Just killing time

I have about 90 mintues to kill so I figured I'd try and come up with an update.

This week was skills lab. We learned how to make beds with and without people in them, how to change dressings, place Foley catheters and naso-gastric tubes and give enemas and all sorts of fun stuff. Next week we start seeing real patients.

I'm at school using one of the library computers becuase classes ended at 12:30 and I have a 3:00 meeting about the scholarship I won. I brought my lunch with me because I figured it was pointless to drive 20 minutes to go home and another 20 to come back and burn the gas for the round trip.

I was going to go into a whole bunch of littel BS, but then I had an interesting chat with one of the other recipients and before I knew it it was time to go to the meeting.

This post probably marks the last time I have much time to update. The weekend is packed, just packed with family and school obligations and Monday starts the full course load: Pharmacology, Pathophysiology and two nursing classes plus two days a week working in the hospital full time.

So if you don't hear from me it's just a time thing. I'll be off for a month starting in mid-April and I'll be sure to catch you up then.

I also plan to try and keep you updated on grades and what not.

I'm "It"

I was tagged by Alex.

Here are the rules:

But anyway, here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you

2. Post the rules on your blog

3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself

4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs

5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

I am suspending rule 5 since two of my four or five regular readers (at least those who leave comments regularly) are already doing this. But if you'd like to volunteer to be tagged then by all means consider yourself tagged.

So my six things.

1. I am extremely competitive. Extremely. Losing any kind of game drives me nuts. There is no such thing as a friendly game of cards to me. If I'm playing, I am playing to win. I've only once played in a Euchre tournament and if it hadn't been hosted by my brother I probably would have been asked to leave. When I used to golf I found that I enjoyed it most when I played by myself and didn't keep score.


2. My second toe is longer than my big toe. I have no idea what that means.

3. I want a permit to carry a concealed weapon. When I get the permit I plan to never carry a concealed weapon. I just want to be one of those responsible gun owners who never shoots anyone. So really I want to make a political statement rather than obey a law.

4. I like bagpipe music. I have a bagpipe music CD and would happily listen to Scottish radio if there were such a thing. I also like banjos. If I ever learn to play another instrument it will be either the bagpipes or the banjo. (Mona read that, gave me a funny look and said "Who are you? What did you do with my husband?" I maintain that it's true and that I like both instruments.)


5. While I love to SCUBA dive, I don't much care for boats or beaches. Boats to me are just things that get me to dive sites and I don't trust them much. And I've been on paddle boats, pontoon boats (my least favorite), speed boats, sail boats (a nine day Bahamas dive trip), various dive boats and one cruise ship. I am always nervous on big water and getting out of the boat scares me a little, but I feel better in the water than I do on it.

6. Mona says this is a "quirk" so I am going with it. But I think it's really a philosophy. I believe that people should drive like they're late for the birth of their first child. I believe in the fighter pilots credo "Speed is life". If you're scared when you're driving then you shouldn't drive. The brake pedal causes way more accidents than the gas. If you can't go fast then don't bother going. You should be willing to take a life if it means shaving 2 minutes off your best time to any destination. And stay the hell out of the left lane unless you're going faster than everyone to your right. There's more, but I don't want to put too fine a point on it.

So there you go.

If you decide you're tagged let me know so I can stop by and see what you have to say.

Also, as a side note, my practical final for my health assessment class was a 96 out of 100. That will also be my final grade. I can live with a solid A.

Hallelujah, holy crap!

First an update on school. I took my final in Health Assessment this morning. That's right, my final. A 15 week, two credit course was compressed into ten days. I scored a 49 out of 54 and I have two bonus points coming so my adjusted score is 51 out of 54. I bombed one quiz, but they drop the lowest score and the rest of them were perfect scores. So I lost a total of 5 points out of a possible 204 which gives me an A for the written potion of the course.

I take the practical exam tomorrow. My brother and his wife are coming over tonight so that I can practice what I need to do. She's a physician, so she can look at the sheet that I'm being evaluated on and make sure I hit everything. In reality, I would really have to screw the thing up to fail it. So I should be good.

In related news, we got our clinical assignments today. Two weeks from today I'll be in the hospital with actual patients.

It looks like the first five weeks is going to be on a day shift, Thursday and Friday about 25 miles from home. Someone told me we'll be on an Oncology unit, which I'm not really looking forward to. Since it's the first clinicals all we'll be doing is changing sheets, giving baths and being what my sister in law calls Scut Bunnies. And if there is one thing I am sure of, it's that an Oncology unit has plenty of soiled linen and vomiting people. Great.

The second clinical rotation is psych. This one is about 25 miles in the other direction, also Thursday and Friday, but is an afternoon shift, 3PM to 11 AM. So that means we get to feed the whackos and put them to bed. Sounds like fun. In reality it shouldn't be too bad. From what I can tell the place is a private facility with fewer than 50 resident patients.

And finally some news. I may have mentioned in that past that I am Macedonian. 100%, purple ribbon bred. My ancestors are from present day Albania and Greece. The language is basically a Slavic language, totally unrelated to Greek, which is Hellenic. But that's not important right now. All that you really need to know is that my heritage is fully (and recently too, we got here in the 1920's and 30's) European. I'm white and I'm male. And today, guess what that meant? It meant I am a minority. In nursing. Most nurses are white women, so anyone who's not a white woman is a minority in the field.

So what? you might ask. I'll tell you so what. At my orientation for the program last November the program director told us about a scholarship being offered by a large philanthropic organization that you often hear about if you listen to NPR. This foundation had given my school a lump of money to use as scholarships for minority students. In order to qualify for the scholarship you had to be something other than a white female, have a 3.5 GPA or higher and be willing to act as a mentor for future students in the accelerated nursing program. In order to win the scholarship you had to submit a 1 page, double spaced, 12pt. ariel font "paper" about why you chose nursing. The seven best papers would be awarded scholarships.

Somewhere I have a copy of what I wrote, but I don't know exactly what I said anymore. I wrote it the day before it was due, sent it to a couple of people who helped me to edit it, and turned it in the next day. My reasons were mostly BS and basically said I wanted to achieve self actualization through altruism and had been inspired by my mom (who was a nurse) and other nurses who cared for her and some other family members. The stuff that I wrote was true, but my real reasons were about job security, opportunity and financial gain.

After I got my clinical assignments the instructor had some envelopes for people and started calling names and passing them out. I saw pretty quickly that it was the "minority" students who were being called. Naturally I was one of the last to get an envelope. I took a quick look, and the first word was Congratulations!

So it turns out that I got a $10,000 scholarship (that's right $10K) for being a minority student. And we were told that it's not really a scholarship, they're just going to write me a check, so it's more like a grant. All I have to do is provide a letter of acceptance and a letter agreeing to be a mentor and I'm in the money.

I'm pretty sure that this is the first and last time I'll ever be a minority anything, but you have no idea how much this is going to help.

I talked to Mona and we have to decide how to allocate the funds, but man what a great problem to have. We need to figure out if there are any tax implications first. Then we'll decide if we just use the money to pay for daycare for pretty much the rest of the year or just pay the last semester's tuition pretty much flat out, or pay off her car loan and have that extra cash every month. If we hold it for a while I think we'll stick it in a CD in order to get as much out of it as we can.

And that's why I called this post Hallelujah, holy crap!

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

Before we begin I'd like to provide another update. I've taken my midterm exam (the course is a 15 week course compressed into 10 days) and my grade was 48 out of 50, or 96%. I hope the rest of school goes this well.

And now on to the days exercise.

I got this from my friend Kathleen. It's a game called “Brought to you by the letter…”. Here’s how it works…You leave a comment on this post, and I’ll assign you a letter. You write about ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

I have been given the letter H. It took some thought, but here goes.

Brought to you by the letter H.

Home. It really is where the heart is. When I used to travel all the time (120 or so nights a year on the road) I used to take vacations and not go anywhere. I'd stay in the house for days at a time and wouldn't even open the doors. And it was great. The comfort and security of being in your own place is something that one should never take for granted. Now with Mona and The Peanut and the dogs and the auxiliary dog (the cat) it's more than just my fortress of solitude, but that's plenty fine by me. I still get my quiet time during the day but I wouldn't want the place if it wasn't what it is n0w.

Hawaii. I've been there twice now for a total of nearly three weeks. I've been to Oahu, Maui and Kauai. Hands down I like Kauai the best. The scenery is nothing short of incredible. The canyons in the center of the island seem totally out of place, like part of Arizona somehow ended up surrounded by a jungle rain forest in the middle of the Pacific ocean. There are waterfalls all over the place, the beaches are great and the place is very quite and laid back. Not "touristy" at all. And the diving was pretty great too.

Heroes. On NBC. The first half of this season was a little weak, but it got better at the end. From what I read it looks like they've got one of the original writers or creators back on staff as a story consultant and they'll be getting back to form now that the new year is upon us.

Henry Ford's mansion. This is the place where Mona and I had our wedding reception. It was actually less expensive than pretty much all the halls we looked at and the food was fantastic. Seriously, best appetizers ever. We still talk about crashing weddings there just to get some appetizers.

Hardware and home improvement stores. These are places of possibility. In these stores I feel like I could build or do anything. I'm fully certain that if you dropped me off on the surface of the moon with nothing by my bare hands and the Lowes down the street I'd have a lunar hotel built a short time later. I'd be cooler than Martin Landau (bonus points if you get the reference, double bonus points if you don't google it). The stuff they have is just so freaking cool. Plumbing supplies and all the cool fittings, obscure little doodads, billions and billions of screws, nuts, bolts, nails, staples and every other kind of fastener. Miles of duct tape. And oh my lord the tools. So many tools. And tool related accessories. Saws. Drills. Hammers. Air Tools. Hammers. Levels. Big, giant, NASCAR garage size tool boxes that come with refridgerators, WiFi, and flat screen TVs! And those really super cool leather tool belts. Seriously, how cool would I look in one of those? Mona won't let me get one though. I think it's because of what it would do to my sex appeal. I'd never get anything done if I suddenly became totally irresistible to her. And whenever I went outside I'd end up having to use the hose on all the neighbor ladies, then their husbands would all be pissed and I would have to get them their own tool belts, which would be the start of a huge chain reaction leading to the complete collapse of civilization! Wow. I guess it's a good thing she won't let me have a tool belt after all.

Holodecks. Sure, I realize the Holodeck isn't real, but I want one. So does every other red blooded American man. Scott Adams, the guy who writes Dilbert, once said that if the Holodeck ever does come to be that the world really will end. I fully concur. But I am completely willing for that to happen if it means I can spend the rest of my life in a state of bliss while teams of highly intelligent nymphomaniac cheerleaders work hard every day figuring out new ways to be nice to me. Totally worth it.

Helmets. You might think that I'm reaching now, just trying to find words that begin with the letter H, but you'd be wrong. Very wrong. Helmets are the epitome of cool. If your job requires a helmet you my friend, are totally awesome. Who wears helmets to work? How about fighter pilots. Top Gun would not have been nearly as awesome if the actors flew the planes in those LPGA visor thingies. Storm Troopers. I would totally be a Storm Trooper. Medevac Nurses, which is why I want that job. Firemen. Soldiers and Marines. Hockey players. Knights. CHiPs. Face it, helmets = cool.

Hershey's Kisses. Specifically the ones that are caramel filled. Man are those good or what?

Higher Education. School just flat out rocks. College was and is so much better than working. I swear if I had just piles of money I might just spend the rest of my life taking classes and accumulating degrees. I love to learn stuff. I like to teach stuff. I like to hang out with people who are smarter than me (not that it's a problem finding them, but a lot of times they're conveniently clustered on college campuses).

History. The past fascinates me. The people, the places. I love to imagine myself in those situations, living from day to day. What would it have been like? What would I have thought? Who would I have been? And then realize how much living in the old west, or sailing in the Royal Navy in the early 1800's or fighting in either of the world wars would have sucked because (besides the whole war thing) there was no real medicine, toilets were out back blizzard or no blizzard, and every little thing that I do by pushing a button (microwaving food), turning a knob (for water) or flipping a switch (lighting a room) would require sometimes hard manual labor or at the very least extra time and work. But I like to read about those tough, tough people who did it way back when.

So those are my 10. Care to play?

So far, so good

I think that's the punchline of a joke about the guy who jumps off the top of the Empire State Building. About halfway down he passes a window washer who asks "How's it going?". The jumper says "So far, so good".

Anyway, 4 days of school, 3 quizzes later and I have 3 perfect scores.

The class is called health assessment, and it's just the basics- listening to hearts, taking blood pressure, deciding more or less what someone's physical state is right then. It's not really about doing anything to make them better if they're ill. The idea is that as a nurse I might ask "How are you?" and then check to see if what you say really jives with what your measurable physical state is. I have no idea what to do with that information once I have it.

The instructors are pretty good and are good lecturers. Most of them seem to have ER backgrounds and the way they talk reminds me of the way my Mom and her friends used to talk. In a way I find it comforting. They don't put up with BS, they're serious about what they do and best of all they're very willing to answer any questions we have and demonstrate the skills as many times as we ask. And in my opinion you can't ask for anything else.

One of the lectures was delivered by a grad student yesterday and I could tell she was really out of her comfort zone. She was hard to hear, had trouble going through the lecture and really botched a lot of basic terminology.

The day before when we were in lab with her she was talking with a small group of us and telling us to be confident when we walk into the room with a patient for the first time. And the next day she's in front of us and her instructors and the wheels come off. I felt kind of bad for her and really wanted to take her aside and talk with her.

I would have told her that she did fine, and that she should try to keep in mind that she's up in front of a friendly group of people who want to be here. I would also have reminded her that she's the expert and because she's already a nurse she knows more than we do so there's not much to be nervous about. I might also have suggested a Dale Carnegie course (I took one, it was great) to help her polish her speaking skills.

I realized that even though I've done some teaching and delivered talks to post-doctoral students at places like Harvard, NYU and the University of Michigan (and many others) as a student in her class it might be presumptuous.

So I just quietly told her she did a good job. I think the faculty had a talk with her about her lecture, and might have made some stronger points because she was a little more careful about her terminology this morning. I hope they weren't too hard on her.

Also it turns out that class is from 8 AM to noon, so I have a fair amount of time to do my studying for the next day. Which also turns out to be less than I expected.

I know it will get busier, but right now it's going well.

The cohort has 37 people in it, so we're down about 11 from the people who showed up at orientation. We were supposed to have 38 in this class but one guy pushed back to the next program because his current employer agreed to pay his tuition if he stayed at work for 5 more months. Hell, I would have taken that deal. I'm enrolled in a Jesuit university and tuition ain't cheap.

The people in the class seem like a good mix, lots of younger students, some 22 and just graduated with their bachelors and some like me going back to change careers. I am at the older end of the spectrum to be sure, but I am not the oldest.

We practice the day's lab skills on one another so I've met a fair number of people, and they've met me. The instructors are pleased with us, saying that so far they don't seem to have any "whacko's". It seems that in most classes there is one student who really shouldn't be there at isolates himself or herself from everyone else and ends up as something of a pariah. I just hope that doesn't end up being me.

The midterm is tomorrow, the written final is Thursday and the practical exam is Friday. I'm looking to start off the program with an A.

The Big Day

This is it. The day is at hand.

At 8 AM tomorrow (or today, if you're reading this when I expect you to) I'll be in my first Nursing class. It's all about health assessment.

I've read the first 3 assigned chapters already. It's all about how to give a basic physical. Or at least begin one. The reading only covered doing the interview (something that I feel I've done a lot as a salesperson), being aware of and sensitive to who your patient is (again, something every salesrep should do) and how to look at the skin for problems.

The class is 2 credits. It runs 5 days a week from 8 AM to 3 PM for 2 weeks. That's it. Then another class for a week and then 4 other classes for the following ten weeks. And then a full month off. That's right, a month. From April 18th to May 18th. Which is nice, so I got that going for me.

I figure I'll be busy, but it's doable. The school wants me to graduate and they have a 90% graduation rate, which tells me that pretty much if you get in the program you're going to make it through. Right?

Anyway, that's all I have for now. We're changing up the morning routine to see what we need to do to get me to school on time.

If the updates get infrequent please remember that it's not for lack of interest. I'll probably be studying.