1 down, 2 to go!

Well I made it through the first 3 weeks! On the one hand it's going by fast. On the other I'm so sick of going to school I could pull my hair out! I mean think about it, this is a 2 year program. I started this back in fall of 2003! It's a good thing I didn't realize it would take me so long or I probably wouldn't have done this and I'm soooooo glad I did! I don't think most people know that you have to have all your pre req's out of the way before you can even apply to the nursing program and then the number of people that apply is so much larger then the slots to get in the program you have to have really good grades. I will graduate June 13th, 2009 :)

We had our first test Friday. I got a B so I can relax a bit now. I will admit that once you're in the program you don't have to chase the A's anymore and I don't. That kind of stress is bad for your health! Clinical this quarter is actually much more stressful then the book work. We are expected to be able to actually do nursing care! The pressure is on. I had my OR rotation this week so I didn't do patient care. I got to observe several surgeries and follow a patient through to PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit). This was so intersting. I got to see an aortic valve replacement. I shadowed the circulating nurse who goes to get the patient from the SPA (Surgery Prepation Area) SPA sounds so nice :) The curculating nurse does the safety check to make sure we have the right patient, makes sure all the paper work is done, brings the patient to the OR, stays with the patient while the Anesthesiologist is preping the patient and getting them under and then prepes the patient for surgery. All open heart surgeries go to ICU after surgery, so I got to go up there too! I got to see a vaginal hysterectomy done by the doctor who did mine a year and a half ago. That was really intersting too. The most interesting part was following this patient to PACU. Being a PACU nurse seems really interesting too and if I ever have to have surgery again I'll be talking to the PACU nurses to decide what surgeon to use. They see all the patients afterward and know what surgeons have the least complications.

I haven't had time to do much scraping :( but I did this page last night of Lucy going to the Homecoming dance last month. I used a kit called Girly Doodles by Julia Makotinsky. You can find it on the Little Dreamer site.