Psychiatric Nursing

Kind of ironic, don't you think? Just when we are all at the point of losing our minds with nursing school, they throw in Psych nursing! Too funny. The very first chapter is on stress LOL!!!! I think we are already very well versed on that subject. Experts even. After defining it and telling how stress and our environment interact, it goes on to explain ways of positively dealing with stress to become "adaptive" rather that "maladaptive" and guess what one of the ways of helping was? Writing in a journal or diary. Yay! Look at me, adaptive actions without even reading psych yet. I'll be damned lol! So that first chapter was OK. Got to the second, all about history of psych nursng and was getting sleepy. I decided, "Why not use my adaptive resourse and hop onto blogger?" So here I am on a Thursday night with only a four more days of semester break.
I haven't gotten nearly the amount of work I had wanted to get done, but I'm OK. We had a great two weeks. Last week, we went to Atlantic City for four days, three nights! We had a blast! I never spent so much time down there. It was an experience, for sure. We ended up only spending a little bit on gambling after Jamie won at poker on the last night there. Most of the money we spent was on food. It was so expensive to eat down there! But anyway, we had fun for our five year anniversary. I still love him like it was our first year, though. He and I have both grown so much since we have know each other. I think we push each other to do bigger and better things. He is my biggest champion, my reassurance, my best friend, my partner, and I couldn't be here without him. He has knowingly and wholeheartedly accepted my goals even though it affects both of our lives and it is just one of the reasons why I love him. Our lives have been crazy for the last couple of months (with personal stuff, I have to explain because our lives are always crazy) and it doesn't look like it's going to calm down but he always reminds me that's why there are two of us as partners. When one is down, the other picks them up. I don't quite know what happens when both are down :) Anyway, I thought I'd get a little sentimental for awhile.
In other news, my brother and I took the kiddies down to the beach today. it was cold and windy but we all had fun. Something about the way the kids run in the sand with the ocean behind them makes the world stop for a second. They were awesome! Until, of course, we got to the car and had to go home. They were a handful before we got lost and after, well let's just say they were ready to sleep and I was ready for earplugs :)
So I guess I should get back to reading about psych history. Gotta go into the school tomorrow and do some make-up stuff and then it's Memorial Day weekend. Hot dogs and hamburgers all weekend long! Bye!
Mary

Maternity is DONE!!!!

A little sad, but a lot happy!!! Maternity is done and now we move on to Psych nursing. Thank goodness this semester is over. We had much too many crazy life happenings this semester! Passed my last maternity test and my final - Yay! The HESI was today and I passed that too! Last semester, I didn't pass the HESI by like ten points. The partying the day before and hangover the morning of may have had something to do with it, though. So, anyway, this one was fine. I ended up doing well for the total of the semester and now we march toward a different line of patients and the summer.
In life, Syd is going to be down here for two whole months in the summer. Then we go back to court and see if we can keep full custody. God willing, we will. Now that the semester is over, I'll go and try and fix this mess of a house. I try and go through each room and spell out on a to-do list what I would like to have done. I'll get as much as I can done before I go back. Har got really sick today with a 102 fever. I gave her some Motrin and and hour later she wanted to come down and play. So she feels better now. I was all in nurse mode - swabbing her down with cool washcloths, having her drink fluids, and had the Motrin and Tylenol ready haha! Mother's day was yesterday. The kids made cards with J and we had my in-laws over for dinner. It was such a nice day. On a sadder note, my little puppy Squeak died on Saturday night after we found her not breathing and totally limp. J tried very hard but she didn't make it.

RIP Squeak - We will all miss you very much

I'm really glad this semester is over because it's been one thing after another. Hopefully, next semester will bring good fortune with it. Hey, wishfull thinking but maybe I can speak it into existence.
I watched this documentary on home births and midwifery last night and it was so neat. It really made me lean more toward labor and delivery. I think the only thing stopping me from totally committing to it would be the lack of constant work. Most of it is waiting. In order to get some of that, though, I could always pull a shift in the ER per diem if I wanted to. We'll have to see. Birth just seems so very amazing to me. Those midwives are pretty neat nurses. I can totally see why they do what they do. If you get a chance check out the documentary. It's on Showtime and was made by Ricki Lake. It's full of facts about how America is so high in mortality and morbidity rates because of the way we push births along to be on a "schedule". It tells about us being the only country that when births moved out of the home and into the hospital, the midwives didn't move with them. Pretty interesting when you look at the statistics and hard facts. Even more interesting when you've seen it firsthand in the hospital. Very cool stuff. OK, enough stalling - I've got to cook some dinner and start on laundry.
Lots of Blessings,
Mary