Foiled by fire
Well, nursing school got the boot today. What should've been an uplifting 5-hr lecture about end-of-life care (complete with a movie that had the entire class weeping), was cut short when it was determined that the air quality at Saddleback was deemed too high a risk for the health of its staff and students. One of my friends drove 7 HOURS from Oceanside to try and make it for the rest of that lecture and then our Gerontology class tonight. She was in class a grand total of 15 minutes before they canceled class. AWESOME!!! While driving home from school and noting how bad the air quality was, I lost yet another battle in the War of Motivation To Study and checked the surf. Waist high, glassy and only 5 people out at Doheny.. WHAAAAT?!? What's that, ash falling from the sky? Pfffff! So, I surfed. And it was a blast. And I coughed for about an hour afterwards. The entire ocean surface was littered with teensy pieces of burned particles. On my way home, I took this picture from Pines Park on Camino Capistrano. Check that air quality... breathe deep!!!!
No, I'm not a nursing school dropout
The only current reader of my blog has asked if I've dropped out of nursing school because there has been no action on the blog. Never fear, I'm still a student. It's just how I said to another friend though, I'm still not so sure people really want to hear me rant, describe disgusting experiences or listen to me whine. Consider yourself warned. And do you like that I write this as if I have a grand audience, when really it's a grand total of 1?
School has been great, I'm entering the last week of my first nursing class. One down, FIVE more to go!! I think I just depressed myself, so I'll try to forget that. Anyway, I took my last quiz last Wednesday, I turned in my semester project that day as well and now I take my final on Tues, Oct. 30. It's nice having an "A", it means I can semi-tank the final and still pass. Always a comfort. I did pick up a new class this past week. Gerontology 101. It's my first ever 101 class in my college career. I hear it's great, the professor is a kick in the pants. She's this short, crazy haired Chinese-born woman that spent the majority of her time in Boston and New York, she talks loud, has a really dry sense of humor and constantly looks like she's scowling. The only bummer in the class is that all the "gunners" from my Pharmacology class the night before are now with me on Wed. nights. Shoot me!!!! This week, I get to sit through a 5-hour lecture on end-of-life care and then endure 3 hours of bright-eyed and bushy tailed, rose-glasses wearing, pseudo-intellectual gunners who think that we all care what they have to say? About every topic? Besides that, the PST factor for this class is off the charts. PST stands for Personal Story Time, and gunners are notorious for this. Do I care that your aunt's second cousin (twice removed) takes nitroglycerine and is your role model for how you want to grow old? NOOOOO!!! Do I care more that my butt is starting to go numb from sitting in lecture for 8 hours in one day? YES! Whatever, more on gunners in my next post. And PST sometime after that.
In an effort to not sound like a total antisocial jerk that dislikes 80% of her classmates, I'll end on a good story that sums up why I'm doing all this. Two weeks ago, I got to care for a 69 y/o man who is just sicker than sick. He's been in the hospital since the end of September and bounces back and forth between ICU and the Med/Surg floor. Anyway, I got to know his family and talk to them. They were very encouraging, thanked me for my hard work and told me that I'm going to be a great nurse. I noticed that the wife was reading the Bible and we talked about Isaiah, King Hezekiah, pretty random. A week later I was in the hospital again for my clinical class and while walking back from the lab I saw the wife again. I hadn't seen his name on the pt. board but I knew he was too sick to go home so I had hoped he was in ICU. She confirmed that he had gone back to ICU and had almost died earlier that week. He beat the odds and had recovered! But beyond checking up on him, I got the sit with the wife and ask her how SHE was coping with everything. She was so inspiring- she just said the Lord is good and He's keeping her going. Her husband is so ill, and yet she's still praising the goodness of God. Anyway, I think about them often. And this is why I'm doing this, so I can care for people when they're in the best or worst health of their life AND walk with the families. Sometimes the family members need a little bit of TLC too.
School has been great, I'm entering the last week of my first nursing class. One down, FIVE more to go!! I think I just depressed myself, so I'll try to forget that. Anyway, I took my last quiz last Wednesday, I turned in my semester project that day as well and now I take my final on Tues, Oct. 30. It's nice having an "A", it means I can semi-tank the final and still pass. Always a comfort. I did pick up a new class this past week. Gerontology 101. It's my first ever 101 class in my college career. I hear it's great, the professor is a kick in the pants. She's this short, crazy haired Chinese-born woman that spent the majority of her time in Boston and New York, she talks loud, has a really dry sense of humor and constantly looks like she's scowling. The only bummer in the class is that all the "gunners" from my Pharmacology class the night before are now with me on Wed. nights. Shoot me!!!! This week, I get to sit through a 5-hour lecture on end-of-life care and then endure 3 hours of bright-eyed and bushy tailed, rose-glasses wearing, pseudo-intellectual gunners who think that we all care what they have to say? About every topic? Besides that, the PST factor for this class is off the charts. PST stands for Personal Story Time, and gunners are notorious for this. Do I care that your aunt's second cousin (twice removed) takes nitroglycerine and is your role model for how you want to grow old? NOOOOO!!! Do I care more that my butt is starting to go numb from sitting in lecture for 8 hours in one day? YES! Whatever, more on gunners in my next post. And PST sometime after that.
In an effort to not sound like a total antisocial jerk that dislikes 80% of her classmates, I'll end on a good story that sums up why I'm doing all this. Two weeks ago, I got to care for a 69 y/o man who is just sicker than sick. He's been in the hospital since the end of September and bounces back and forth between ICU and the Med/Surg floor. Anyway, I got to know his family and talk to them. They were very encouraging, thanked me for my hard work and told me that I'm going to be a great nurse. I noticed that the wife was reading the Bible and we talked about Isaiah, King Hezekiah, pretty random. A week later I was in the hospital again for my clinical class and while walking back from the lab I saw the wife again. I hadn't seen his name on the pt. board but I knew he was too sick to go home so I had hoped he was in ICU. She confirmed that he had gone back to ICU and had almost died earlier that week. He beat the odds and had recovered! But beyond checking up on him, I got the sit with the wife and ask her how SHE was coping with everything. She was so inspiring- she just said the Lord is good and He's keeping her going. Her husband is so ill, and yet she's still praising the goodness of God. Anyway, I think about them often. And this is why I'm doing this, so I can care for people when they're in the best or worst health of their life AND walk with the families. Sometimes the family members need a little bit of TLC too.
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