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

Who Says Life is Easy

I am still surprised when life sneaks up on me. It happens at about halfway through the semester. I become so absorbed in pathophysiology of diseases, nursing interventions, and clinicals that I don't see things under my nose. A couple of weeks ago my mom got sick (she's better now) and now my step-daughter isn't doing so well right now. It takes big stuff to jerk me out of this stupor and now I'm worried that I'm too far out of it. I hope I can concentrate on the both and successfully pull home life and school life to a happy ending. When it rains, it pours right? I think I'm in the middle of a thunderstorm. I just need to keep focusing on what I need to, in this moment, and try to move back and forth between the two.
I still worry about being a good mom. I still worry about if I'm learning this information and can actually put it to practice when I'm helping people. If I can't help the people in my own family, can I possibly be of help to the people who are depending on me to keep them alive? Did I take on too much doing this school? I wish there were multiple choice answers to my questions, just like on my exams. How do I keep my loved ones safe A. B. C. D. Choose one. Sometimes I feel like even if I had choices I'd pick the wrong choice.
It's not just nursing school, after all, it's the journey of life. Isn't that what I'm trying to protect? So in the middle of maternity, where I'm seeing new life every week, I find myself trying my damndest to protect the lives of those around me. I feel like they're not supposed to be the people I'm learning about. My family should be on my side and patients should be on the other. It's a whole different ballgame when those lines cross. It involves a whole lot of emotion and more worrying than before I started school. Now I know what can go wrong. I've seen the pictures, I've heard the teachers talk about it. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. I've come a long way to be this scared, but I don't think it's going away anytime soon. So while life is smacking me around a little, and always at the worst of times, I need to remember that I'm not in control of everything and that my plans make God laugh. All I can ask is that he's watching over my loved ones and the loved ones of whoever is reading this.
Lots of Blessings
Mary

Maternity Test, Presentation, and FINALLY some FUN

Hello all! We had our presentation last week and it went fairly well! We had an awesome booklet that H put together and a powerpoint presentation behind us. One at a time, we got up from our seats and talked about our topics, all having to do with post-partum issues like breastfeeding and exercise. It went off without a hitch. No one messed up and the teacher even said that she wished she would have video taped it as an example for the incoming class. H even brought her pregnant sister and a pregnant friend so we had actual bellies to teach! It was great! So we're all pretty happy that it's over now!
Immediately after the presentation we had to start studying for the next test. It was this past Monday and I got a 90! Yay! I studied all weekend and the got together with H and went through all the powerpoint handouts to make sure we understood all of them. So we were pretty happy when we went over the test and did well. Others didn't, though, and so some drinks were in order. We went out and had a great time! The alcohol was flowing :) After tests are the only time you can actually let loose, so it felt great! Although getting up the next day @ 5 for clinicals sucked!
Clinicals this week weren't as great as last week or the week before. I was on the postpartum unit and I find it not as interesting. I kind of feel like I'm intruding on their personal time. I remember all these nurses in and out when I was in the hospital with my kids and it was annoying. This time I feel like I am annoying! You have to go in and assess the mom and the baby which is pretty cool but it's when they first wake up and they may have had a baby a couple of hours before. Poor things :( At least in the other units they were giving birth, laboring, or the baby's were in the NICU and I was keeping an eagle eye over them. So I don't really think that post-partum is my thing.
So that was my week in a nutshell!
This week we have lecture for 2 hrs on Monday, we have off from clinicals on Tuesday, a simulation on Wedns., and 3 hours of lecture on Thurs. I'm going to listen to my lecture now and pull out my powerpoints and go over them, while my kids are enthralled with Wall-E that the Easter Bunny gave them! Happy Easter to all!!!

Group projects, Maternity Clinicals

Well, it's been an interesting week! The last post was the day before my first clinical experience on the Maternity flooor. I got lucky and it was my day in the NICU!!! It was amazing. The babies on that floor have the most heart in the whole hospital. There were twins, one was 1 lb 4 oz. and the other was 1 lb 7 oz. The legs are the width of a finger and they only get fed 1 cc of breastmilk. They are amazing! The one may have to get surgery to fix an open ductus arteriosis, which is supposed to close when the baby is born, but has stayed open since the babies were born at 25 weeks. I watched the nurses care for the babies and they were so skilled. It really made me want to work in the NICU. The babies are cared for in some of the same ways as the adults are, they get suctioned, NG tubes, constantly moniored VS, etc. The hospital has a highly skilled NICU, so all the babies that are high risk go there. We are very lucky to have the experience of doing our rotation there. So, I guess you've figured out I really like it. Tomorrow, I get to go to either labor and delivery or the postpartum unit. Very excited!!
There was a story inserted here, which I took out, I didn't realize anyone actually read this thing that wasn't a previous work employee :) I shouldn't single people out on the internet so while everything was the truth, I'm deleting it.

Friday we did a physical assessment video that took all day. We got there at 9 in the morning and organized everything until 12, got lunch, and then taped. It took til 5 in the afternoon. My partner's friend passed away so she was kinda out of it and everytime you put the camera on, I would start cracking up. It was a hot mess :) But, it's done, and thank goodess! No more videos for the rest of the semester. This one is a whole grade for the physical assessment class, though, so hopefully we hit on all of the points and got an A.
Well, the test is coming up on Monday so 6 days left. Wish me luck! Have to go study now. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write again this week!
Lots of Blessings!
Mary

Spring Break is Over - Back to Reality

Well, the heat has been turned back on! The good news is that I have everything completed that I need to have turned in for the next two weeks. The bad news is that the teacher that we have for the first half of the information is done on Thursday @10 and the teacher that I really have a hard time concentrating on is starting @ 11. I really like my teacher right now, she is straight to the point about what is important and doesn't go off on long tangents. Oh, well. Can't have everything you want, right? So I was up at 5 and I stll have some Miller CDs to watch. For those of you who have never heard of Miller CDs - They are tutorials that go through many different topics. For example, Reproduction is what we are doing now. The woman teaches different segments about 20 minutes each on different topics. They also come with a thick stack of review questions. My school has them on hand for us to borrow. Anyway, they seem to be helpful and NCLEX questions are always great tools. Just a little aside, for anyone who is taking the NCLEX in 2010 like me, the questions are going to be changed and re-evaluated. It was announced at the NJSNA (Student Nurse's Association) convention at one of the reviews. So the importance of that is you will probably want to take an Nclex review because those are the people who study exactly what % of the questions are on certain topics. Then they teach a review concentrating on those areas but giving a broad review of all areas.
SO tomorrow I start on the Maternity floor. I will be in the nursery all day and so to prepare for newborn assessment, I reviewed all the video clips of newborns in my physical asssessment class. I am really excited! I wanted to go into nursing because of the experience I had giving birth to James (If you haven't read it, it's in August 2008 and named This is th Reason) and to get back to the place I started is really going to be a validation of why I'm working so hard. That's the theory, anyway. One of the clinical days when we arrive, our instructor will tell us it's our day in the NICU, so any day I could be going there. I'll have to tell ya how that turns out tomorrow :) Doesn't mattter though, I'll be playing with babies all day! I can feel good energy acomin'!
So we had clss from 8-10 this morning, a concept map class (we have to learn a whole new way to do them) from 10-11, and a physical assessment class from 11-1. Then my friend and I helped another girl with her concept map. tried to watch the CDs at school and then came home. Once I got here I straightened, made dinner, got the kids in their PJs, watched the videos for newborns, and now ot's time for Miller CDs again. No wonder I'm pooped. It's been a long day! To any future nursing students, get used to regular infusions of coofee!
Lots of Blessings!
Mary

Papers, Concept Maps, Case Studies

Good afternoon! I'm in the middle of cooking dinner and I thought I would get a quick post in. Nursing school never fails to amaze me. When you are getting ready for it, it seems so overwhelming how much you do BEFORE you start the actual nursing classes. When you're actually doing the classes, it's just a never-ending list of to-do's. The reason I bring this up is that I was reading another blog about how nervous people are before they start applying to nursing schools. I'll admit, I didn't go through that because I had an epiphany and knew this is what I was supposed to do. But, a word of advice, when you actually get here it's just busy. Not Oh-my-God-I'll-never-make-it-through hard, just really busy. Some of the information is difficult, don't let me fool you, but it becomes a long list of things that you check off as done. If I looked at my whole semester and what I had to get done, I would have a stroke! I need to take one section at a time. Mostly, one test at a time. Then I break down all the assignments I have to turn in , do all the notecards (flashcards) for the info I need to know, and then I study. I think most of the info is definitely able to be learned, I think you just need to keep focused, let some steam off a couple of times a semester, and remember what you're doing it for. This spring break I have done OB math problems, reading, a communications paper, concept maps, milestones for a physical assessment class, and listened to my lecture on my iPod. It sounds like a lot but I paced myself and by Sunday night, I'll be prepared for the next two weeks. But in those two weeks, I'll be completing things like my notecards for the next test. If you keep up with the work, it will not overwhelm you, but if you get behind it is very difficult to dig your way back to tbeing on top of your work.
So, in closing, nusing school is hard. It takes time away from your social life and family life. If you keep up with it, you can find amazingly rewarding experiences at every clinical day. Even when you feel stressed and tired, those days when you help people or when you learn something you've never done before more than make up for the amount of time you put into it. Hope this helps someone someday :) Lots of Blessings, Mary