Still alive and lots to say...

I know I'm due for a good posting, but I've got two days left of Bible study that needs to be done before this evening, nursing objectives that need to be written and submitted to the Ndola School of Nursing (that's in Zambia and they're academically adopting me and another student while we're there!) and I need to purchase travel insurance for myself and the Tall One for the Zambia trip.  All in my only weekday off.  I'm swamped.

However!  My first extern day was incredible.  While overall very uneventful and quite possibly my most mundane med/surg day ever, there were some events which I will address in an upcoming post.  But here are the highlights:

- 1 of our 3 patients going into liver/kidney failure before our eyes with a blood potassium level of 6.7.  Google the normal range for that and you'll see why we were freaking out.  We had her in ICU within 15min and to be honest, the outlook is not positive.  Quite sad.

- An elderly lady with a tib/fib repair that only knows the #10 when it comes to her pain level on a scale of 1-10.  She was getting morphine every two hours on the dot.  

- Some old, old guy coming into the hospital on a tiny motorized bike (like this) and whizzing around the halls on it.  And into the nurses station.  In a bright orange windbreaker, blue blocker sunglasses and a HUGE bike helmet.  It was clearly the awesomest part of my afternoon.

Things are good.  Bummer Vacation has returned to Summer Vacation (that's right, SV08) so I'm downright happy.  

Parting note: I know I'm getting old when I'm accepting the fact that I just don't like beach bonfires like I used to because I HATE smelling like a campfire afterwards.  Me and all my clothing AND my purse AND my water bottle.  Didn't know plastic could take on the smell of a bonfire did you?  Well mine did and it was nasty.  Hickory smoked water bottle.  Yuk.