Forever & For Always: August 2010

Here we go again...
Today I started my 3rd semester of nursing school. It wasn't so bad at all.. We did have a quiz first thing in the morning but that ended up being not so bad! Other than that, we were lectured on bipolar disorder, suicide and some of schizophrenia.
I hated the psychiatric readings before class, and really didn't think I would enjoy the psych lecture but I actually did. I thought it was pretty interesting, so hopefully psych rotations through clinical will be interesting and "fun" as well.
Tomorrow I have class again to finish up schizophrenia, then moving on to Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). Moving along quickly... They always "front load" us, meaning they give the most work in first 1-2 weeks of class, but soon it will tapper off a little - I hope. I'll be in class on Mondays and clinical on Wednesday...Which doesn't seem so bad.

Anyway - Before school started I had a pretty good weekend. I finished working at the Damonte Dickson Realty branch on Friday and was really exhausted from the entire week. But I told myself I wasn't going to let that hold me down from enjoying my last "free" weekend for a while! So.. Kyle and I did some shopping after work and then went to a friend's birthday party for a little while and enjoyed some friend time. Saturday was spent doing more shopping, making a million homemade jalapeno poppers and then we did MORE friend time! We hung out with Jenna, Tanner, Jay and Teresa for a fun night. We are just awaiting Nicholas Cruz's arrival any day now... We are all so anxious to meet him!!
Sunday we spent cleaning, organizing, preparing for school and basically lounging. We had a little lunch out with Sarah at Pho, which was surprisingly yummy!

That's about it for now...

Holy Cow.. It has been almost a year since I wrote on this blog!! WOW.. That's how insane, intense, overwhelming, life consuming nursing school has been. From now on, I am going to try to update this once in a while. Although, I don't think I will always write about nursing school.. even though that's the biggest thing in my life right now. So, most likely, it will be mostly about school and what I'm up to, but I'll try to write about other stuff also. :)

Well - for a school update... Where to begin.. I successfully finished my 1st semester of nursing school with "A's"! Woohoo! I am very proud of that, but in the long run, all I really care about is passing in general. It's hard to even remember what else I learned in 1st semester.. a LOT of basics, normals and generals. In January I started my 2nd semester. I had 2 hard classes - Nursing Care 2, and Pathophysiology + clinical once a week. It was a MAJOR step up from 1st semester.. SO much harder and more overwhelming... But once again, I can say I successfully passed (with B's this time :)!!! We learned how to do IV's which is really fun. I didn't get to put my IV skills to use during 2nd semester and give anyone an IV, but I am really looking forward to when the day comes!! I want to poke some so bad LOL. 2nd semester was really big struggle for me. Not just academically, but also physically and mentally. I was one of "the chosen" people of 3 (Sarah, Crystal and myself) who got randomly chosen to double up on clinical. While everyone else started clinical at the beginning of Feb, us 3 got put off until March, where we had to go to clinical on Tuesdays in Orthopaedics AND Wednesdays for OB for 4 weeks. Then we scaled down to just Ortho on Tuesdays. WHEW... Now THAT was a challenge - physically exhausting, mentally challenging and emotionally draining! I also go to bserve one day in the OR - which I LOVED! I got to see a total knee replacement and an elbow replacement.. Awesome!!

Besides that, I sprained my ankle at the end of February (thank goodness I didn't start clinical until March!) and I came down with pneumonia at the end of April. I have never been that sick before and it was miserable. I missed one day of class but the rest I had to force myself to go to. After 1-2 weeks of being miserable, dizzy, nauseous, and temp of 102+ almost every night, I finally felt human again. It took 6+ weeks to get completely over my sickness, but I made it. Yay!
Those are pretty much the highlights of my 2nd semester. I really enjoyed clinical and caring for people. It was the hardest and most stressful semester so far, so we will see how 3rd semester compares.

Now.. for my summer that I had off of school, I spent most of my time working. I went back to Dickson Realty and have been doing reception work for the summer there. I am very thankful they had work for me to do. There were NO nursing apprentice positions available anywhere. I was extremely disappointed in that, but what can you do? I decided to apply and get my CNA license instead and try to find a job working as a CNA for the summer. Well, turns out that I wasn't able to even test for my license until August 14th. UGH! That was a bummer... but I had already paid for it and it was non refundable. So.. I scheduled my test date and took my written and skills exams. I am officially a CNA now, but what to do with it? Nothing for now I guess. The most exciting things I have done this summer were visit my mom in Utah for a week in May after I got out of school, see Tool in Sacramento with Kyle, and have a baby shower for Jenna! All of those were really fun but I wish I got more friend/family time this summer... Oh well!

I will be starting my 3rd semester in 3 days. We already have our reading assignemts for the first week, which include 300+ pages of reading. We have a quiz the first day, and will continue to have quizzes every day of class, so the reading must be done! Nursing school has been SOOO much reading and studying, but hopefully it will pay off.
That's about it for now. I'll leave with an assortment of random photos acquired over the last year..There are WAY more, but I'll post more later.