snow day!

About four hours too late.

My goal this morning was to get to school early enough that I could sneak into the algebra class and eavesdrop for a while on what they plan on doing. I still want to get into algebra class, but it isn’t looking promising.

So, I’m running late and it’s snowing. I decide that I’m going to ride my mom’s bike because it’s a little more stable and it has a basket in back so I can store things in. First, it takes me ten minutes to get the bike out of the garage. Then, when I finally get it out and get into the street, the street is so full of snow that I cannot ride it in the least.

That meant I had to walk. I changed into better suited clothing and walked during this huge snow fall and in the streets to get to school. By the time i got there, it was 9:40. Too bad and I was exhausted.

My mom told me that my dad was staying overnight at work because he lives twenty minutes away, meaning I had to find a way home after lab (at 5). Which meant I’d probably have to walk.

Sat through psych, went to the library and wrote some about how I began to start writing, studied  a little bit, and then went to lunch around 12:30. (Class was at 1.)

There I’m told that class is canceled from 1 onwards for the whole day. So, no physiology, no lab, and I now have a snow day.  (After  I walked home, and then shoveled the whole sidewalk.)

So, now, as I write this, it is sunny outside and we have a blizzard warning starting soon. I hope the weatherman can redeem themselves.

diuretics

Nursing class started today and with it its first lecture. This isn’t normal but because of schedules, the first lecture had to come before the intro.

The lecture was about diuretics. We talked about four dugs today: loop dilators, thiazides,   Potassium-sparing drugs and osmotic somethings.

Thiazides are very weak drugs that have been around for a very long time. Basically, they prevent the sodium from being absorbed in one part of the tubule (in the kidney). Because this part of the tubule doesn’t absorb a lot of sodium to being with, it doesn’t help a lot. It helps enough though. this is commonly given to heart failure patients.

Loop-dilators are must of a drug. Laxsis is in this category. It prevents the absorption of sodium in the ascending tubule I believe. (the opposite of the thiazides.) This is a very fast acting drug, 5-10 minutes when given by IV and an hour when given by mouth.

The potassium sparing drugs (which I shall now refer to ask K-sparing), are drugs that help the body retain potassium by being an antagonistic to aldosterone, so far as I understand. this is because the diuretics often cause the body to lose electrolytes, and potassium is a very much needed electrolyte. With it being too high or too low, it can cause bad heart arrhythmia. (They use potassium to kill people on death row, if you care.)

Lastly, the osmotic drug, I don’t remember a lot about so I have to read the book. It basically takes the water from the interstitial spaces (which is where the fluid is in edema.) and moves it to somewhere else in the body. They can even use this one for trauma and when they have a lot of fluid around the wound area. Sometimes, they use something like this to treat glaucoma (because the eye has too much water (pressure) inside of it, so they move it somewhere else.)

That’s pretty much all there is to it from lecture. Nurses have to watch out for problems with potassium a lot when patients are on diuretics. They also should monitor things like daily weight to make sure that the pt isn’t retaining water.  And since diuretics are used to move water sometimes, make sure that you know why you are using it. If you are using it to remove water from the lungs, then make sure afterwards you check the lungs. If you are trying to reduce the swelling in the legs, then check the swelling in the legs. Obvious, but I have a feeling people forget that.

spring semester ‘10

School starts tomorrow. I suppose not fully starts but it does start. Clinical is at 8 AM, which is where we’ll have the intro to clinical things and from there, well, things just get more fun.

In honesty, I’m not nervous. Perhaps I’m too tired to be nervous, having stayed up until after midnight last night watching a movie and then forcing myself to get up at 8 again. I’m hoping that’ll get me ready for waking up early tomorrow. (I hate mornings. I am so much of a night person.)

Am I worried about anything? Well, not that I can think of. I have my first lab class, which scares me some. And I really still want to get into Algebra. It’d just be so awesome to do this BA in 3 years. But as far as clinical or anything like that, I’m not worried.

As far as Christmas break went, it wasn’t too bad. I wrote a story for the school’s writing contest. Moreover, I did cut enough of the dog’s hair so that she isn’t that matted anymore. i didn’t get much else done though. I was alert however and I really think I like this new diet. I at least feel like I can think when I’m tired.

attempting to feel better

I know that I’ve mentioned before my problems with my stomach/abdomen area and my other health concerns. As such, I suppose it is only fair that I mention what I am now doing.

Just as recap, I was having stomach pains, at time severe, from April through September/October, with it varying in amounts from November and December. I also have been having symptoms of lactose intolerance (I’ve had that for years.) and recently, my sensitivity to corn syrup has increased.

Corn syrup? I don’t think I mentioned  this but a long time ago, most sodas would make me sick. (Tired, headache, slightly nausea.) This actually began in 2000 to 2001, now that I’m thinking about it, with, of all things, minutemaid lemonade. No big deal there. I just avoided it. Then I began to not drink soda because it, too, would make me sick. (Although, for some reason, I could drink Dr. Pepper.) Dr. Pepper got eliminated and we didn’t think anything of it. My mom mentioned that maybe I have problems with corn syrup, because she knew someone who could not get their blood sugar in control until he removed all corn syrup from his diet. But the largest thing that contains corn syrup is soda and maybe some candy. So, avoid non-chocolate candy and soda.

So I thought.

I mentioned for a long time that Burger King’s coffee bothers me and I can’t drink it. Guess what? First ingredient in the creamer is corn syrup solids. After that, I now check everything. I could have it in small amounts, because I could have half glasses of soda. I went to Olive Garden for the first time and thought nothing of order anything on the menu. Guess what? One of the meals has corn syrup in the sauce and I felt sick half way through. (Very sad.)

So, if anyone tells you that corn syrup is fine, there are people out there who cannot have corn syrup. I’m not sure about corn exactly, because it doesn’t get me sick when I eat it, but corn syrup is very bad for me.

Between stomach/abdominal pains, constant fatigue, and increasing sensitivity to certain items, my mom started wondering if a diet might work. She then, while listening to one of her podcasts on health, found out about this alleged metabolism B pattern.

I fits me in a lot of areas. From being constantly tired, slight headaches often (yeah, I get those too), not feeling hungry ever, never loosing weight when I stared to ride my bike every day last year, and enough of the sighs that I’m metabolism B instead of Metabolism A. (A’s basic, calories in = calories out, the whole idea behind cutting your calories to lose weight. A bad idea BTW, because your body will adjust and then spike again when you stop.)

So, although I don’t like to admit it much, I’ve started a diet. This isn’t to lose weight kind of diet, although that would be nice. (I’m not overweight but just at the cut-off point.) The goal is to get my healthy enough that my stomach stops hurting and I’m more alert.

The only problem is I have to eat every five hours, and I don’t know how I’ll do that with clinical. On clinical days, I eat at 6:30 or so (probably earlier next semester) and I won’t be off until 11:30. I suppose that is just exactly five hours, but it’s cutting it very close.

I’ll probably mention how much it helped but there is no need to worry too much because this will not become a diet blog. This is just another thing that is going on right now.

victorious!

Just found out that Jessica, my advisor, is letting me overload. I’m rather excited, because I had almost been convinced that I would be forced to either overload another semester or take an extra class, neither of which I wanted to do.

Now, this is sad, because now I have to get up at 9 each morning. If I get off the wait-list. Nothing even says that I’ll be off the wait-list in time enough to take the class.  But we’ll just have to trust G-d on this one. There is nothing I can physically do (with the exception of bribing or killing people.)

Now, an extra six hundred dollars about right now would be nice, but I don’t know where I’m going to get that from. (Four hundred for the overload and the extra two hundred for books.) I do have the money so I shouldn’t have to take out a loan, yet, but I’m also quickly running out of money. I so desperately need a job this summer, and I don’t know how I will get one in this economy short of a miracle.

I’m just not going to worry about it yet. I’m not out of money. And if I have to take out a loan, then so be it. I can’t imagine how I won’t have to for summer class in Yankton (two hours away).

It looks like I have my next four semesters planned out in my head.

• Nursing and microbiology in the summer. (Need micro to go to class in the fall.)
• Then nursing and chemistry lab in the fall (need chem 150 to start the BA program and it’s only offered in the fall.)
• Nursing, statistics and sociology in the spring of ‘11. (Need stats for BA and soc to get a RN, AA degree).
• Then, practicum and photography in the summer of ‘11. (I want to do photography in the summer, so it’s easier to take outdoor pictures.)

After that, I don’t know, besides that I would start my BA in  fall of ‘11 and graduate that spring. I shall be victorious by then. Yay!

(Oh, and another thought of why I should get my BA. Nurses need a BA to do telephone a nurse job, and I can do that without vision. :)

i love breaks

To be quite honest, I have intentionally not posted anything in a while. The reason behind this is that there is really nothing to say. I’m on Christmas break (they call it Christmas break in the midwest, just because there are so few other cultures out here.) I start school back up sometime over the 4th or 5th. I’m not quite sure yet. I’ll have to find out soon enough. And though I wanted to read anatomy to prep me for next semester and physiology, I’ve been too busy reading “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” to really bother with it.

So that’s life. I’m pretty sure i posted that I got al As or -As, which I’m very happy about. So everything is set for me to start school, except I just realized I don’t have a physiology book. Stupid break made me forgot. Alas, must go spend another $100.

Oh, on a side note, I”m trying for another job as a writing center person, but I doubt I’ll get that just because I can barely work any of the times listed. It would would do no good for me to get out of microbiology, just to work over that time instead. So I must find a new job. (I need money to go to Toronto this summer.)

about a ba

After I graduated, I was determined I would not go to school unless I knew what I was going for. Then, also, the idea of four years of school for something that I may or may not use after I am married did not seem like a wonderful proposition.  So I didn’t go to school that first year out of highschool.

Then, I went into medical assisting because it looked rather cool and like something medical related I could do. That turned out to be way too easy. So I went into nursing with the assumption it would be a two year degree and then I could work.

Now, I’m not too sure.

See, I figured that I can do a BA in three years. Yes, i will be hard. But see, with the classes from MTI (medical assisting school), I need to do is take algebra, developmental psych and physiology this semester, microbiology in the summer (which I’m doing anyway), chemistry lab in the fall, then socology and statistics in the spring of ‘10. AFter that , I would have an AA degree. I then take the BA nursing classes and the other classes I need to fill in to get my generals in (photography, history, ect.) and I am done in exactly three years, meaning that my year at MTI wasn’t a waste at all.

It should work perfectly. Only two problems. 1) They may want me to take core classes which, although they sound interesting, are three credit classes that I cannot fit in. 2) This semester, taking algebra means I overload and my advisor really doesn’t like that.

I thought I had a good argument. AFter all, in the BA program they expect you to take 16.5 credits this semester as it. (.5 being from a learn strong class which is an even stupider class.) I’m only asking to take 17 credits.  And I’ve gotten all As this semester. (Just got my grades back. -As in some classes, yes, but all As nonetheless.)

Unfortunately, my advisor really doesn’t seem to like this idea. Which means that I’m going to either have to overload another semester or take a whole semester of extra classes. (Which, I’m sure I could find things to take it in, but it is a rather waste of money in my head, especially when I’m wanting to start working too.) Maybe she just doesn’t see me taking the BA seriously.

And maybe I’m not. Because It’s not that I want the BA as much as if I have the BA and I want to I can easily go into masters studies (midwifery), which is something that I do really want to do I think. But a BA, and my eyes, just might be enough to make people take notice. I don’t know.

a new blog

I posted a while ago saying that I was thinking about starting a new blog. Although I have sadly neglected writing this blog, most of what I will be posting on my new blog is already written.

So anyway, if any of you care about my writing career more than my nursing school, the new blog is called Always a Writer. I will be posting completed stories in there, if anyone cares as well, and reduce the amount that I am posting about writing in this blog.

freedom!

Three tests, one terrifying paper and I am done at least with my first semester of nursing.

Today, I’m just relaxing. I’ll probably write some, maybe clean up my corner to please my mom, maybe read a bit. But I won’t be doing a whole lot.  (I spent over an hour playing wii, that gives an idea of how much I’m not doing.)

I don’t know how much it has or hasn’t sunken it yet. I’m glad to be done but I could, right now, go back to school on Monday just as easily. At the same time, I’m planning everything else out and what I want to do and what I have to do.

One of the things that I have to do is write a story for the writing contest as school, but we’ll go into that later.

Instead, finals. In all honestly finals shouldn’t have been that hard. I had done well in all my classes up until this point (Not perfectly, but I’ve been about a low 90s or so.) Unfortunately, these last several weeks have taken a toll on my grades, bringing them ever closer to the dreaded B.

It’s not that I don’t want a B. Part of me did really want to have a B early on  in the semester so that way I won’t feel so terrible if I messed up on a class somewhere along the road. But when I was so close to an A in nursing, I kinda forgot that. My mom, thankfully, reminded me.

See, I don’t know how to study for certain. I kinda know that you want to get everything from the book into your head. But in all honestly, all I’ve done this whole semester is read the chapter, answer the questions, both at the end of the chapter and in our study guides, and that was all. I don’t know how to look into a book and find answers and I don’t know how to look into a book and know if this is something worth studying or if there is more.

In a panic, I called my mom before lunch and explained what I was worried about and how I don’t know what I”m doing and how I don’t know how to do this. That was when she reminded me that it was okay to get a B. (I wanted to get above a 93, because 93 is the break point between an A and a B.) I honestly felt like I might cry when she reminded me of that, but it helped and I actually didn’t study after that. (I only studied Tuesday afternoon anyway, but that was for about 4 hours, minus distractions.)

When I took the test, I was surprised by how much I actually knew. Much of this wasn’t even things that I studied and yet I still knew the answers. I didn’t even get stuck until question 24. (There was 100 questions). By the time I finished the test, I was almost giddy.

On another note, during the test we’re sitting and we hear a pop. We glance around, they say a lightbulb burned out and so we figure everything is fine and go back to our test. A few minutes later, another pop. Again, we jump slightly and then go back to our test. Finally, a third time, a bunches of pops and when I looked at the light, sparks or something was spitting out of a hole that had just been melted in the cover. We quickly turned off those lights and turned on the track lights instead, finishing our test with the track lights on.

It took me almost 3 hours to get my final results back and I got a 93. I honestly didn’t expect that much, although maybe above a 90. I wish that I could see my final to know what I answered correctly or incorrectly.

Now, how am I going to study? I’m going to just answer the questions in the study guides and then, when the final comes, I will just read the questions. I also am going to be basically journalling about what I learned in each class (hopefully) and read that as well.

But I am done with the nursing final. I got an A- in that class so I am very pleased. We’ll be getting the rest of our grades up by tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll do well. (On the negative side, -As are actually reported as such, so I don’t get a 4.0 anyway. That’s actually good now that I think about it.)

clinical response

(Note: This was an assignment actually for school about my clinical experience, but it is so appropriate  for here that I felt I should post it.)

I only had to make it through one semester. Once one semester was over, I would go to the hospital and there was no guarantee that I would work with geriatrics there. Yes, I might happen, but in my mind, I only need to survive one semester.

See, it’s not like I’ve never been in nursing homes before. As a child, we visited often, mostly so the residents got to see the little children doing things. I even took my hamster once. As a teenager, I first helped my dad when he went to preach in the nursing homes, then later, helped my mom  when she volunteer there where we played UNO. From all this experience and exposure, I knew one thing. I did not want to work in geriatrics.

I think the hardest part for me about them is that for the longest time, I firmly believed that I should speak respectfully to an elder. While in the nursing home, so many of them could not communicate with me that I felt I had to speak as a child to them. By speaking like I would to a child, I was not respecting them. And yes, the smell bothered me as well.

One thing I am though is determined. Many things scared me this semester: the fact I was to work in a nursing home, the fact I would need to give bed baths, the fact that I honestly had no clue what to expect. Even before I began, I knew that I would tough it out and eventually I would either get used to the parts I didn’t like or I would not have to do them anymore.

I didn’t expect to get someone so normal. MOreover, I didn’t expect to find so many people there who were mentally functional. Even when I had to assess someone who was had incontinence, and smelled poorly, and who I could barely understand, I could communicate with her well enough. (I did, after all, just wake her up in the morning.)

I think one of the strangest things was actually not even talking with one of our assigned residents but seeing Wayne each week. The fact that I could not understand anything he said was fine once I knew that he understood me. He even reminded me of some of the men I knew from past churches, who would tease me in much the same way. When we didn’t go one of the days in October, I was actually missing some of those people.

I found it strange how many of the residents really aren’t modest. The things that at least I would not like, they didn’t min. Like, when I was assessing a resident and I was having difficult hearing her apical pulse, she pulled up her shirt so I could have a better try. Or when I told another resident that we were going to give her a bath, and she had no problems with taking off her clothes and letting us.

I changed too. I dreaded having to wake up a patient at the beginning. During one of the times of our early assessments, I could not find anyone who was not in the hall and not sleeping. I did not want to wake up the person, even though I knew that we could. Worse, I actually didn’t that time, because when I I told one of the cleaning ladies I was getting up courage, she went in and woke her up for me. But later, when we had to give a bath that last time, I woke her up myself.

I’ve watched how the place works and I learned some things there. I will admit I am still scared of some parts of working there. In all honestly, I would rather get a job at the hospital right now than at Brady over the summer. (Now, that might change next semester.) But I’m not determined not to do it anymore either. Last year, that was one of the places that I refused to apply to.

One more important thing is that I’m not as scared to go back in there and talk with the people. I know that not all of them will understand me or have complete orientation. But so many of them were just made happy by the mere act of me talking with them that I would do it. I even went out of my way and spoke to some of them when I really didn’t need to. For me, that is big, because I hardly even doing that at school.

I think the strangest part though with everything is that when I started school, I dreaded this semester. Now, I don’t. Yes, it was hard, especially the care plan, but I liked it. I would go back, which is a huge change from four months ago when I was determined I would just tough it out and survive and then be done.