The damn 1%

I did my first exam for school... only took me a year! Well sorta, I did manage to do all the readings for 4 courses, only now getting around to doing the exams.

My first exam was OB - and I came out of it with 97%.... YAY for me. The only downfall is that I missed the A+ by a blasted 1%!!!

So now I`m psyched to do the other 3 exams, 2 next week.... hope I can keep this up so then I`ll have a super high GPA when I eventually go for my NP or bite the bullet and go for med school....

Tomorrow I`m day shift - UGH!!!! I`m just thankful that my two dayshifts are on the weekend so I don`t have to worry about tests and LOTS of Dr orders!!!

Girls night out

So about once a month (we'd probably do it more often but the other gals are too busy!) go out together and hang out. We've been doing it almost 2 years now. It all started because of a mom's group for our city that we all belong to. Each of us have at least one kid, my daughter is the youngest at 3 1/2 years and my GF Eva has the oldest, twins who are 7 (possibly 8) and the other 3 girls have kids in between those ages. None of us have kids that are the same age, which I think is amusing.

It's TONS of fun to hang out with these gals because NONE of us have the same career - Eva is a real estate agent, Nat works for Siemens as a money person (her role is confusing to say the least!), Maya is an assistant manager at a 4/5 star hotel in the big city, Shelley is a social worker and then you have me, the nurse. So ya, it's interesting when we all get together because you don't have anyone who has a similar job and therefore you don't have anyone making cliques or anything like that.

So whenever we get together, we usually start out with dinner at 7:30-8:00 and usually close the restaurant - midnightish.... but for the 2 years that we've been getting together, not ONE person has approached us with leaving, they usually leave us alone til we're ready to leave or we notice that they're waiting by their door, wanting to close the restaurant. LOL

So ya, I'm just a weeee bit excited to get together with my friends and catch up

What is society coming to?!

On our unit we have this patient who is super obese, like so far she has a bariatric bed and wheelchair! It doesn't help that this girlfell down stairs and can't move anything besides her head.

She's sooooo fat she takes 3-4 nurses to change her position!

She's soooo fat that even with that many nurses, 3 nurses on the unit are off work because they hurt their backs trying to change her position!

I know that society now a days is fatter than they have ever been, but is this the sign of what we're going to have to deal with everyday??? God help us and our backs!

I'm coming home

I came home today. It was SUPER sad to leave my son and my mom. I loved having the two weeks away but as always, it was nice to come home. The two weeks FLEW by (doesn't it always?!)

Tomorrow I'm back at the grind. I have to get back into super study mode. I'm set to do my exam for sunday. I have to work Thurs, Fri, Sat evenings. It's always interesting to see the unit after quite a bit of time off because there's hardly anyone there that was when you went off. You start back at the beginning.

Speaking of beginning, I am starting there again with my work outs. I'm going back to the gym starting tomorrow. As soon as hubby gets back from work, then I'll leave to go to the gym. I need to loose some of this weight that I have that's not very healthy. Ahhhhhh to have goals!!!

Home with Family

I've been away for almost 2 weeks. I've come to my hometown to hang with family and see my kiddo. I LOVED going out to the cottage and being able to fully relax, to go swimming, having a campfire and just being able to be with family and good friends.

I have been too relaxed, I haven't done much studying.... and when I get back home on Monday I have to begin testing out on my courses. First up is Nursing care for the childbearing family, and the other one is Mental health aspects of nursing practice. I have to study more for the OB one cuz let me tell you, there is a LOT of stuff covered in that course!!!

One of the good things about coming back is that I get to travel thru Michigan (in the US).... and get to do a TON of shopping!!! YAY SHOPPING!!! When I go back home I have to stop and shop again, I'm trying to find a nursing outfit that I like... I found the bottoms but the top I HAD found was sold by the time I got back to the store. AND my credit card was cancelled by the company I got it from because they thought there was fraudulent activity, ya it was me trying to use it on my vacation!!!! GRRRR Thankfully I have a back up CC cuz I would seriously be up a creek without a paddle!!!

My brother & SIL are pregnant right now - approx. 34 weeks. I'm so excited for them, they've had difficulty getting pregnant. They've been trying for 3 yrs now so it's nice to see that they're going to have a child. This sunday my mom's throwing a baby shower for them. My mom bought them a travel system (stroller & car seat together) that cost sooooo much money!!! When I was preggo with my daughter, she bought me one as well and a whole whack load of baby supplies. She didn't buy the other stuff for them so I hope that they don't complain. The reason why she didn't buy the other stuff was because my travel system cost half of what theirs does. Oh what ppl would assume when they don't know the details!!! Oh well, we shall see.

My bestie and I have been able to hang a whole bunch - LOVE HER! and last night we went to her mommie's house to grab some stuff out of her garden... so tonite I'm having fresh carrots and beets from their garden. OOOOOO I cannot wait, it's going to be so yummy! Maybe I'll have to get a few pictures to post for next time.

Am I losing my touch with humanity?

Lately on our unit we've had an increase in the amount of deaths. Now I understand that eveyone has to die, heck we don't live in the age of the bible/torah/quran and live to be 800 yrs+

That being said, we've also had people on our unit who are DNR (do not resuscitate) who I can't help myself in thinking that many of these people I would rather see die... but only because IMO they are suffering.

The last shift I worked was one such case - I had a patient who's not very old - I'd say youngish, on TPN (since like 2001/02), was severely emaciated, had several comorbidities and had been in and out of units (whenever he gets readmitted he gets put back on our unit for some reason - totally unrelated to the fact that our unit is for neuro pts) for like a year+.

During this last admittance, he suddenly started vomitting blood EVERYWHERE and had to have an emergency scope to have varices in his stomach banded/cauterized. When he returned back to us, he required like 6-10 units of blood, plasma, IV fluids, etc...

To see him, he was CLEARLY suffering - and I'm thankful that he passed because you could see that not only was he suffering, but so was his family.

Another pt we've had on our unit is an older patient who is also a DNR, tho has late stage dementia. She's been on our unit for several months I think and recently became a DNR, the family was in denial about her condition for so long. This woman moans CONSTANTLY, is completely delirious and is VERY difficult to take care of, emotionally and psychologically because there's nothing that we can do to settle her. Even super strong anti psychotics don't touch her. She's REALLY difficult to feed or get her to drink and therefore she's starving herself. At least with the DNR in place, we don't have to give her a feeding tube. I'm hoping that she's passed, her family is having such a hard time seeing her waste away, physically and psychologically. They cry almost every time they come to visit but know that a DNR is the best thing to do. Thank goodness!!!

We have another lady on our unit who's on restraints because she has a neuro disorder that causes these involuntary movements. Now, in our province, no LTC (long term care) facility will take a pt with restraints, and therefore must stay with us in the hospital. This family, tho will not make her a DNR. I don't understand why, or maybe the Dr hasn't talked/pushed the family into making her a DNR. It's not like this lady's condition is going to improve, it'll only get worse! It's a terminal disorder. And I certainly don't want to be pushing down on this lady's chest when the time comes that her brain is going to deteriorate to the point where she stops breathing and I have to call a code on her, because she isn't a DNR. SOOO frustrating. I am surprised tho that this family comes to the hospital DAILY - for lunch or for dinner and personally feed her. It astonishes me because you think that that would eventually fade.

My question to you folk out there.... have you ever thought about delaying calling a code on someone who should VERY obviously SHOULD be a code????

Family & School

So I know that I don't talk about school that often, it's just that I haven't been really motivated to get much of it done. Doing school work from a distance is tricky with ADHD, however, I've managed to get 4 courses read and notes done, now it's time to challenge exam them.

On Sunday, my daughter and I head up to my hometown to spend some time with family and darling son. I'm looking forward to it but also dreading it a bit. I've run into some drama which has made me dread going up....

My son will be 11 in November, the court agreement indicates that I get him for the summer. This year, though, his father manipulated him (IMO) and had him indicate to me that he only wanted to spend 4 weeks (out of 10) with me. I was hurt but I allowed this to occur. Especially considering his father said that I was abusing him (my son) by indicating that his decision hurt my feelings and that I didn't want it to occur.

I made plans to go to my hometown in like April, not that I told my son or his father any of this (non of their business IMO) for the end of August, because I was going to surprise kiddo with the trip to hang with Nana & Papa while he was still with me - but that got taken away from me.

Now under the court agreement, I'm supposed to get him for the entire time that I'm in my hometown but instead I have to give my son to his asshole father for 3 days - there's so much more drama besides this but whatever. I always have to give up time, it's frustrating and hurtful.

Another thing has to do with my bestie and my mom, if either came to my area, it would be expected that I take time off from my job in order to spend time with them, but the same thing isn't being done when I go to my hometown.

My bestie, I can sympathize with (even though it saddens me) because her job doesn't have enough nurses to accomodate her getting time off unless it's vacation (and even then she still has to fight them to have it), but with my mom there's really no reason.

She works at a grocery store and there's TONS of younger and less senior ppl under her that she can tell them she wants a couple of days off. It's not like my parents are hurting for money or anything. I even told my mom that it felt like I had to pay her to stay off from her work. My mom takes 4 wks of vacation during the summer - 2 wks to go to HER bestie's cottage and then 2 wks for all of her friends to go to HER cottage.... and I figured that I would come during the last half of her vacation so that I can see her friends and mom and then another week where her and I can hang out, without having her have to go to work. But this isn't the case. This has been this way my ENTIRE life, why would I expect anything different to happen? She told me like 2 months ago, that if I were to go up to my hometown, that she would take time off to spend with me... and then when I tell her that that's what I would like her to do, she tells me no way.

When I called her and cried because it was hurting my feelings so much, she FINALLY said that she would try to see what she could do.... I guess we'll see when I go up on Sunday.

I'm about to start my nursing courses for my pre-req to get into the program - I'm looking forward to going and spending some leisurely time, swimming and studying cuz when I return, I have to challenge four courses -
* Nursing care for the childbearing family
* Nursing care for the adult
* Nursing care for the child and family
* Nursing care for mental health (something like that)

While I'll be studying these, I also figure that I'll be studying to take my NCLEX-PN since I also have to take this when I return (probably at the end of September, beginning of October) seeing that I'm trying to get my license in Michigan in case we decide to move to the states.