The home again

Disorganization and wasted time reign at my clinical. We got an email at 5PM last night telling us to complete an online training and report to the clinic at 10AM for paperwork, ID cards, tours, etc. I wrote and complained about it, particularly not having more advanced notice, and our instructor lectured back via email about not putting things off and we should have known about the training from reading the 8-page email string, most of which had nothing to do with us, and closely reviewing every one of the 15 forms she sent, some of which weren't relevant.

So we show up and hand in our paperwork and sit in a room for an hour and a half while they type some sort of letter. Then we walked downstairs and stood in a filing room for another hour while, one by one, they photocopied all of our paperwork and kept the originals. Then we stood around for another 20 minutes while the instructor learned that the guy who does ID cards isn't even in today and we'll have to come back on Friday. Then we postpone the tour since we can't go to many places without our ID cards and have an extra hour to kill on Friday while we wait for the ID card guy to come in. So we returned home, 2 1/2 hours later, with copies of paperwork we completed a week ago.

Gerbers

A classmate described our lecture this morning as baby food. "Don't you feel like you're eating baby food?" And it's true. None of the content we've covered for any of the classes has been particularly difficult or challenging. Maybe it's because the courses are just starting; maybe the pace will pick up. But I'm doubtful.

I say bring on the baby food. Even that can make you choke when you have to take in gallons.

HS Library

Where do you meet guys in Seattle? N's strategy is hanging out in the Health Sciences Library. It's true that there are a lot of fairly attractive men around here. I scope every time I walk through the library and here's what I see: this guy's face is two inches away from a textbook. That guy's hand is on head and he's squinting at a journal article. The guy next to me is staring intently at a picture of a heart dissection on his computer screen. I'd love to see the pick-up lines used here since I'm not creative enough to come up with a good reason to interrupt the scholar at work.

No sweat

I bought a new bike this weekend - a commuter bike - which was a little spendy unless you calculate the cost the way my parents do which is by the number of hours I need to work to pay it off (10). Today was the virgin voyage to school I didn't even break a sweat! (At least, not until I carried my 20lb bag up 4 flights of stairs.) It was such a nice enjoyable bike ride compared to the beet-red, huffing and puffing, sweating by the bucketload nature of my earlier bike rides. Hurrah! My week is off to a great start.

Clinical lab

In clinicals today the focus was on changing beds and general hygiene issues. I'm finding a lot in nursing and the educational philosophy that I really respect in a way that I didn't expect to. We could have learned to make hospital corners (though there wasn't nearly the emphasis on that that I'd thought there would be) and give bed baths and shave and feed people grumbling about the servitude of it all or the gross tasks that nurses are assigned. But we didn't. Our lab instructor challenged us to really embrace these tasks and learn to do them well, since we only have five quarters to master these. She pointed out that the nurses should make the eating experience pleasant for the patients. Rather than shoving food down their throats, we should make sure the environment's comfortable and should chat with the patient and help them be as independent as possible while they ate. And the reason for the touchy-feely stuff isn't to take a break or to make them happy, but because it's conducive to healthful digestion and so on. Likewise with the bathing, it's not just a way to make the patient clean, but an opportunity to check the integrity of their skin and we should do things a certain way not just because it's efficient, but because it will improve the experience of the patient, protect their health, make them more comfortable, and so on.

So I bathed M and M and C bathed me. I changed a bed. Brushed C's teeth with a toothbrush and a toothette (a sponge on a stick, basically). It was nice that the toothbrushing happened after lunch, since I'd had the veggie gumbo soup. C did a nice job of cleaning my teeth. We have an assignment to shave and feed someone and a few of the classmates were taking care of this at lab. They were applying shaving cream to other girl's faces and using a razor (with cap still on) to scrape it off. I'm going to try to find someone with an electric razor to practice my shaving skills.

I think we're on to something with this personal hygeine stuff. We could all save some time and get a little extra practice if we just forgo hygeine at home and come to the lab each morning for bed baths and toothettes!

Itchy

I've developed a rash. It started in the center of my back and has spread to cover most of the upper portion just below where I can reach with my hand. It extends south to just above where I can reach. It's papular and itchy and I hope stress related.

I wanted to get it looked at, but didn't want to hassle with making an appointment or shelling out a copay, so when I had my second ppd done at Hall Health, I asked the IZ nurse if the rash could have been caused by the immunizations I got last week. Of course the answer was no, but she checked it out and said it might go away on its own, but if not I should get it looked at next week.

Day 2

Classes started yesterday and I feel alternatively relieved, overwhelmed, confused, competant, out of place, and so on. It's so strange to be a student again and feel like everything is new. My biggest challenge so far has been the logistics of it all - how do I get to school? Should I change out of my sweaty clothes? What books do I bring? What supplies do I need? Which bag shoudl I use? Use my highlighter or underline? What kind of snacks should I have? And so on. So I guess if those are my biggest worries, I'm doing okay.

In clinical lab yesterday we felt pulses and took bp's. When I first started feeling for anything but a radial pulse, I was lost - didn't know where to feel, what it should feel like. After an hour of feeling out pulses on myself and others, I already felt a lot more confident. It's going to be really important for me to be patient and ask questions and try things out - a lot - on my classmates when I learn new skills.

The content we're getting hasn't been all that deep - although it is the first day. It's just the amount that's crazy. For one 2-credit class, we have pre-lecture assignments, videos to watch on our own time, lab assignments, and exams all to keep track of. Yikes!

Biking to school's been interesting and another skill that I hope improves with time. I go along the Burke-Gilman and the ride's a nice way to start and end my academic day aside from the crowded trail, sweat, occasional traffic, and hills.

I've made about eight trips to the bookstore to buy textbooks and am now beginning to make trips to return things. The required student manual for pathophysiology wasn't so required after all and I somehow wound up with two pharmacology textbooks.

I also made the trek up to Schmitz today with much sense of deja vu. We used to hike over there at least twice a week when we lived in the dorms. It was always so daunting - the walk, the lines of students - but absolutely inevitable given that it's the source of financial aid, tuition payments, ID cards, etc. I passed on getting my ID today since there were about 100 students in line, so I guess I have another trek to look forward to.

Looks like it's going to rain and maybe even pour this afternoon, which should make the bike ride home a little more interesting. I forgot my rain jacket and only have a white t-shirt to wear...

The PMI

Our first day of classes, with Pathophysiology in the morning and clinical lab in the afternoon. In lab, we washed our hands after applying "glow germ" so that we could look under a black light at the spots we missed. I've heard of this being done by a lot of health departments, but hadn't ever gone through the exercise myself. I washed my hands well, and when I put them in the black light box I discovered my fingernails were positively radioactive. I'd already removed my rings. Now I have to cut my beautiful nails. How sad.

Last Friday we were given the lab syllabus, which noted that on our second day of lab, we all need to bring bathing suits because we're going to give each other bed baths. How awkward! I barely know these people; I'm not really ready for them to scrub my nether regions.

Today however, we were taking pulses. I had a difficult time at first, but after the second hour, I'm pretty confident that I at least know what I'm looking for, even if I can't always find it. One of the places we had to find was the PMI, or the point of maximal impact. This is the spot on the chest where the heart is closest to the chest wall and to find it, you have to count your way down the intercostal spaces and then move away from the midline. It just so happens that on women, the PMI is often behind/below the left breast. So today, I was moving around breasts - my own and my classmates - looking for this thing and it quickly lost it's weirdness. During breaks, it was common for one student to turn to another and say "can I find your PMI/brachial artery/etc." I guess the bath thing won't be that big a deal either.

T-661

After attending the first of two days of orientation to the program and the school I am terrified. All of the information and speakers that stood up before us said everything I've been preparing for two years for: difficult program, need to balance life, study groups, etc. I'd previously met a number of the students and faculty and the building certainly isn't new to me. The only unexpected thing in the room was my sudden fear at the amount of work, sacrifice, accountability, and stress that I've signed up for. Today the choice between career satisfaction/personal fulfillment and staying in my jammies til 11 am and taking B for a walk isn't looking quite so clear.

The scariest thing was that I was scared. I've approached this whole program with optimistic confidence and while it's going to be tough, is it going to be tougher than working my way to my BS? Or more challenging than the struggle to complete that master's thesis? Could it be more strenuous than 2 summers in Alaska? Require more of me than traveling alone in South America? Where did that confidence go?

I think the nerves were with me from the time I packed my lunch the night before until I returned home and collapsed on the couch for a two-hour nap, but the crescendo came when we were given a lecture about breathing. The speaker led us through a visualization exercise which had us viewing our lungs as they filled from the bottom up and then emptied from the top down. Our attention was then brought to our heart which was breathing in - what? the heart breathes? maybe not a good exercise for a room full of nursing students - and then we placed ourselves in our chair, in the building, in Seattle, in the States, on the planet and so on. It was in fact relaxing, but in all of my years of school, I've never had to be taught to breathe. This program's going to be tougher than I ever imagined.

The living room

In the mail today there were two postcards which reminded my brother and I to register for our high school reunion. I've already decided not to attend as there's no one I really knew in high school and I certainly wouldn't recognize anyone now. I called T to find out if I could recycle the card and he said "oh, right, it's our five-year, right?"

Hall Health

Quote from the IZ nurse's wall:

On the threshold of a noble career, the graduate nurse moves forward in a calling devoted to the service of humanity. Wherever she may serve, her uniform stands as a symbol of trained intelligence, her courage and loyalty inspire respect and confidence.

The B Wing

School is drawing nearer and suddenly I've got too many things to do in too little time. I had my bike tuned up and have taken it out on the Burke-Gilman a couple of times to make sure I remember how to ride. I bought a Nalgene bottle for my coffee (pink) and another for the water I'll schlep to school each day (green). I upgraded my cell plan and replaced my phone so that I can cancel my land line. And so on.

The other day I ran over to the Health Sciences building to pick up my scrubs. As I tried on a couple sizes, the Stores guy commiserated about the weird purple color ("you'll look like Barney"), but said that he heard from other students that we would only wear the scrubs for our clinicals at Childrens. I'm not sure what I'm more concerned about; wearing the purple scrubs each week or not wearing them on a clinical rotation. It's not like I'm less likely to get vomited or bled upon at Harborview or the U than at Childrens. It was exciting to be at Health Sciences again - there were people! In the halls! Waiting for the bus! Eating at the snack bar! I have definitely ruled out working alone at home again any time in the near future.

In other excited-to-go-back-to-school news, I bought my first textbook the other day and paged through "Fundamental Nursing Skills" before I went to bed. Hmm, chapter on venipuncture...chapter on changing a dressing...chapter on removing impacted stool from the rectum using your fingers. Aaaagh! I sincerely hope that the lab class that utilizes the textbook will take a more theoretical view. I heard one of the former students mention that they practiced brushing their classmates teeth. That's fine and all, but I sure hope that I don't have to be practice for most of the stuff described in that textbook.

Fremont too now

Yet another update on the coffee stand guy. I haven't been to Greenlake in a little while which is mostly due to being busy and a little due to my weird feeling of awkwardness when he's manning the stand. I like the anonymity and introspection that comes with a solitary walk around the lake. Interrupting my groove to talk with the CSG or just be watched and waved at isn't so fun. So it's stupid, because I could just talk to him or could just ignore him or a number of other things and reclaim my lake. But instead I've been walking other places lately.

One of those places is around Fremont. B and I had a nice ramble down Stone onto the Burke-Gilman, up through Fremont and around the school to the overpass. I spotted a dog in a yard and was trying to determine if it was leashed and whether its owners were anywhere around in case of some doggy shenanigans when I spotted the CSG standing outside the house with the dog. He waved, but by the time I figured out who it was I was past his house and not about to turn around for a little chat with him in his jammies and me without a bra. Crap! There's no chance that he didn't recognize me, or rather B. She's rather unique and I'd bet money that she gets recognized around town by folks way more than I am.