As of 1:53 this afternoon exams are over and I am officially finished with my first semester of nursing school! So that's one semester down & four to go! (spring, summer, fall, and spring again)
1st day in the uniform, including no makeup since I was headed to a bathing lab :) Fun day!
The past sixteen weeks have completely changed my life! Nursing is becoming part of who I am & another lense that I view the world through.
First day wearing the stethoscope
Its hard to believe that it was only this summer that I was anxiously waiting to begin this journey. And now I've spent eight weeks in a nursing home and then eight weeks working at the hospital.
and loved every.single.minute!
My clinical group. These guys were awesome!
I'm off for the next three weeks and so happy for a break!
Although, come January I will definitely be ready to get back to the grind of exams and hospital visits!
I've been sitting in lots of orientation classes and it all seems kind of surreal!
Two yearsago, I was just beginning my college education & itching to get to the "real" nursing stuff
Two yearsfrom now, I will graduate
right now, I'm beginning that journey of becoming a nurse
I'm learning to listen to patients, calculate dosages, start an IV, assess progress, be compassionate, and all of the other things that makes a person a nurse
This video was part of a tutorial I had to watch for pharmacology last night -
I awoke this morning before dawn and really wanted to go back to sleep. Five AM came early and I had to partially drag myself out of bed. But then I remembered what I was supposed to do today: I was to observe at the Surgery center with Marci! I quickly snapped awake and rolled out of bed. Once I'm awake there's something I love about pre-dawn mornings especially when I have a reason to be up early: The stillness, the darkness, the quiet, and the undisturb-ness...
I finished my morning routine and drove to the surgery center ... I love my small town where I can drive around at 6:15 and find very few cars on the roads! I quickly changed into scrubs and a hairnet. And the day was off to a start ... Marci showed me around the OR and walked me through her pre-op routine. Before I knew it the first patient was lying on the table and the real fun began! Nothing about this little guy proved to be easy or "normal." Many tries later, they finally got an IV placed! I was able to see the tiny tubes in his eardrums thanks to a high-tech microscope and a kind doctor who let me peer over his shoulder while he worked! The next patient was a cute little girl who needed her adenoids removed. Thankfully her case proceeded quite smoothly and she was out of the OR in about 14 minutes! And I had a birds eye view for the whole procedure! It was pretty awesome! I observed another ENT surgery before watching a pre-op for a shoulder. A colonoscopy was next up on the agenda and I had the opportunity to observe two of those: one bad case and one "normal" case. Let's just say that a colonoscopy is just plain gross!! It was kinda neat to see, but certainly not something I want to willingly do again! Yuck!! I finished out the morning by watching an orthopaedic elbow surgery, as well as, the shoulder from earlier that morning. Both were pretty cool considering they were sterile and required me to wear a mask in the OR! Yes, I'm a new nursing student who still thinks wearing a mask and hairnet is pretty awesome!!
After today, I have so much to think about in terms of where I want to go with my nursing career!! I'm excited to see where God leads me in the months and years ahead! And I'm pretty sure today was the start of a whole new life in the medical field!!
