Update on first two weeks of nursing school

The first two weeks have been a little exhausting, but I think without the stress of everything that has been going on at my JOB lately I wouldn't be so overwhelmed. As it is though, managing both, I'm tired all of the time and in the last couple days have been pounded with a cold that stripped me of any remaining energy I had.

First of all, a word of advice for anyone reading this who is about to start nursing school: Do the first week's reading before school starts. Really. Even if you mostly learn by lecture, and have always done things differently in the past, just take my word for it. You'll be grateful you did.

I however, didn't, am at the end of week 2 and still not caught up. Thankfully I have only one day of class during the coming week and should be able to get my act together during that time.

I have had my first two clinical days now. It was in a long term care facility, and my assigned person to take care of was a very light load. She didn't need much assistance and I understood the health problems she had very well. If anything I think she was over-diagnosed, perhaps for funding reasons to make her able to stay there. They chart to highest level of care at the facility I was assigned to, which makes sense if you are trying to staff and run a place like that. I was struck by how meager the activity offerings are at such a place, which is privately owned but takes a lot of medicare people and is considered a medical facility, comparing it with my work which is mostly private pay and non-medical.

Last night, after my first two days of clinical, I had strange dreams about alien creatures that crawl up your anus and eat your rectum. Also, after having a morning phone call and then falling back asleep, dreamed of going through closets and closets full of someone's decades old hoarded clothing with my sister.

We've had two tests/quizzes so far. The first was about 60 questions, and you had to have 100% to pass it. It was basic math...fractions, decimals, rounding, etc. I caught one mistake on my second go through but it was 100% by the time I turned it in. Without knowing the actual figures, just listening to what my classmates are saying, about 1/3 will have to retake it, and the faculty planned for that. It's all too easy to miss one if your nervous. The second quiz was also on math, but dealt with conversions specifically related to medication. The main thing I didn't know for that was the old system of grains and drams. I studied up, was completely confident before and during the test, but somehow only got an 8/10. I wonder what I did wrong, but as one classmate put it, "it was probably something stupid and not worth our limited time to go back and track down the teacher about it."

Our exam next week is also in the pharmacology/math/medical data class. Between now (Friday afternoon) and the test (Tuesday morning) I'm going to focus mostly on catching up on reading/studying for that class, and some on prepping my research for my next clinical client. Oh, and the whole getting better from this miserable cold thing, I need to spend some time on that too. I'm also scheduled to work Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

Next post, immediately to follow, will be about everything that has been going down at my job.

One scary thing...

At the end of our all day skills day, our teachers sat the whole group down for a "serious talk" about the policies of the program. Most of it seemed pretty reasonable and manageable, like absence and tardy policies, etc. But many of us jumped when they outlined the policy on clinical practice plans.

They went into this long thing about how they are meant to help, not hurt. They will make us better nurses. Oh, I guess I should explain what it is first. If your clinical instructor notices that you are doing something wrong while out in a care setting, they will sit you down and you have to write up a plan together to work on making it better and eliminating the problem. That all sounds great. Maybe a little threatening just in that it's a criticism, but not a HUGE deal. And they say most of us will get one at some point, and probably more than one. Okay. I can cope with that. But then they say, oh, and by the way, every time you get one your grade drops by half a grade. So, say, if I have an A-, but then they notice that I forgot to wash my hands once in a situation where I should have, then B+. Ouch.

Makes me a little more nervous about going into the clinical arena with the instructor.

I've noticed in myself that in the first few days of school, I've been feeling kind of insecure, kind of shy. A little overwhelmed by everyone seeming to know my name and I haven't quite picked up theirs yet. A little self conscious when I ask a question that feels a little out of my league. Happy but suspicious that there's some negative connotation behind it when one of the other students teases me that I'm their class president (elections have not been held, and yeah, I've thought about it, but...).

Deep breaths. No biggy. This is going to be stretching my definition of who I am, but in good ways.

First few days of RN program

Monday: Arrive at 8am, sit through 6 1/2 hours of mostly lecture. Ask lots of questions and feel little timid about asking them because I don't know my teachers and classmates yet, not really. Feel completely awed by the first two professors I meet. Go to work immediately after school until 10:30pm, leave about an hour before shift end with my med tech partner's agreement, and crash HARD.

Tuesday: Arrive at 9am having slept like a brick the night before. Everyone is sitting in the same seats as yesterday. There are about 20 chapters of reading I was supposed to have done just for the first week, out of 16 or so different books, and feeling pretty overwhelmed by the quantity of information coming our way and being behind on the reading, but yet also thankful that I'm able to follow everything the teacher is saying so far, and that my most recent job has given me a lot of valuable experience that will help me in this first semester. Almost start crying during the portion of a lecture on therapeutic communication because I've just had a somewhat traumatic experience (for both me and the resident) two nights ago at work that is still lingering in my mind). Even more awed by the teachers today than the ones from yesterday. Especially one of them. I contemplate the fact that I never really admired my science professors as much as I do these nurses I've just barely met. Knowledgeable, wise, and so very intelligent, both academically and emotionally/socially.

Get to go home early that afternoon, around 1:30. Need to tune my brain out for a bit, so put on some TV and end up watching it longer than intended just because it feels so good to let go of that brain overload feeling for a few hours.

Get myself back on track, do a review of some math that's going to be on a test tomorrow (already!) to make sure I remember how roman numerals work and can do all types of fraction math with speed, briefly consider watching the videos about basic bedside care that I'm supposed to watch for tomorrow's skills day, but decide sleep is more important. Then have a fitful night's sleep.

Wednesday: Arrive on campus at 7:30am to the skills lab for an all day basic care activity nicknamed "CNA in a day". Realize that although I have been working in an RCFE (residential care facility for the elderly) for the last 8 months, I don't have a lot of the skills that are considered basic in a long term care facility, like giving a bed bath, sitting a bed bound patient on a commode, taking blood pressures the old fashioned way, brushing a patient's teeth for them or shaving their face, etc.

Tomorrow, Thursday, I'll be going to my first clinical site for orientation with my clinical instructor. My clinical instructor just got hired two days ago, and I'm a little wary of that fact. She will be shadowing another more experienced instructor while teaching us. She seems nice enough so far though.

Should I know already?

I have 2 weeks to go until nursing school starts, and I have to say that lately I've been feeling self conscious when people ask me what *kind* of nurse I want to be, and I really don't have an answer.

My plan has just been to get a wide variety of experiences during the clinical rotations that are a part of my school program, and at graduation time, go with my gut, or alternatively, where the jobs are. I don't feel like I know enough yet to be able to say, "OH, well, I'm going to be a pediatric nurse, definitely."

I currently work with seniors, and I like them, and they me, but I don't know that that's where I want to specialize long term. I could see myself moving around a lot within the nursing field to keep learning and growing. Or working on a unit that sees a really wide variety of patients. Or, hey, maybe I'll find myself just completely enchanted with something I have no experience with yet.

I have a friend who is a surgical nurse, and she loves it. A friend of that friend, also a surgical nurse, told me that she liked it because the patients are mostly asleep! Oh, and it pays well. But you have to be very, very good at getting along with doctors.

I am pretty sure that I do not want to work in a prison, or the state mental hospital. I want to be able to feel safe with my patients, for the post part.

I was reminded of my indecision again when one of the school staff was talking about helping us write our personal statements. And I was thinking, gosh, I bet they want you to say what area of nursing you are most interested in there, too.

In a scholarship application I recently turned in, I'll admit I catered to what I thought the scholarship provider would want me to say. It was a conglomerate that owns several senior care centers in the community. I expressed in my essay answers that I enjoyed working with seniors, and hoped to continue that. That's true, in a sense, but I don't know that I want that to be my entire job.

So, for now, the jury's out. One of the things that appealed to me when I was first starting to look into nursing as a career was that once you were "in the club" with that RN, you had A LOT of options, and you could move around, too, you weren't stuck where you started. Am I just rationalizing my indecision?

Betrayed by the financial aid office!

I found out today at a pre-school year test-taking skills seminar that I could have put in an application for a whole bunch of school based scholarships that I was aware of, but had been told by the financial aid office I was ineligible for due to already having a degree. I feel so betrayed. I would be eligible up the wahoo based on financial need as well as past educational performance. DARN. Next year I'll know better.

Note to self and other future healthcare workers

When I am a patient, and I am lying on my back with nothing on but a gown, two people staring at my vag, and one of them is a young man-doctor with a scalpel in his hand, the last thing I want to hear is, "Whoah, that's weird!" I finally had a much procrastinated boil lancing done in my pubic area this afternoon. It turned out that I couldn't bring myself to say anything to my regular physician (a 70 year old man) about it, so I opted to go to my local med stop, because, well, it felt more anonymous? I don't know. I've had the issue for two years and it's recently gotten worse; plus it looked kind of yuck and with me contemplating taking a new lover (not something I usually post about here!) I decided I need to get it taken care of. The "oh weird" they were exclaiming about was that I had a lipoma (fatty tumor) inside said boil, and that might have been what caused the initial irritation. At various other points during the procedure there were comments like "Oh, my fiance gets boils all the time, especially when she travels." And, "That's too scattered, that's more something for a general surgeon." Oh, and my favorite, "I can't wait to see the new men in black movie!" Again, not something I want to hear right at that moment.

The financial reality of returning to school

A couple of updates: I have my phlebotomy license now (but I'm not using it at the moment). My nursing school orientation is coming up in a couple of weeks. I finally, finally, finally have health insurance again...okay, so the card hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I'm covered as of a week ago.

Nursing school is getting closer and I am getting more nervous about money. I have been working hard on shrinking my debt. I had about 6,000 in debt at its highest point in the last year. All on 0% apr credit cards, thank goodness, but it was still weighing on my mind. It's hard to get back on track when you only make $11 an hour, and medical bills come up, and taxes have to be paid, and the car needs new tires. I'm down to about 2,000 and if I keep being very careful that will all be paid off by August. But there really isn't any extra to set aside *for* school.

I think part of my worry is all of the unknowns. Will my low income fee waiver come through again (I need to do the FAFSA to find out)? Will I be able to keep working at least 4 days a week to keep my health insurance at least partly covered by work? My dad agreed to loan me some money (LOAN, with interest), but how exactly is that going to work, and will it be awkward and difficult? What will I do if/when unplanned for expenses come up during school? How much can I realistically work while I'm in the program without running myself into the ground? There needs to be time for laundry and paying bills and doing dishes and cooking, not to mention a small amount of just "down" time to keep my sanity.

Even though I've had these concerns weighing on my mind I haven't done a lot to remedy them since I got the hospital scholarship. I need to be applying for more scholarships, and go ahead and fill out that fafsa, even if I'm worried the answer might be no. I also need to stop freaking out about it, because that doesn't help anything. I will know more after my orientation meeting in a couple of weeks and then I can just continue to approach things rationally and one at a time. Deep breaths!