heroes and blossoms

Being prior military you could guess, and correctly so, I am pro-military. I'm also a bit of a history buff, having minored in it for my Bachelor's. Minoring in history enabled me to study certain areas of history that I find fascinating. The classes I took include Classical Greece, World War II, Pearl Harbor-Midway, Modern America: 1900 to 1945, and Europe's Bloodiest Century (this course detailed the 20th centruy, WWI, WWII, and the Cold War), along with a couple of prerequisite courses. I wrote my term paper in the World War II class on women in the military during that time. I have a special affinity for the subject, in particular in the field of nursing. In my complete ignorance I didn't even know that there was a memorial dedicated to women who served in the Vietnam War, until pretty recently.


Yesterday we went to Washington DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival. To the boys' utter and complete dismay (they were already pretty bent out of shape with having to go to the Festival) their father and I dragged them to see the Vietnam Women's Memorial. We also took in the Korean War Memorial, and the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. If you ever have a chance to visit DC you should take the time to visit these very special works of commemorative art. Pictures do not even do them any justice.

this is from the WWII memorial

a section of the wall from the Korean War Memorial


statues of soldiers from the Korean War Memorial



Vietnam Women's Memorial

of all the weird things

Yesterday I had my second nurse externship interview. Let's do a brief dissection of the two interviews and prospective employers, shall we?






First Hospital:

~about 15 minutes from home
~70 bed facility
~opportunities in ED, family birthing, ICU, stepdown, med/surg
~40 minute interview with 6 nurses including department directors, guy from HR, and education specialist
~asked questions about teamwork, problems/challenges and how they were handled,workload, etc. In other words they asked several regular interview questions.
~interview held in a ground floor, service hallway conference room

I walked out of the interview in good spirits, but unsure of how I actually did. I answered the questions authentically. By this I mean that I gave examples from my experiences, rather than robotic, "best" answers. I really hadn't taken the time to come up with manufactured answers, so they got me. good, bad, indifferent...

Second Hospital:

~about 15 minutes from home
~over 80 beds, Planetree Facility
~opportunities in ICU, med/surg, and a unit that is primarily telemetry (best way to describe)
~20-25 minute interview with 3 nursing directors
~they asked siilar questions
~interview held upstairs in a unit conference room

Yet, I walked away from the interview pretty unsure of the chances of me getting the position. This wasn't because of the interview itself. It's because of a request that was made by the HR person beforehand. After escorting me upstairs, she'd stepped into the conference room and then came out after briefly speaking with the directors about the previous applicant. She comes up to me, "Do me a favor. They're going to ask you a question about group projects, setting up a scenario where one of the people in the group didn't pull their weight. They are going to want to know how you would or did handle that situation. I want you to have been that person. I want you to say, 'Oh that was me. I was the slacker. I totally dropped the ball...' Only do this if you think you can. Do you think you can?"

WTF???

I politely told her I didn't think I could pull it off. I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. Being the slacker in that situation is not in my nature, and if I wanted to become Julia Roberts I would have a long time ago!

In her defense...since that is in my nature-to give the benefit of the doubt...I can say this goes with this woman's personality. She seems like a very gregarious, slightly eccentric individual, who would love to play jokes on others. I can get in there with the best of them, I assure you. But during a job interview? Where you don't know any of the people sitting there and how they'll react to such a display?

uh, uh no way...not me, no how...no can do!

One of my classmates, with whom I've become friends, was interviewing next and walked up as I was walking out. The HR person goes into the conference room in between the interviews, so while she did that I chit-chatted with my friend. Out comes the HR person and she makes the same request of my friend. My friend has a "WTF?" look on her face, but she was more willing to give it the ole college try. She said she'd do her best to do it, but didn't want to promise anything.

It had already been a troublesome morning as I'd watched the DVRed ER finale....bawling throughout (nope never got around to studying yesterday morning). After the show I intended to study for a bit, but by this time a migraine had set in. I decided to take the time to take my meds and lie down for a bit, hoping to relieve the pain from my being. The phone interupted my solace after about 20 minutes and never gave up. Between Big B and LB the phone rang about 5 times.

The boys had a half-day of school for exams yesterday, and LB had stayed after for a club activity. He was calling because he needed a ride home. By this time it was time to get ready for the interview, with about an hour to spare before I wanted to leave. I commenced to yelling at them ("them" because both Big B and LB called concerning this after I had deferred LB to his father...) over the phone. Sorry, not the most effective way to handle things, but I was in pain, the nerves were wracking up, and time was a tickin'!

And you want me to come get you???

Evidently I was his only option as Dear Ol' Dad was still up north, about an hour away. Now I had to rush through getting ready so I could go pick him up, and head to the interview. Luckily it's ok to leave a 16 year old out in the car. Can you imagine me walking into the hospital with my kid, and there stands the HR rep?

Who knows? She might have flirted with him!

what is it with April?

Seriously. I am saddened now after logging on to Facebook and reading a friend's status message. It said something about a shooting that happened yesterday at Radford University, only about two hundred miles from where I live. I hadn't heard about it, but didn't watch the news last night, and hadn't heard a thing during the day.

Isn't this the time of year where people should be coming alive with happiness since it's Spring? Instead they're coming alive with morbidity.

Radford University April 2, 2009

Virginia Tech Aprl 16, 2007

University of Washington April 2, 2007

Roosevelt High School April 5, 2006

Those are just of the recent school shootings. Here's a timeline for school shootings occuring since 1966. I'm not usually a big fan of Wiki-anything, after having it beaten out of me by numerous professors, but it does offer good timelines for events such as these.

One I will never forget is Columbine High School.

We were stationed at Langley AFB, Hampton, VA, at the time. We happened to be outside enjoying a warm Spring day. One of my friends came running up to me and asked if I'd heard about the shooting that had just happened in a high school in Littleton, Colorado. She knew that two of my cousins attended high school in Colorado, in Littleton. Panic set in. I had no idea what high school they went to so I immediately got on the phone. My fear was assuaged upon hearing that they went to a different school. They had friends attending Columbine though. My cousins knew people affected by this tragedy.

I can thoroughly understand the pent up frustration felt by this time of the school year. I know the feeling all too well. I just don't understand how people can resort to such horrible, drastic measures as taking another's life. There's no excuse.

Sad, very sad.

Now I really must get to workon my studies.

oh patriotic one am I

Not that I had time for it, but I attended my first American Legion meeting last night. Yes, you read that right. I am the newest, and proud to say, only female member of our local post. I thought I might be the youngest member, and may still be as far as active members go, but there was an active-duty marine present. His father is the post chaplain. He's not an extemely young marine, but I would bet I have a few years on him.

Admittedly it wasn't something I was looking forward to since I have so much studying to do. Do you ever end up enjoying yourself at something you completely dreaded attending? It occured to me that it would not only be nice to be a part of something meaningful, but who else can say she has multiple dads and grandpas? The meeting only lasted about 45 minutes and it was actually an awesome experience.

As official meetings go they had to discuss old and new business. They're an endearing bunch of old guys, and it was hilarious at times to watch them mull over their/our current goings on. They're planning on having someone come in and clean the post, and of course it took a motion and acceptance, and it's a done deal. They have a bunch of other things in the works. Two items of interest that I'll be directly involved in are the baseball team, since my son plays on it, and the upcoming yard sale.

So yes, to my post listing several of my own current goings on we may add this yard sale. It's actually a bit of a necessity though, since there are a bunch of things in the house that need to go. What better way to get rid of them? Whatever doesn't sell will be donated to the local Goodwill. None of the junk will return to the casa, that's for sure!

Have I mentioned I've also not had the time to go grocery shopping? It's part scheduling and part avoidance. I really don't want to go all the way to Quantico. Quite frankly there just hasn't been time to go lately. I'm thinking of shopping more locally at least until after the semester's over. Normally I'd go to Quantico on a day like today, when there's no class or clinicals taking up the better part of the day. Since I have my interview to look forward to this afternoon it's a no go, literally.

Is it May yet? Seriously. May 6th is the day I have determined to be my own personal Mayday! Finals will be over, as will my second semester of nursing school! It won't come soon enough!

back. to. the. books...

come all ye faithful

Let's start off by celebrating my 200th post! I'd like to thank all you who stop by and read my blog. If you've been with me since the beginning and have read my whole blog, can you believe it's 200 posts long? I can't. It's great having the world-wide support from all of you!

It's also been a day, not only that, let's say a week, of firsts. Yesterday during clinicals I witnessed, sort of, my first "nurses eat their young" incident. I say sort of because I only caught the aftermath. It happened so quickly. One of the nurses stopped for one moment at the nurses station only to be chastised by another for "just standing there". The reason she was "just standing there" was because my instructor had taken her medicine cart and was passing meds with some of my fellow students. They had just taken the cart when the nurse stopped for a moment and was talking to some of the other students, and then bitchy-nurse, whomever she was, called her out on "just standing there". Just because the students took your cart doesn't mean you have to just stand there. There are other things to be done. True, very true, but come on. Let's retract the claws and not belittle someone for something you've probably been guilty of yourself! Puhleasse! Tears were shed momentarily from the nurse who was "just standing there", but she soon got over it and went on with her work.

So far I've done accuchecks, insulin injections, PEG tube care, a patient shower, charting, of course vital signs, pulse oximetry, bed-to-geri-chair transfers, unoccupied bed changes, assessments, adult brief changes, care planning, and today I passed my first meds! Because my resident has a PEG tube I have to crush the tablets, so that was fun. One of them didn't crush finely with the crusher so I had to break out the trusty hammer and bash away. Then it was onto the patient where I checked for placement and residual, and administered the meds by gravity.

I'm really enjoying clinicals. So far it's been a great experience. I actually find myself wanting to go back!! This actually astounds me since I was so nervous about not actually liking nursing, if that makes any sense.

Oh, today we had a couple of interesting events. The LTC I am doing my clinicals at has a locked down dementia/alzheimer's unit. One of the CNAs from over there managed to nearly become one of the resident's lunch since the resident tried to take a bite out of her! It was bad enough to where you could see a full circle of teeth impressions, and there was only the tiniest bit of skin breakage. They made a big deal out of the whole situation since they had us students as an audience.

I've been meaning to get over to meet one of my classmate's residents because this person has schizophrenia and bipolar. Evidently this person has been in a manic state. Just last night in the middle of the night she switched and is now delusional claiming that the FBI and others are out to get her. Although I don't plan to go into psych nursing, having a background in psychology, I am intrigued by mental disorders. Now I'm kicking myself for not taking the time to meet her. It would be fascinating to see the differences first-hand.

Well rather than spend anymore of my strained time blogging I should get back to the books!

Tomorrow's the next interview in my hopes of externing over the summer!

caving in

Ever feel like everything's caving in on you?

Yeah, that's about how I feel right about now! For one, I've been awake since 0250. At this point in time we have just over four weeks left of this semester. I have the first components of my care plan due tomorrow. It's a matter of just typing it up, but I have yet to do that. Again...due tomorrow. We have ATI testing to do sometime before the end of the semester. This would include a proctored exam for fundamentals and one for mental health. And we're supposed to fit that into our schedules? As if! We have an exam left in both classes, not including finals, and we also have another assignment due for MH. Then we're supposed to study for finals!!!

My house could use a really good, thorough cleaning.

My garden's need to be opened up for the year, not that the weather has been extremely cooperative on that front.

LB has baseball games it seems like every other minute..

AW still beats away at his drums that we have yet to get him lessons for.

I have another externship interview this coming Friday.

I also have considerable amounts of reading and studying to do.

I feel like a mountain of stress is about to cave in on me! Help!

Merry Maids anyone?

spring blooms

from my garden, crocus in bloom

mother nature's mess

After the baseball game last night I texted my friend, who happens to be the team manager's (as in the high school girl who assists with various team related needs) mom (yeah, we're friends), to let them know the final outcome of the game...which wasn't pretty. We ended up falling, 8-0, and you could see the heartbreak in each of our player's eyes as they exited the school to depart with us, their parents. My friend let me know that on their way down to NC for a cheer competition that they had come within a half mile of a tornado. Friends of theirs, who were about a mile ahead caught it on video.

During the game one of the moms, who hails from North Dakota, and with whom I have a small bond with because of her hometown, (since we'd been stationed there and LB was born there), informed me that her brother was notified to evacuate (within ten minutes of notification) from Fargo, to get away from the flooding.

Another friend put up her Facebook status as something to the effect of preparing for the blizzard they were about to be faced with, in Oklahoma of all places.

Floods in ND, blizzards in OK...?

I have family in Colorado who was snowed in the other day due to blizzard conditions, and a friend up in Winnipeg, Canada who told me, via Facebook that they'd had something like 25 inches.

Here in Virginia we've only had brief encounters with the sun.

In fact we were supposed to be going to a baseball game today, but it was cancelled because of wet fields from the rain that poured down throughout the night last night. You don't find me complaining because I have gotten a little bit behind this past week, with the new schedule, in my reading. That's what I've been doing today, and am now taking a bit of a break to ponder how depressing the weather has been lately.

Tonight Big B and I are going to a dance that the high school booster club is putting on as a fund raiser. We got our tickets free being that we're both American Legion members and the AL supports the boosters, so they'd bought a block of tickets from which members were able to take from and go to the dance on behalf of the AL. The dance should be interesting. It's being held at some building in our local fairgrounds. The fairgrounds are surrounded by dirt....and in rain that means mud. Oh joy. It's a casual event though, as in jeans, so at least there's that!

I better get back to the books since I did make some pretty good headway earlier!

If you're reading this I hope you're staying warm and dry!!

fourth and first

Nope, we're not talking streets, or football for that matter.

Fourth great thing about clinicals this semester: the mentors! I forgot to mention our mentors. A while back we'd heard that we would have mentors during this clinical rotation as something the program was newly instituting. Second year students would be working with us the first two weeks of this rotation to help acclimate us to clinicals. I have to admit I was kind of leary about it because I didn't know how they would treat us. Wednesday we had two, and yesterday one. As with the rest of the experience they couldn't have been nicer! They were all willing to help when we needed help with tasks, or were right there when we needed help with our care plans.

Oddest thing, besides the nerves I woke up feeling (but will get to that in a minute) like I really wanted to be back at clinicals today.

Today was my first nurse externship interview! By the time I left home I was so shaky and nervous I probably looked like I had Parkinson's. Aside from the fact that it was a firing squad type interview with six nursing directors or HR/education nurses, the interview went ok. It took about 40 minutes and they asked questions about teamwork, priorities, and time management, along with the obligatory "what are your strengths and weaknesses?" They'll have their decision made by mid-April. That gives me enough time to go to my interview next Friday.

Both opportunities have their own merits. The hospital I interviewed at today has more units accepting externs than the other one, but it will be shift-work. I don't mind that, but if I don't have to well then.... The other hospital is opposite. They have less units offering positions but it's supposed to be a day shift position. Considering I am taking classes online this summer I think the latter would be best, but will make do with whatever. Of course, it's a matter of being accepted for either position! I hope to be accepted for at least one of them!!

poo and puke

One week down and five to go! I'd planned on blogging yesterday about my firstday in clinicals in LTC, but by the time I got home I was too exhausted to do so. I'd been awake during the wee hours of the morning yesterday and then went back to bed, only to wake up to the alarm at 5:15. Needless to say I slept like a baby last night, and that would be through the night!

It almost seemed as if the experience at the nursing home was going to be dreadful. Once we were set free by our instructors we set out to go to our residents and start morning care. First great thing about clinicals this semester: come to find out most of us are paired up so that we have a classmate who is taking care of the resident in the same room as us. JL and I soon learned that we didn't have much to do concerning morning routines because both of our residents don't get going until after breakfast. Mine is NPO due to tube feeding by PEG tube and her's remains in bed until after breakfast. So for about an hour we were left to our devices, and were able to look at the charts, or find something else to do or someone to help. I made the fatal error of going up to the nurse whom I figured was in charge of my hall and started talking to her. Not a good idea when she is trying to pass meds. Lesson learned. Duh! Can we say eager beaver gets told off?


Second great thing about clinicals this semester: Nurse K turned out to be an awesome nurse and a great teacher! She apologized and explained why she was abrupt with me. I knew my mistake as soon as I'd made it so all was well with the world. Everyone is great to work with! It's almost too good to be true.

Our LTC facility is an older facility and they still do everything by hand, as in paperwork. Oh well, we'll chalk it up to learning things the old-fashioned way!

Third great thing about clinicals this semester: It's nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. I get myself all worked up, thinking that I'm being thrown to the wolves and am totally responsible for total patient care, when that's not the case. I'm there to learn, not take over. Sure I'm responsible for my tasks and skills I need to learn, but I am not SuperNurse....yet. (chuckles)

It's not going to be extermely easy either. Ever get so relaxed when you're in the shower that you feel like letting loose there? Well, if you're incontinent it happens.

As is said, "Shit happens". Does it ever!

Much of the time the past two days was spent collecting information from our residents' charts for our care plans. My classmates and I have a diverse array of residents, and will surely learn some skills through and through. From PEG tubes to schizophrenia, from Hoyer lifts to accuchecks, from dementia to passing meds, we're going to learn a thing or two!

If that's not all enough, I arrived home to find two huge piles of dog barf on my living room floor. I had to let the dogs out, so in our approach to the back door I see an area where Sandi, and it can only be Sandi, because Minnie is crated when we're gone(she's the "puppy"), had barfed up food no longer, but stomach fluids. Worse yet, I look over to the other side of the room to see a big pile of dog poo! (Nope, no savvy medical terminology reserved for the canine excrement of the house.)

Shit happens? Yes! It certainly does!

The door to our "coat closet", where the dog food is kept, doesn't shut like it should because I have an over-the-door hook that hangs on it, and well, with the cold weather, it's been overly inundated with jackets and coats. So when gluttonous Labrador Retriever sees the door is open, all she sees is something like humans see when they see "buffet"! She ate and ate until she couldn't eat, or hold it in, any longer....from either end.


Fortunately it was way more formed than the recurrent (human) diarrhea I cleaned up after today!