Vaccinations

The start of last year I wrote a post about assignments. You can pop over and read it here

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"I lost respect for you when you took over my life, monopolised my thoughts and stole my time."

These are the words I began with when writing my first post about assignments.

This time around it's a little different. I'm a year older and feel like bit wiser, or maybe just more sane.

I have 17 assignments due this semester, which goes for 14 weeks. One of which includes 2 weeks of clinical placement in a hospital somewhere in NSW.

This may sound exciting, being able to get some hands on experience, see what the workplace is really like etc. 

But just to get to this point is a huge obstacle.

I have to order and pay for my own national police check, child safe check, first aid(which I already had thankfully) and also all my immunisations.

Immunisations they protect us and hurt us all at the same time. And I'm fine with immunisations because I'd believed that I was up to date. 

But apparently not.

My whooping (pertussis), diphtheria, and tetanus shots are all up to date, as well as my measles, mumps and rubella. Though my hep b and chicken pox shots may not be.

Hep B alone is three injections whilst chicken pox is two.

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I also need a serology (blood test), NSW Health need to be able to see how well my immunity is to all these diseases. 

But the funny thing is, a serology is not enough for Hep B, if your serology says you are immune to it, you still need documented proof you've had Hep B shots via vaccine batch no. etc. 

If you don't have those, but your serology says you have immunity to Hep B, you still need to go out and get the three course injections of a few months. 

So I'll be paying a visit to my childhood GP when I go home for Easter and hopefully he'll have proof that I had chicken pox and Hep B injections. 

If not I'll be coming home for a long, and maybe painful visit to the doctors.

So you could say I'm a tad stressed, or at least just freaking out, big time.

It's hard being away from home and feeling like you have everything to do and you don't know how to do it. 

I'm learning though, feeling more grown up everyday unfortunately.

You can guarantee that there will be a few more posts about the tumultuous journey to be able to get to my placement this semester. Which is a key component of the subject and I fail the subject if I don't go on placement.

So I'm off to continue my study of microbiology and the fundamentals of nursing, ah the joys of university!