Learning Lessons

Oh herroo,
Maybe I am a new blogger but it seems to me that writing a post everyday takes a little practice, I seem to crave it almost when I am going through something but on an everyday basis I definitely have to work on that. I have decided that I am going to be 100% honest on this blog about my life, school and everything that goes along with it – I am writing this blog to be cathartic for me and no one else.
This past weekend I went to Krelly’s sister’s wedding and had a blast but unfortunately drank a little too much. I have never been much of a partier but recently when I have gone out if I have more than one drink I tend to get a little out of control. This past winter I decided to stop drinking and was successful until my 21st birthday – and again got a little out of control. My family has a strong history of alcoholism and at this point I do not believe I am an alcoholic but I would rather stop drinking now as I do have the potential to develop a problem. It is kind of scary to admit that you have the potential to have a problem, I don’t drink on a daily basis and sometimes not even on weekly basis but when I have gone out recently it has not been pretty. Luckily my boyfriend is wonderful and supports me whatever I choose to do and right now the support is what I need.
I woke up this morning with tears in my eyes because I am ashamed of my behavior, i didn’t do anything terrible or hurt anyone but I feel as though being that drunk is just unacceptable and shameful. I am better than that and I need to treat myself better than that, I am worth more than being sloppy and my body deserves to be taken better care of. I am thinking about going to an AA meeting today, we’ll see.

First clinical days..

So I originally started this blog as a sort of journal to help me stay healthy and active during the craziness of nursing school – well after having gone through the first half of the semester (where did time go!?) I believe it has shifted more from healthy living in to my reflections and experience as a student nurse. I don’t really post often, I should probably get more in the habit of doing it regularly…just thought it would be a good place to process everything, writing it down seems to be therapeutic for me.

So now on to the first few days on the floor…
I am on a med-surg floor which is pretty intense. The RN’s have only four patients each and most are usually pretty heavy ones. My first morning on the floor I was scared poop-less…luckily my clinical classmates are wonderful so we were all venting together which definitely helped. My first EVER patient was morbidly obese and didn’t speak english – definitely a great learning experience. He was lucid but would get very frustrated with the communication barrier, I tried my best and tried to understand what he was trying to convey but it was really my best guess. Having a patient who was so morbidly obese was a huge job for everyone on my clinical shift, it took almost all of us (7) in order to bathe him and lift him to use a bedpan. It was really astonishing to me to see what happens to the human body when it is abused or neglected for so many years, at the same time it is incredible how resilient the body is – this person was still alive even though he had put his body through so much. If there was ever an example of what preventative care or health education could prevent it was this patient. It was almost like seeing a drug addict being enabled by the people in his life, like a LIFE intervention was needed. I know as nurses we are NOT supposed to judge but this was a huge test of my emerging professionalism. As a person who takes health seriously I could never imagine letting myself get to a point where 7 people would have to bathe me, I guess never say never but I just felt for this patient, it was a wake up call. I left clinical that day exhausted and a little defeated, although my instructor told me I did a good job I still felt as though I had NO IDEA what I was doing.
Yesterdays clinical was SO much better than the previous week. I learned how to remove a foley, rectal catheter and check blood sugar, I know it’s not fancy or hard but it is something I learned and now I feel confident in it. Tuesday morning I felt confident walking in to the hospital, I felt as though I had a a good handle on my tasks for the day and how to safely provide care and comfort to my patient. Although my nursing knowledge is still VERY limited I believe I was able to provide care that the RN (who is a new grad of my school and is wonderful) would have been too busy to provide, like a REAL bath (not one with the XL baby wipes). My professor told me the “little things” really make a difference to a patient, like getting a good bath with warm water, and that was my goal for the day. I left the floor feeling great and confident – is it weird I can’t wait for next week to be up on the floor again?

Love long weekends!

The weather has been so incredibly beautiful in New England the past couple days! It has been 75-80 degrees and no humidity – does it get better than that? I think not!! The incredible weather has lent itself to getting in some pretty fun workouts. On Saturday I ran hill sprints up a hill about a block from our apartment, if you’ve never done them get out and do them now they are a KILLER work out! Also got in a quick lifting session but to be honest have mostly just been enjoying the weather and time with Krelly.

Since we had school off on Monday I only had class all day Tuesday but trust me, my teacher crammed more than possible in to that one day. We are learning how to do vital signs, communicate effectively with our patients and other fundamental skills. I am truely enjoying class but the amount of information is unbelievable – the hardest part is weeding through what information is pertinent and what is not. Any nursing students of RN’s out there with advice feel free to comment! Would love any and all tips!

I’ve really been making an effort to ‘eat clean’ and work out – I’ve had a little bit of a belly most of my life that i’m self conscious about so I figured it was about time to just do something about it. Krelly and I are really trying to support each other getting to the gym and keeping our diet together, the team mate thing definitely helps.

I didn’t take pictures of my eats from the past few days but they looked pretty much like this:

A small Cold Stone Creamery ice cream might have snuck in there too – I usually have one on Sunday afternoon to dull the Monday blues….

The kitties are enjoying having all the windows open – we all know how interesting it is to ‘hunt’ birds through a screen.

Here we go..

The first week of NUR 101 is DONE! Well class is at least – now the real work begins. There was so much information given to us the past few days that I’m planning on spending a majority of the morning today just attempting to get organized.

The reading of class seems to be so much more interesting and easier to grasp than in A&P – so far, it seems to be more common sense and critical thinking. A&P was memorization and spit back for tests, as much as I studied for all the different units in anatomy I really couldn’t tell you all the muscles of the quad anymore….hmm hopefully I won’t need that (just kidding)

I have a hair appointment this morning and I am definitely bringing my Fundamentals of Nursing book to try to get a hold of some of this reading (all TWELVE chapters by Tuesday).

Now that school is in session, assignments are coming fast and I think the key to keeping stress down is ORGANIZATION! Thank goodness for KERF and her Nerd Kerf videos – she is the best google tutor! The google calendar has so many features and cool little tricks that I *HOPE* will keep me organized.

On to some eats -

I really have been trying to eat as ‘clean’ as possible – a lot of chicken, whole grains, veggies – ya know the GOOD stuff! I strongly believe that you are what you eat and your body deserves the best, it’s the only one you’ve got! I’ve always tried to eat clean but recently have REALLY been attempting to clean up the little things in my diet, you know that extra ice cream or stealing a few fries off someone’s plate..that kind of stuff.

Tomorrow I will have some pictures of food – today wasn’t exactly documentable, didn’t eat every few hours, ate random, boring things blah blah blah – I’ll be back tomorrow with some entertainment.

Dog Days of August

Ever look at your pup or maybe a friends and think, “Geez, wish I could die and come back as that dog!” Story of my life this week! I’ve been babysitting my Grandma’s Bichon-Poo (yes, a trendy designer dog ) who decided he needed a little early morning action and proceeded to make out with my ears at 4:30 AM until I kicked him out of the room, felt guilty and dragged my butt out of bed. The one good thing about getting up literally at the crack of dawn is you get to see the EARLY, early morning news, whoo hoo! Oh yeah, and the excuse to drink copious amounts of coffee and not feel guilty – hey its gonna be a long day starting at five right?

On to the food portion…..

Breakfast was three egg whites scrambled with salt, pepper and a little onion powder (Sorry Kath!) on some toasted multi-grain bread.

I also had a few too many cups of coffee – was VERY ready to take my ear casanova for a walk with my parents two dogs.

The walk was hot, HUMID and sweaty – it felt great though. I think it is so important to get moving every day, even if its not an intense, balls-to-the-wall work out it is so beneficial to your mental and emotional well being to just get moving!

I came home and had some water and a small bowl of red rice with a few craisins mixed in – love the mix of sweet and savory!

I had to do some online homework today so that took up most of my morning along with a few potty trips outside for the little guy above. Lunch was kind of a hodge-podge of different stuff found in my Grandma’s fridge – normally I would like something green but I’m saving that for dinner tonight…

It was an easy stir-fry of sorts with frozen corn, half a red pepper, tofu, soy sauce and some sesame seeds on top. It reminded me of much I love stir frys and how easy they are – must make more!

While on the walk I got to thinking, last night I was on operationbeautiful.com because I caught myself standing in the mirror examining some parts of my body that aren’t my favorite and was like “what am I thinking!? this is ridiculous.” Recently I have been thinking and kind of coming to an epiphany of how important it is to love your own body. YOUR body is the only one you have and we should have respect and love for ourselves. Think about it, would you advise your best friend to crash diet and go on some crazy work out regimen? No, you definitely wouldn’t, you would try to give your friend the best advice you could, so why not do that for yourself?

Has something similar happened to you?

Whats your favorite stir-fry recipe?

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