A guy walks into the hospital lobby....

No, I'm not about to tell a joke. He came in, limping, dripping blood, and he and his friend wanted to be pointed toward the ER. I ran for a wheelchair, which he didn't want to use, but I was glad I talked him into it. He was acting like he was going into shock, and with the limp, I knew we could get there faster with him in the chair.

He was biking on the road with no helmet, somehow fell, and skidded across a large swath of asphalt. Basically, ouch. He was all trembly and kept saying he felt "tingly all over", which the ER personnel told me was a result of hyperventilating (Oops, I had told him to take deep, slow breaths to help with the pain and calm down...guess he didn't hear the slow part or wasn't able to calm himself enough).

The nurse thanked me for bringing him --- and I stood there like an idiot -- do I stay? do I go? I want my wheelchair back! (in my head) -- but it turned out it was good I was there because she asked me to stay with him a little longer while she went for a gurney.

He looked young & healthy; I'm sure he'll be fine.

Holy cow, I aced it!

I took my official TEAS test yesterday. Coming up to the test, I felt like I really hadn't studied as much as I should have. I got in the 60's in science on my last practice test.

But somehow I pulled it together in the last days before the test. The night before, I did just the science sections in the two practice tests in the book, and made sure to review anything I'd written down that I didn't know how to do in math or science or that needed brushing up. For example, I know the roman numerals X and I but if you get into the letters M, C, D and L, well let's just say it's not a system I use very often. And it's been a long, long while since I've had intro chem, so I needed to review the structure of the periodic table of elements, and patterns within the table.

I slept in until about 9 on the day of the test. I had decided that if I didn't feel too panicky, I wanted to briefly go to a friend's daughter's birthday party, and I ended up going, from 11:30 to 12:30, then headed over to the test for a 1:15 check-in.

It was somewhat distracting that, being one of the first few to check in, I had to listen to the proctor go over start-up with each subsequent student that checked in. And once during the test, the proctor from next door came, put his hand on my shoulder and said "excuse me"...and wanted to look at what was on my screen. He didn't explain why. There was a question on the test in the reading section that I was *SURE* there was a problem with, and I told him about it. He didn't explain what he was doing there, and went away again. Huh?

I pretty much took the whole test straight through, except for one bathroom break. I think I was the first one to finish but I wasn't paying close attention.

I made myself go slowly on the reading section, was careful with my math, felt pretty good working through the science, and went probably more quickly than I should have through the English and English language usage. The testing site blocked everybody's scores until later on that day so that we wouldn't all be looking at what we got out in the lobby and making a big ruckus. I thought they'd be available when I got home but they weren't.

I put in a movie, and checked again after I was done watching, and lo and behold:

I scored in the 99th percentile!!!

My actual score was in the mid-nineties. So that won't be holding me back from acceptance to my program of choice. Whew!

Maybe I just wasn't as invested when I was doing the practice tests, or maybe I was better rested during the real deal. I know my last minute review helped considerably too, refreshing foggy bits of my memory.

Anyway, I'm relieved.

TEAS practice test 2....hrmph

So I'm 5 days out from the TEAS test now. I haven't studied nearly as much as I planned. I think one mistake I made was not focusing my studies more. I spent most of my time on English just because that was the first section I decided to work on and I never got to the rest sequentially; I should have started with science. Without further ado, here we go: a handy dandy comparison chart I made of my two practice tests:

And here's a breakdown of the sub-sections:

Sub-Scale Score	June %	September
TEAS: Reading - (42 Items)	90.5	88.1
Paragraph & Passage Comprehension	78.9	78.9
Informational Source Comprehension	100	95.7
TEAS: Mathematics - (30 Items)	93.3	96.7
Numbers and Operations	100	94.7
Algebraic Applications	100	100
Data Interpretation	100	100
Measurement	50	100
TEAS: Science - (48 Items)	83.3	68.8
Human Body Science	72.7	54.5
Life Science	93.3	80
Earth and Physical Science	78.6	71.4
Scientific Reasoning	87.5	62.5
TEAS: English and Language Usage - (30 Items)	76.7	90
Grammar and Word Meanings in Context	86.7	93.3
Spelling and Punctuation	66.7	88.9
Structure	66.7	83.3

So, in the little remaining time I've got, I'm going to learn from my mistakes and focus on the science, starting with human body science (!!) and then scientific reasoning, then physical science, then life science.

I can't believe I did so poorly on the human body section.

Although I was telling myself to take time, I was taking this test between 8-10 at night after a full work day...excuses, excuses...and I did rush on some.

For Reading...allowed 58 minutes...took 40.
For Math...allowed 51 minutes...took 31.
For Science...allowed 66 minutes...took 36.
For English...allowed 34 minutes...took 15.

Some specific things I noticed I need to review while taking the test are:

-picking the "main idea" of the passage; I got a lot of these wrong, WTH?
-Converting numbers written like CMXXIX to their Arabic equivalents
-embryonic germ layers and what they become
-brain parts and their functions, i.e. which part controls balance?
-bond types and melting points (ugh, chemistry!)
-"first ionization energy" whatever that is
-cell types that produce "soluble" antibodies
-nuclear reactions...I want to say there were like 3 of these on there
-their version of scientific reasoning and the terminology that goes with it
-the term "simple subject"

Carrying squicky things in buckets

When I'm volunteering at the hospital, I get many, many calls to transport specimens to the lab. Usually it is just blood in tubes, and occasionally a urine.

But this weekend, there were two things that I admit made my stomach turn just a tad:
a lumpy looking greenish stool sample (meconium maybe? it came from labor and delivery), and a big, round clear bucket with a placenta inside.

I'm not disgusted by placentas, per se, it's just that when I think of them, I think of what I've read / heard about, that some cultures *eat* the placenta for nutrition and or spiritual reasons. Yucka.

To each his own.

Why I need to beef up my Spanish

Last weekend I was volunteering at the hospital and a guy came to the front desk trying to explain something to me. I gathered that his recently pregnant wife was out in the car, that she needed help getting up to the NICU where her baby was, and that his two friends would bring the breast milk in a bit. I got mom in a wheelchair and took her up to the premie section. She only spoke Mixteco (I hope I spelled that right) so dad was speaking for her.

First, the embarrassment of the ward clerk... I have mom and dad there with me, I show her the cards that they have brought with them which have the baby's name on them. I explain the situation, that they want to see their baby and that someone's on the way with some breast milk (dad's holding a pump). And she panics.

She brought out this translater phone thing, and spent 20 minutes trying to get it to work. Mom and dad look exhausted, and are getting irritable. They just want to see their baby.

Then, this brilliant nurse comes in, says forget the translator, let's have them scrub in and come on back... but then she turns to them, mimes washing her hands and said "washo your handso!"

I was mortified on her behalf.

Getting to know the local paramedics...

Working with the elderly population in a "retirement living" setting, and often on the evening shift, I've been calling for emergency help a lot lately.

In the last few days, there was another lady. I don't know why they come to the front desk when they are feeling like they're having a medical emergency. It seems like it would make a lot more sense (and be much more safe) if they would stay put and either press their emergency call buttons or call me to come to them.

So anyway, this lady comes to the front desk, and says she is a "new" diabetic... that she went to the ER in JULY (almost 2 months ago) and was diagnosed, and hasn't been able to get in to see her physician yet. The ER doc gave her some pills which she'd been taking up until a week ago, but she stopped because her physician told her over the phone to stop taking them until he could do a blood test on her. In the mean time, she's been trying to manage her blood sugar by how she feels and taking sips of orange juice. Um, yeah.

Talking to her, she just seems overwhelmed and defeated by the whole thing. She's a very reserved lady, and obviously doesn't like asking for help, but she's also feeling very alone and depressed about the whole thing. Another resident where I work gave her a huge book of dietary information for diabetics but she doesn't feel up to reading it.

She was having some trouble breathing when she came to the front desk, and said she felt a bit foggy in the head. When the paramedics came, they measured her blood sugar and it was almost 300, so high, but not ridiculously out of control. That's good at least, that she is aware of the fluctuations in her body before they make her pass out.

I've been trying to give her some encouragement, but today I realized I might be coming across as a little bit of a Polyanna; that maybe my reassurances don't mean a lot to her and she just needs to come to terms with it on her own time. She has her doc appointment tomorrow. Hopefully getting some more information will make her feel empowered rather than further overwhelmed.