i to know that i was supposed to read up on it?) and then proceeded to ask me, "so you didn't read up on it? then you're not prepared? so you won't be doing this procedure? because i'll do it if you can't. and you can't, if you're not prepared." i felt soooo dumb. to not be prepared for clinical is like the worst thing you can do in clinical. or, the worst thing you can do in life, as it felt during those long 30 seconds that she was talking to me, and then for the rest of the afternoon as i continually tried to stifle my tears.
my colleagues are great. half of them told me later that they've cried over clinical sometime in the last 2 weeks too. that made me feel way better.

yesterday was ryan's birthday and we spent the day together (without a stitch of homework being done). it was wonderful. and today i'm doing better. i've slept a lot this weekend, we had Bible study, and i'm catching up on the work that i've gotten really behind on.

two last thoughts to leave you with:

1) this comes from our bible study on friday. psalm 91:14-16:
"Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."

this is what the Lord says of you! we were encouraged in our study, to replace the "him" and "he" with our own name. try it out. God is saying this to you.




2) this is the birthday boy (in case you forgot what he looked like). he's wearing my stupid white scrubs. no, this was not taken on his birthday, this was pre-halloween, as we tried to find halloween costumes. we both decided against this idea.....