January 25, 2008 at 9:55 am (school)
Tags: clinical, nebulizers
The first day was relatively boring. We had a nice long tour of the hospital and reviewed a few things. Our second day we got to interact with the patients which was really awesome. ‘m loving this more than I ever thought I would. It’s like this amazing high to come in, give someone a nebulizer treatment, come back in a few hours for their next dose and relisten to breath sounds to discover that HOLY SHIT they’re making progress! It’s crazy awesome. And on top of it all five us got nice, cooperative patients, ha.
We wondered down to the ER and we got watch the chaos of bringing in a transfer. I swear it’s just like Trauma: Life in the ER >_<
The kids over at a different hospital however got thrown into the fire their first day though. They were told to give treatments without supervision. Not cool AT ALL. I go there in a couple weeks. They’ll probably be having me do arterial punctures the first day there or something. Guh. They did get to see someone’s chest cracked open though (and, er, ultimately die).
Did I ever mention I’m the only girl in group? It’s good times >_< On Tuesdays our preceptor’s a female, but Thursday we’ve got a guy…oh boy. Sore thumb much?
You can find related photos in my photo blog here.
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January 21, 2008 at 11:43 am (photographs, school)
Tags: clicnical, nails, photos
Clinicals. Yeah, that’s right. I’ll officially be running around a hospital in a uniform dealing with sick people.
God help us all. Well, that is if I don’t get completely lost in TGH’s sea of one million (yes, million) square feet. I’m going to need my preceptor to hold my hand or something.
David just ran out to Target to pick me up some socks. All that’s left now is to iron my uniforms, print 100 sheets of stuff that needs to be filled out and…cut my nails.
How am I going to open anything? I’ll have a pair of handy-dandy bandage scissors on me (oh, so THAT’S why I had to buy those!), but still. The lady I sit with in class has had her artificial nails on for 18 years. She’s probably freaking out right now.
I’m thinking David needs to take some photos of me tomorrow “First Day of School” style. Of course these will be at five in the morning and that is NOT going to me a smile on my face >_<
I can’t believe I’ve had my stethoscope for over a week now and haven’t taken photos of it. I must be ill.
Speaking of photos, I’ve moved my photoblog to calcifying @ wordpress (link is in the blogroll). We’ll see how it works here – most of the default themes don’t accommodate large photo sizes unfortunately.
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January 16, 2008 at 8:30 pm (everyday, school)
Tags: college, rant, tests
Apparently my school has gotten even MORE stingy than it already was. Grant it they can’t do much to prevent cuts instead of taking pay cuts themselves (God forbid) but seriously: we have to print everything ourselves now? Waste our own ink and paper on the multiple 20 page powerpoints we have to have A DAY? Ridiculous. I’ve got almost 200 pages of shit to print. I’m just going to waste the school library paper, me thinks, except for the stuff I need for clinicals next week.
I just need to get my patches sewn onto my scrub tops and print out my evaluation forms and such and I’m set for clinicals. I’m pretty excited. I’m not as nervous as I was before I met the TGH instructors. They’ve both been in my shoes AND remember what it’s like and I think they’re both going to help me a lot. Thank God >_<
I think this semester is going to be a bit…smoother for me. It seems that most of the tests are going to be on a smaller amount of material, versus the HUGE tests we had last semester. I know I got an ‘A’ on one of the tests I took this week and I ‘m still awaiting the results of the other, but I should have done well on that one as well. I still have that huge Airway test to worry about though – you know, the one just randomly thrown in it seems worth half the cumulative grade? Airways are important in our profession, obviously, but seriously? Might as well make it our final.
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January 11, 2008 at 8:00 am (emotions, photographs, school)
Tags: anniversary, clinicals, college
Who’s idea was it to build TGH on an island? Really? Our main disasters come from hurricanes and they built the hospital on an island? At least some patients get a beautiful view of sunset from their rooms? You know, after getting moved up to a higher floor because of flooding >_<
We had our orientation there. It’s a lovely hospital. One MILLION square feet after all the floors are open in the new wing (which will include A SPA FYI) though. I’m going to be so lost, ha. It’s a really good hospital – there’s pretty much nothing they DON’T do there, they have a great reputation, they’re the sole disaster relief hospital (think more chemical warfare than hurricanes) for the entire west coast of Florida. And the respiratory crew so far seem to be pretty OK people so far.
I’m there for six rotations before I move on to UCH and then Brooksville.
I still don’t feel ready for ANY of it. I have a lab Tuesday which will help refresh my memory somewhat (oh hey use a humidifier when the flow is 3LPM or higher on WHAT device again?) but I still feel quite intimidated. I suppose that won’t go away until I’m actually out there and get to see everything in action.
On a different note, today’s our third year wedding anniversary. The boy got up this morning and took off. Fantastic. Probably went to get the oil changed in the car, but Christ…
And Piggy is doing great now. He’s having a slight issue jumping, but he’s eating and I’ let him out (supervised) for awhile yesterday.
Also David and I did a test run to Davis Island so I would know how to actually get to the hospital and stayed out there for awhile and then went to bayshore for sunset. Here are the photos:
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January 8, 2008 at 11:20 am (emotions, everyday)
Tags: cats, Piggy
David called me while I was in class yesterday and I called him back at lunch time. Piggy wasn’t being Piggy-like. Wasn’t moving, very lethargic, etc. I’d seen him that morning and thought something was up, but was in a rush to get ready for class. He said Nano was waiting for me to come home from school to talk about taking him to the vet and I was all “fuck that take him NOW”. I’m scheduled there until 3:15 and wouldn’t have been home until after four and the vet would be ready to close by the time we got Pigz loaded up and there. So David told Nano I said to take him to the vet and he did.
Of course I couldn’t concentrate for my next class >_< But we got out early at least.
They were back by the time I got home. One of the neighbor’s cats have been hanging around lately and last night Piggy and Gray Cat decided to pick on him. Apparently Neighbor Cat Got a few licks in on Piggy. He has two bites/scratches on him but otherwise checked out fine. They gave him a shot of some antibiotic and sent him home with some pills. He’s sleeping in Sara’s room right now.
I thoguht for sure the cat treats were poisoned – all five of them were snubbing this particular bag and I thoguht maybe Piggy ate some after all and something was wrong.
If he hasn’t started eating by Wednesday she said to bring him back in, but if not then we just bring him back next week.
The vet that took care of him when he had his leg issue saw Piggy was there on the chart and came in to see him though she had another patient to see him >_< Everyone loves the Piggy!
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January 5, 2008 at 4:17 pm (school)
Tags: clinicals, college
Classes start back up on Monday and, to be quite honest, I am NOT looking forward to it. I’m stressed about how little I retained from last semester. I go into clinicals in two weeks and I do not feel ready AT ALL. If I had more hands-on time in the labs it night have been easier but logic…it fails. Oy. Make or Break time…again. Here’s to not crying on too many of the trips home.
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January 3, 2008 at 12:14 pm (emotions)
Tags: friends
Let’s just get one thing straight.
My friends mean the world to me. I would, will, and do anything I can to protect them and be there for them. I don’t understand how anyone wouldn’t do anything they could for their friends. Sure, there is that line where your wellbeing and happiness should be taken care of before trying to keep your friends happy, but seriously, stop and listen to what they have to say first before jumping to conclusions and start calling them, or their actions, unnecessary names.
I suppose that in the end, this is how I can tell who really gives a damn about me in return.
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January 2, 2008 at 7:19 pm (photographs)
Tags: photos, wildlife
CompUSA is going out of business and their cameras are 15% off.
So, even though David really wants the 4OD, he is quite content with our latest purchase: the Canon Rebel . It’s lovely to have an SLR camera again!
Photos. Not with the new camera because David doesn’t know how to share, but with the S2 IS.
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January 1, 2008 at 5:41 pm (everyday)
Tags: blogging, car accident, credit card, new year, resolutions
I Have a list of things that I need to improve and do for the new year and one of them is to get back into blogging. Message boards are nice and all, but I think I need to be able to look back and see how I can improve. The past six months or so I haven’t blogged much at all, mostly due to the hellhole the site I was journaling at was becoming, and the past six months I’ve found myself becoming more bitter, more lost, and at a loss of where to find guidance.
The new year wasn’t kind to us this morning, however. David was cut off on the interstate and fishtailed off the road, down a steep slope and stopped in between trees. I’ve never been so thankful to have that little car – any larger car would have rolled. Both he and the car came out miraculously unscathed. A few feet earlier or later and he would have hit a tree.
On top of it, after paying the towing company, he lost his credit card and, get this, I can’t report it lost because they’re closed for the holiday. I really hate Chase. I can’t wait to get our tax money to pay off the credit card and cancel it. They’re customer service sucks nearly as bad as microsoft’s and the APR is just ridiculous.
One of my other resolutions was to stop being such a negative nancy and to be more cheerful. Today isn’t making that very easy.
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