i've been quite busy. no, not with homework. i lost a lot of motivation in that department lately, which is unfortunate since, as you can see by my little counter, i still have 2 weeks before my 2 big exams. i've been scrapbooking. and rediscovering text twist. yesterday i did a bunch of sewing. well, more like mending. i had this pile of clothes that was building higher and higher that needed attention - clothes that all needed to be taken in. no, there are no diets going on in this house, unless of course you count the married-students-on-a-pretty-tight-budget-
since-i-work-6-hours-a-week-at-8-bucks-an-hour (read: "a whole lot 'o spaghetti and ragu sauce"), but because we've discovered that there are clothes in our closets and drawers that either stretched out or simply that we don't wear our clothes as baggy as we did back in the 90s. thank goodness. [no, i do not regret those phat pants. i have them stored away for the future generation to laugh at.]

that's what i did yesterday, while i was at home on a friday. yes, that's right, my clinical is done. hurray. what i don't understand is why i haven't really LIKED any of my clinical rotations. oh yes, i have had some great experiences, i have learned some pretty neat things, i have had moments that i have truly loved. you may disagree but watching a new baby enter the world is the craziest, coolest miracle ever. and i have had patients that i have thoroughly enjoyed. but have i ever really LIKED clinical? have i ever gone to bed at night on wednesday and said to myself, "oh goody. tomorrow i'm spending the whole day at the hospital doing things i've never done before, teaching patients about things that i just read about for the first time on the internet tonight, feeling awkward and pulling out my best acting skills ever. i can hardly wait. i can't sleep because i'm so excited." no. i don't actually know anyone who can say that. and yet, i still want to be a nurse. i do hope and believe that real life is different than this.

by the way, i ended up with a B in this clinical, and i am fine with that. she gave me a lot of compliments and a bit a good constructive criticism (which i took better than i usually do - i'm
not so good with criticism). she told me that if we would have had 2 more weeks, i'd probably be up to a B+, since we start at a C at the beginning. i still need to keep on working on "not making excuses" but try harder to think about how i can do things differently next time. whatever. anyways, that's over. and classes are done this week, and then...... summer........

TGIF

... and i thank Him that it's not just any friday, but The Friday that we have been looking forward to for a long time. today was my very last day of clinical for this school year. and it was also R's very last day of his practicum EVER. i'm so excited for him. as of right now, he's on his long-awaited - and definitely well-deserved - spring break. and tonight we're going out on a date to celebrate! between the two of us, we've learned a lot in our practical settings. and i'm glad that i wasn't the one in the classroom with 30 random teenagers who complain that everything is gay and would rather be doing drugs with their mothers (i'm proud of you, hunny!). and i think that R is very glad that he is not the one that has to empty bedpans and drains and pack 3-inch-deep wounds that are goopy and pus-y. and of course, measure it and chart it all.

i really liked my surgical rotation, even more so than my medicine ward experience at children's hospital (but don't tell that to all the students who wanted to get into children's, but didn't get in). i started to enjoy giving meds (needles are fun!), i can see how dressing changes on surgical incisions can be enjoyable with more experience (but not so much with those pressure ulcers), i like cheering for my patients when they have their first poop after surgery. could i see myself doing this after grad? yeah, i could. i'm still thinking about obstetrics, however the word on the street is that in rural hospitals it's the same nursing staff on the labour & delivery ward (if they have it) as on the surgical ward. i still have lots of time to decide this, so..... we'll see. i've spent one day in the OR, which was fantastic, but i don't like the lack of patient-interaction. today i spent the day in Day Surgery, shadowing one of the nurses who does pre-op prep stuff, post-op assessments, discharge teaching, etc. i did some vital signs, some IV meds, and some teaching. very interesting, very busy. they don't usually take new grads, and i don't think i'd want to do that straight out of school anyways. i want something that uses more skills.

thanks for all of your words of encouragement and your prayers. thanks especially to my man and to my parents - you've been SO supportive and i love you! and also to kimberly - without you, i never would have survived this semester!

hi, i'm twelve years old and i'll be your nurse today.

i realize that i look much younger than i am. i do. and yes, i know that i'll appreciate it when i'm older. okay, that's great but that's no excuse to be rude. honestly. i have got SOOOO many comments at the hospital about how young i look and i really don't care to hear another one. i don't know why but it is especially bad it this hospital that i'm at right now. and it's not just, "oh hey you look quite young to be a student nurse." no, i get strangers walk up to me and, out of the blue, tell me that i look really young. "oh... well, ya, i get that a lot." "no really... you look young. REALLY young." "okay." (at this point i usually stop talking and try to ignore them because i haven't discovered a good - polite - response yet). "really, you must be older than you look because you must have graduated from high school to be in nursing." (i don't tell them that i've been to 3 post-secondary educational institutions. and this is when they realize that i don't care for what they're saying and try to fix it or something.) "well, you'll appreciate that when you're older." ya, when i'm old and wrinkled like you, i want to say.

sometimes they don't say this to me, but to the other nurse standing with me, "doesn't this little one look so young? wow, i can't believe that she's a student nurse." i just smiled a fake smile and carried on with my charting. oh, but she wasn't done. "oh yes, you look sooooooooooooo young! you don't even belong here!" excuse me? really? well, you look a little bit too old to be still working here....

three weeks ago i had a patient's visitor go on about how young i look. after my usual fake smile and a "oh ya.... um, okay," i got this. (no joke) "no, really. you look like you're only twelve years old. you can't be much older than that." are you serious? have you SEEN a twelve year old lately? i could almost be the mother of a twelve year old. well, theoretically... okay that's just weird. alright.... here's how i looked when i was twelve.

and this is me now. [okay, this is me now looking glamorous. i think i've posted this picture before but i really wanted to contrast this with the most freaky twelve-year-old picture of me that i could find].

and to top off this particular story, the following week, that visitor was back and her daughter was with her. i recognized her daughter from day camp last summer, and she told me that she'll be coming to jr. high week this summer.... meaning that she's 12 years old!!!

i've been told that i look 14, that i look 15. really. and it's not the elderly people or the confused patients. it's the 40 and 50 year olds. so now i am open to suggestions... how do i respond to this? i've tried all sorts of polite answers. i've discovered the reason why this bothers me too and i told it to one woman who thought it was her duty to drill into my head that i looked much too young to be a nurse. "well, as long as my patients trust me and that I know what i'm doing." if my patients really think that i'm a preteen, that i "don't belong here," will they trust me as their nurse? i try to ignore this concern in my mind, but it does begin to gnaw away at my confidence - something that most student nurses have a tough time with anyways.

so ya. i look young. and you're jealous. i'll take that as a compliment.
and i hope i don't look as old as you when i'm 45.

what a week. (II)

....okay so not a whole lot of cheery things are going through my mind lately. i can't wait until this weekend to catch up on homework and sleep. i can't wait until next friday when my clinical rotation will be over and don't have to deal with this crap anymore. and i can't wait until my antibiotics start to eradicate this really annoying bug that's plaguing my sinuses, my emotional stability and my life.

could we with ink the ocean fill

this is my favourite hymn. why? just read the words. especially that last verse. and go ahead, try to picture it.

The Love of God by Frederick M. Lehman

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

what a week.

what a week. it started out terrible, as you know from my last post. and it hasn't gotten much better. but HALLELUJAH it's the weekend. i'm still sick, but at least i can stay at home. i went from sore throat & runny nose --> achy limbs --> fever --> sinuses plugged with thick green stuff --> no voice. and not only have i lost my voice, but R is now stuffed up too. i missed one class this week, as i felt sleep was more important and apparently it was the most boring class and all the notes are posted on the internet anyway.

i did not want to go to clinical this week. but i thought i'd lose marks if i didn't (they are allowed to take off half a letter grade for each day we miss!), but now i wonder if i should have anyways. yesterday was going fine. but then it took a turn for the worst. i guess last week my instructor had really emphasized what our priorities should be in the a.m. and yesterday, i thought that i had covered everything except one thing (giving my fresh post-op patient a bath), which she clearly told me to wait with, since the patient had a visitor. but then that was postponed due to other things, and then physio was in so i had to wait till they were done. etc. etc. and i had 2 other patients i was caring for too. so she confronted me in the hall and told me that this was unacceptable and i got really upset because i thought she told me to wait and she said that i should have done it earlier anyways (okay, i'm still slow in the mornings. i can't wait till i'm a nurse and have health care aids to help out- as students, we do all the health care aid crap too. there is enough to do in the morning as it is). about this time, my drugs start wearing out and my nose is starting its waterfall of mucus where i need to blow it for a full 3 minutes to clear it. so i'm standing there, being told that i don't know how to organize my day, people walking past, looking at me, my nose is bright red and ready to burst, and you know that feeling where it makes your eyes start to burn and then water, so then she says, "this isn't something to cry about." oh gee. thanks. this makes me even more angry, and perhaps that made my eyes a little more wet. i should have just walked away at that point. i was also running on 6 hours of sleep. [okay that sounds like enough to you, but my body is exhausted and i've been sleeping 10-14 hours/day this week and i still feel wasted]. what a day. what a terrible day.
and i can't just say, "oh well. that's over with." because i KNOW that this will come up on my final evaluation. at the midterm, there was another example of where i was 'unorganized' (whatever), and it came up in 3 or 4 places in my evaluation. oh great, i can hardly wait....

but then the day got better. in fact, this is probably was the highlight of my week. but i was feeling too crappy to get too excited. i started an IV on my patient - the first IV i've ever done! and.... i got it on my first try!!! so exciting!! it wasn't very hard at all. but i've been told so many times that it really depends on the patient's veins and that you can start 10 IVs really easily and then with your next patient, you can't get it at all (so don't blame the nurse if she's digging around in your arm! ha!). ya, so now i feel like a pro. i guess i should celebrate.

achy and shaky

yesterday i woke up with a sore throat and runny nose. by the afternoon i felt terrible. i was at school trying to watch some videos for school, but i was all achy and shaky and all i could think about was how i wanted to get home. so i somehow managed to stumble home. i had a low-grade fever, my heart rate was up and i was very sweaty. i took a 2 hour nap, but spent most of the times tossing and turning, trying to warm up my freezing cold, very achy limbs.
last night i slept 12 hours and i'm still tired. i skipped my first class, but i made myself come to skills lab, since it's getting close to the end and i really need to be learning this stuff.

it's weird. on my trek home yesterday, all i could think about was, "i wanna be at home. i wanna be at home." but then i realized how pathetic i am. i know a few people who are really suffering right now with different illnesses. and i'm complaining that i feel achy?? i thanked God on the way home. i thanked him that i can walk, that i can see, that i can go to school and learn and think, that i can breath on my own, that i can hear, that i'm not in excruciating pain, that i can make my own decisions, that i can talk, i can read. that i'm alive. that, really, i'm quite a healthy person. nothing makes you more thankful for your health than when you lose it, even if this is just a little virus.
so... thank you God.