um, I stand by my post from the 18th...... that is all.

BUT, I do love my friends for coming to our party, which may or may not have involved flip cup and keg stands... :) Fun times and a whole lot of drunkenness. :)

longest week EVER.

This has been my past week:

Thursday: 8-hour EKG class
Friday: 8-hour new grad class
Saturday: 12-hour night shift
Sunday: 12-hour night shift
Monday: fake day off
Tuesday: 8-hour day shift (during which I stayed an extra hour)
Wednesday: 12-hour day shift
Thursday: 8-hour EKG class
Friday: 8-hour day shift.

whew. Working 8 out of 9 days and finding time in between to study is exhausting. Especially when your 1 day off is a fake day off because its spent trying to normalize your sleep schedule. Thank goodness tomorrow is my last day and the start of the weekend!! :) Party on Saturday!! SO excited!

SVTs, PVCs, PEAs, oh my!

Hey, remember that time I graduated from school and thought I was done with homework, studying, and tests? Apparently it was all a lie. :-p

I had my first of 2 EKG classes today, which was actually really interesting. I would love to know all about it and be able to just glance at a strip and know whats going on, but reading EKGs is hard! I'm so overwhelmed with information. I really want to get good at all this stuff so I'm determined to learn it, but its so confusing. All the different rhythms start to look the same and blend together and its difficult to differentiate.

So, if anyone has any tricks to remembering all the different rhythms feel free to fill me in! Siiigh, back to studying...

Clarification

This is primarily for Danielle. :)

My previous post was not about you and your crazy busy schedule and inability to come to our party. I promise. I know what its like to juggle a full time school schedule, part time work schedule, and move into a new place. Hats off to you! :) Although, I am very sad I wont get to see you.

Nor was the post about anyone specific (and especially not anyone who actually reads this blog). :) It was just a general sentiment about plans falling through and my crazy obsessive Type A personality. :-p

Type A-ness

If you know me, you know I can be very Type A at times. I like to be organized and have a plan. Obviously there are times when I prefer to play it by ear like when deciding "what am I gonna do on my day off" or "hmm, which bars should we go to tonight?" But when I already have a set plan, and I've made adjustments to fit that plan I prefer to stick to it. Of course, you learn that in life things dont always go smoothly. I get reminded of that every day at work. When your patients' days can turn at the drop of a hat and when you have doctors telling you to do stuff in addition to the million things you already had written on your To-Do list, you get really good at adjusting your schedule and constantly reorganizing your day. But that is work life. And I always come into work knowing that my day will never go exactly as I plan for it to.

My home life and things like making plans with friends are a little different. I dont like when people flake. And I especially dont like it when I predict they'll flake. Its disappointing.

mreh.

Today was a little busy... and totally scattered. I've been working and taking a full patient load and pretty much doing everything on my own. I only really consult my preceptor for technical questions but for the most part I'm pretty independent. I was actually telling my preceptor and my manager that I feel like I can do more - I feel like I have had pretty standard assignments but I want to experience a "busy day" or "heavy patient load." ...Be careful what you wish for... I started out today with 4 patients, one of them was leaving so I knew I'd get an admission. I was on my way to discharge my one patient when the charge nurse asked if I could take 5th patient. I said "sure!" and was kinda looking forward to it so that I could know what it's like to take a 5th. Literally as soon as I agreed the patient showed up. So, I had to discharge a patient, admit a new one, and at the same time my other patient came back from a procedure vomiting all over the place. Slightly overwhelming. It took me a little while to catch up on everything, but eventually it happened. I was so thrown off though that I totally lost my focus and was so scattered for the rest of the day. I have no idea how I would've gotten through the day if Christy hadn't been precepting and following up on everything. Charting wouldnt have gotten done, meds probably would've been given late.... ugh.

I'm just so frustrated with myself because I totally expected to be able to handle busy days much better than I did. And whats even more frustrating is that the day overall wasnt even THAT busy - it was only busy for a couple hours. My patients were pretty easy, actually. Mreh. I realize I'm still relatively new so of course days will run smoothly, but I apparently I'm off orientation in 3 weeks! 3 weeks! Thats like 12 shifts! Actually, 3 of the days I work, I'll have class so really thats only 9 shifts! 9 SHIFTS!! Then I'm on my own! No one following up on me, making sure everything got done, reminding me of things I need to do, etc. etc. AHH!!

damn hiccups.

So, its Monday night and Laura and I decided to drink. Thankfully, we both have a nurse's schedule and don't have to work tomorrow aka Tuesday. Thus, we both got hammered on a random Monday night and it was fantastic. I don't really have much else to share except that we are drunk and I love my roommate. One of the reasons being that we share a love for random 80s love songs. :)

Also, FYI, if you have uncontrollable hiccups: Thorazine. That is the medication we give to our patients for hiccups. Which I apparently need right about now.

Yay!

I have sunglasses again! Chris apparently searched his house for my sunglasses so when I saw him yesterday, he gave them to me.

...Granted, the sunglasses he gave me are not mine and not the right color, but they're sunglasses nonetheless! haha. ...And yes, I'm totally keeping them. (What? They're really nice and they look good!) :)