Medical-Surgical Nursing

The first eight weeks of Spring semester managed to fly by, leaving me exhausted and feeling a little brain dead. My rotation was at St. Anthony's North in Westminster, Colorado. There were a few really great things about this rotation. First, it was a very short drive, about twenty minutes. Second, I had a great clinical instructor. I was hesitant at first, because my clinical instructor was a guy, and I thought he'd be really hard and for some reason I had the irrational fear that he would be arrogant. He was anything but this, and having him as a clinical instructor was a great experience.

I was really hoping to have some oncology patients, but most of my patients were post-surgical carotid endartectomies or liver failure (from alcohol). A carotid endartectomy is when there is a clogged artery in the neck that needs to be cleaned out and a stent is sometimes inserted to keep the artery open. My liver patients (and I had several of them) were usually young (40-60 yrs) and having multiple organ failure. I was astonished at the number of end-stage organ failure patients we had. I also had a couple of patients who were admitted for another reason, but turned out to be alcoholics and the only way we found out was about 30 hours after they were admitted they started having tremors, sweats, hallucinations, etc.

Highlights of this past rotation were probably removing my first JP drain (this is a long plastic piece of material with holes in it that runs along an incision site to help with draining after surgery. It has a little "grenade" bulb at the end to collect drainage and is emptied). To remove it, I just clipped some stitches and pulled it out! It was crazy. The tube was about seven inches long and accompanied by a huge blood clot that scared the crap out of me! I was also able to practice starting I.V.'s, although never on a real patient. My friend Erin, and another student, graciously allowed me to practice! Eric will have nothing to do with this.

Unfortunately, we lost two of our six students this clinical for one reason or another, so that was kind of sad. This next eight weeks our class is divided for the first time since the start of our program. Half of us are in psychiatric nursing while the other half of us are in pediatric nursing. This past eight weeks we have all successfully passed pharmacology also! Yay!!!

Spring Semester Year One Nursing School and Wedding Planning

Above is a picture of the "Save the Date" Eric and I sent out via email to people over the weekend. We have been meaning to get save the date's out for awhile now as some of our friends have already made plans for six months out! It was a good feeling to have completed this task, as it has been weighing on our minds for quite some time. I was very excited to find this one on Evite.com. It was very easy to use and best of all, FREE!

Today was my first day back to nursing school. I've been a little anxious about starting this semester for a few reasons. First, I really could have used another week off of school. I managed to keep myself very busy over break and certainly wasn't bored yet. Secondly, I've heard horror stories about the Medical-Surgical rotation. We have a lot of material to cover in eight weeks. Clinicals start next week and I'm sure I'll have lots of exciting stuff to write about in a couple of weeks.

This morning I woke up to snow...lots of snow. This wouldn't be a problem except that I think all the snow plow drivers in Colorado were still sleeping when I have drive to school. It took me two and a half hours to drive twenty miles to school this morning. Needless to say, I was among the half of the class who showed up very late for our first Med-Surg lecture. The good news was that on the way home the skies were clear, roads were dry and traffic was moving freely. Poor Peanut has to get used to being home alone all day again.

Toady all 72 nursing students had to sign up for our service learning sites. I haven't officially gotten mine yet because they added a Boulder site which worked out great for me. We have to complete 20 hours of service learning at a nursing home over the course of the semester, keep a journal and write a paper about social justice in the elderly population. We originally had only three service site options, all of which were a 45 minute drive for me. I was ecstatic when they decided to add a site in Boulder. This will make it much easier for me to complete my hours.

Tonight Eric and I are taking it easy. I'm writing this blog as a way to stay awake past 8pm. We have both fallen asleep on the couch several times already tonight. Poor Eric had to move all kinds of heavy stuff around in the snow today with his ultra motivated supervisor today and is exhausted. I apparently had a rough night of sleep filled with anxiety as I kicked him all night in my sleep and kept grinding my teeth! Guess I am a little stressed about Med-Surg! Well, tomorrow is another big day! I'll write more when I have pictures and something more exciting to talk about!