Large Cup o' Joe...Sorta

I am serenely sitting here enjoying my peace and quiet away from school. I don't have to go back for 16 days and 9 hours. I have a cup of tea, television, and no desire to do homework whatsoever. Thank you very much. That doesn't mean I don't have any, it just means that I don't have any desire. You see, desire, also known as motivation, is the key to getting things done. The only thing I want done right now is this blog post.

But, I digress.

As a general rule, when someone is in the hospital you keep track of their I&O, or Input & Output. That means you write down everything they drink, in mL, and everything they put out, in mL. Except for poo, that comes in S, M, L, and XL, and how many a day. We were taught fairly early on in the semester about I&O and what to do to keep track of our patient's "business." However, I guess some of us should have listened a little better, because damn this is the grossest thing I have ever heard of one of our students doing.

You see, a bedpan is a magical thing. It is a great item when used correctly. It has little notches on it to measure urine. URINE PEOPLE. PEE. U-R-I-N-E. Not poop. NO MEASURING OF THE POO. I came upon the occurence of one of my fellow classmates, what seemed like a girl elbow deep in sh*t. I guess she missed the part about S, M, L, or XL. From the looks of what she was packing into this measuring cup, I think that an XXL distinction needs to be added to the list. That girl was just scooping, pouring, tapping, mashing, and packing away. It was all over her gloves, the patient was staring, and frankly, I think the relative was going to throw up (Luckily we don't have to measure anyone's I&O's but the patient's.) She looked like a kid in a sandbox. After I stopped laughing out in the hall, I let our instructor know so that she could fill the girl in. Let's just say, when lunch came, I saw that lady wash her hands 293482093 times before she ate.

Breakfast Time!

One of the many things that first semester students get to do at clinicals is pass out food trays when they come up from the kitchen. You know, the delightful buffet of homogeneous, artificially colored nutritious "food" that the patients get to eat and enjoy("eat" and "enjoy" are loose terms) three times a day, that stuff. My clinical group had just arrived on the floor that day when the tray cart arrived. My fellow class mate dutifully began passing out trays, going from room to room. A few moments later, I saw her pull my instructor (From here on out known as "Mrs. Wonderful" because she is amazing) aside, and this a paraphrased conversation that I overheard:

Student: Mrs. Wonderful, I dropped that tray off in room XXX and a sheet was over the patient's head, and they looked asleep, should I pull the sheet down and turn the lights on and prepare the tray, or should I let them sleep?

Mrs. Wonderful: There was a sheet over their head? Was there family in the room?

Student: Yes ma'am. One of them looked really upset.

Mrs. Wonderful: Umm...they're dead hon.

Student: Huh?

Mrs. Wonderful: Dead! When someone passes, they pull the sheet over their head. You just served food to a dead person. Ha! (Insert lots of laughter)

In the student's defense, she did recover well from it. She went back into the room and explained that she had brought the food in there in case any of the family had wanted to eat or have a snack. Meanwhile, our instructor had to step out of the hallway into the break room to finish laughing.

Finals!

My poor cats haven't seen me two weeks, my boyfriend has reported me missing, and I am beginning to question my own identity, but finals are finally over. I came out on the other side of the hell that is the last three days of my life, and I am generally unscathed. With the amount of money I have spent on Red Bull, coffee and lattes in the last two weeks, I could have bought my cats a small palace to live in and a life's supply of catnip. I studied, copied, pasted, flash carded, typed, read, re-read, highlighted, sorted, printed, stapled, read, read, read, did I mention read? until my eyes and hand have fallen apart. Apparently, eyeballs and fingers of exhausted nursing students make great cat toys. At least that's what they tell me. Whatever I did, I did alright because I passed, I have a 3.11 GPA and I get to continue on the program. That is all that matters. At least at this point.

Now, where's my bed?

Something I believe in

Head to Toe Examination

We had head to toe examinations today. Attilla the Nurse was my teacher. I went in quaking in fear. Head to Toe examinations is where you perform an examination in 20 minutes on someone. There is this three page check list of stuff that you have to know, and you do it. She fired questions at me, and I answered them correctly. 55 out of 56. Ha! I win! Yay me. I defeated Attilla the Nurse! It's amazing! Maybe she isn't that bad...

Success! Someone give me a cookie.

Success! Black Monday went by with only one student (not me) absolving into tears, and two B's for me. Attila The Nurse made a student cry on Monday, but the student was unprepared. She deserved to have her soul crushed. Not really. Come on though. Be prepared for anything! Dangers at every corner! Knives! Guns! Brass Knuckles! GANGS! BLOOD! GORE! Someone give me a Xanax, I'm yelling again. Now I just have three final exams, a head to toe assessment in twenty minutes or less, HESI (Have no clue what that stands for, apparently it's brutal though.) and one more clinical. The clinical is in the morning, only 1 hour and 30 minutes away! At 6:30 am! Fun! Excitement! Thrilling! 3:00 am Wake Up Alarm! No Payments until 2010!!!

What's with all the exclamation points? I don't understand. Maybe I should be writing advertising for car commercials instead of being in nursing school. Perhaps if you are lucky, I will serve you up some adventure tomorrow. Right now I have to feed the cats before they kill me in my sleep.