University Life Versus Real Life

As I sit here typing I am counting down the minutes until I have to get ready for my last university class for 2013.

I have...

1 essay
1 laboratory class
2 exams
1 week - 40 hour placement

left before I can say I've finished my first year of uni.

And tell you how fast it's gone! 

Mind you I probably have spent more hours on holidays then at uni, but thats uni life.

I've always wanted to do something in medicine, and I think it's because it's always fascinated me!

The smarts, the confidence, the ability to help people.

Initially I wanted to be a doctor, this probably came from watching too many episodes of ER and Grey's Anatomy, but I thought I'd never cope and wasn't smart enough.

This usually arose from being in the higher classes which I shouldn't have been in. I was in class with kids who had been studying since primary school, I didn't even know what study was. They got 90% in every test, in every subject.

I got a few good results on a few tests so they thought, alright, we will chuck her in with the smarty pants.

Probably the worst thing ever.

I did not flourish, instead I just compared my 80% to their 90% and decided I wasn't capable and didn't want to try.

It's amazing the environment in which you are, can determine your attitude and mindset.

Next year's nursing subjects will be a bit more in line with what I always thought nursing was, working in a hospital, dealing with life and death situations.

Next year I will be going on placement in a hospital in Sydney, on a medical/surgery rotation and I will be given my own patient load...

If that doesn't sound scary I don't know what does!!!

I mean, taking a BGL on a person this year was hard enough and it was only drawing a little bit of blood, I'm not sure how I'll cope next year honestly.

It's such a huge task, but since the course is only 3 years it has to happen sooner or later.

S commented last night that they will teach me everything I need to know before I'm let out on placement. 

And yes sure enough they will teach me and tell me everything I'll need to know before I go, but the difference is the setting.

I don't have a supportive teacher telling me what I'm doing wrong nor do I have a dummy to practice on who wont go ouch.

I will be dealing with real people, real problems, and real emergency's that I will need to react to without fault. Which frightens me.

I'm not quite sure if my natural response is flight or fight yet, usually my brain just shuts down when trauma happens and I can't think things through when high adrenaline situations happen.

Hopefully I will move past that with experience and learn how to keep a cool head in extreme situations!

Anyway. As I sad, I still have an essay to finish, which is due tonight and a lab class to get ready for, and a big scary arse science test on tuesday!!!

Hope all is well and I shall see you after exams!!!

P.S. This is a photo I took at the start of the year when I got my nursing uniform.

Birthday!

It was my birthday yesterday.

I am now 23.

It was a great day.

Spend the morning at a nursing home singing songs and a devotion.

Then worked from 12-5, not so much fun but its only 5 hours and my only shift all week so yeah.

Came home to a clean house, thanks to my sis E.

Had lasagne and garlic bread for dinner while we watched Star Trek 2, that my hubby bought for me.

He also bought me season 6, 7 and 8 of F.R.I.E.N.D.S dvd in the same style cover as the dvds of friends I already had. I am so lucky to have my husband!!!

I almost forgot it was my birthday a few times yesterday, how uneventful birthdays are nowadays. Ahh to be a kid again. Going to school with anticipation of going home and opening presents with the whole family there and going out to dinner.

Looking forward to spoiling my kids the same way too, one day eventually haha.

I got lots of other presents from my in-laws, who are amazing! Very lucky.

An outdoor setting for our newly paved patio, and pot plants with some very nice plants! So stoked to drive in the driveway to see them!!!

I will take some photos next week and post them up. It has been a very hectic week with family visiting, and heading up to Sydney tonight for my dads 60th birthday party tomorrow. Also as I type my assignment is due at midnight tonight... And I've barely done any of it, so I'm off to finish my powerpoint presentation and hopefully submit it before lunchtime! 

Wish me luck.

Hope you have a fantastic weekend? What are you up to on this fine school holiday weekend?

I am flogging my blog over with WithSome Grace for FYBF

I can't do it again...

How did I do it last time?

I lost a lot of weight leading up to the wedding. 

I didn't touch chocolate or fast food in almost 5 months.

And when they wedding was over, I pretty much packed all the weight back on, and then some.

I'm not saying I'm obese or anything, but I know this isn't the size I want to be.

Especially coming into summer, when last summer I bought new clothes, and this summer I can't fit into them!

But I just can't stop eating chocolate. Its frustrating me. I think, I'm doing really well, when for a 5 k run yesterday, haven't eaten too much bad food today.

Then I get into the chocolate and before I know it, the whole block is gone. What is wrong with me.

I know the only person who can stop me is me. But really, it's my own fault for letting myself go after the wedding. 

I really hate myself for doing that!

But alas, there are people worse off then me.

So I will savour this last piece of chocolate for the day. And go for a run tomorrow and try and start again.

How on earth did I do it last year! 

When I Grow Up

"When I grow up I want to be happy"

I haven't exactly 'grown up'. You honestly are only as old as you feel.

When I was a teenager I wanted to be a doctor, and now I'm studying to be a nurse!

Same difference haha. I just like learning about the human body! 

The only thing I don't like is the assignments for the other subjects, like this psychosocial nursing assignment I need to do, like now, but am writing this instead, and crocheting.

I also didn't think I'd be married but I am, or that I would want kids, which I really do!

So when I grow up, I'd like to be a registered nurse and working full-time, I'd like to have some children, and I'd like to be more organised then I am now! With a clean house!!!

What do you want to be?

Starting Fresh

I have to admit, I've got writers block.

It's really frustrating me, because I love the creativity of blogs.

The design, the content, the community.

So I've been looking around for ways to try and reinvigorate my blog and in a sense me.

It has been a hard, tough, and pretty long year.

Starting so many new things, losing family members, welcoming new family members.

A new town, new marriage, new work and new study.

I came across Fat Mum Slim's article on 50 things to blog about so I'm going to steal one and write about it.

No. 14 -- The day you started blogging, what were you thinking?

I started a blog back in 2010 with a friend of mine. It was great, we were going to post about fashion, food, knitting, books, movies and music. We would each post in a different colour and end our posts with a -K or an -R.

It lasted about a month or two.

My sister Kylez over at A Study in Contradictions had been blogging for a few years and I really enjoyed reading her posts and looking at her photos. And found that I wanted to join in on the fun.

I'm not really sure what my intentions for starting a blog really were. 

I used to write little poems or short stories when I was younger, writing seems to be a family thing that goes back to my grandmother.

She wrote stories upon stories about the encounters she had with random strangers on the street in bankstown or about one of her 4 children or 15 grandchildren.

I was quite young when she past away so she only wrote one story about me. It was something to do with me wanting to eat lots of chips and chocolate. 

Not much has changed!!!

I find it hilarious that even at a 3 year old I had an infinity for consuming copious amounts of chocolate and hot chips. But hey, if this is my legacy I s'pose I should just accept it, if I tried to change it, I wouldn't really be my most natural self.

I think I tried to get to much into the 'popularity' of blogging, getting excited that I had people following. 

I started trying to get into the 'popular' group but in year 6, and by the time I was in year 7 realised that I did not want to pretend to be a different person every time I went to school. These girls just weren't like me and I shouldn't be trying to change myself. Just causes more embarrassing moments for myself.

Also, I have no children, so really my days are pretty boring without a little cuteness to talk about during my days. 

So from now on, I will endeavour to write for myself, write about things I love the most, watching movies, reading books, knitting and crocheting, and learning to be a nurse. (Hopefully I can start reading and watching more movies and books because I've been sorely lacking in those areas for the last 6 months!)

Hope your tuesday is going well.

Today is hubby's 23rd birthday, our first birthday celebrations together, I keep singing 'nobody likes you when you 23' (blink-182, in case you were unsure). I shall be making a lasagne from scratch (except the lasagne sheets, I buy those), but the white sauce and meat I got! And trying to find the recipe for butterscotch pudding which S loves so much.

Hope all turns out well, not a great cook. How did you spend you 23rd birthday?

Linking up with Jess for IBOT

Thought I Should...

Thought I should write a post, considering I'm meant to be studying, seems like a great procrastination tool if you ask me.

Today is my slightly less full on day, I only have one 2 hour class, my nursing lab class, where we pretend we are in a hospital doing nurse like stuff.

Last session in these classes was really good at the start, we learnt how to take a manual blood pressure, with a sphygmomanometer, who came up with that word! Anyway we also learnt how to take BGL and do observations, and for the rest of session we basically just redid them every lesson.

But this semester is a step up, we are learning how to do an ISBAR handover. Which stands for, Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendations.

Every thing in nursing, whether it be writing nurses notes or how to hand over a patient to the next shift or calling a doctor to alert them to a situation with a patient can be daunting, so they create simply acronyms to help us do it.

Basic way to make sure we provide all information and is relevant to a handover or writing notes.

That was first lab class. Today we are learning how to wash people, so swimmers are needed, I'll let you know how that turns out. Also we are learning to feed and brush peoples teeth. So it should be an interesting class.

This is really important, considering in three weeks time we are going on placement for two weeks in a nursing home where we will be doing a lot of showering and helping people eat and observations. 

And suddenly I feel like I've forgotten everything I've learnt!

Well should get back to study.

I'll try and write something more interesting next time, but I'm pretty boring so probably not. :)

I'm Back!!!

So I've been absent for a few weeks, my apologies. It's been quite busy down in this small town.

Clinical placement, university, study and just general life has been happening this last few weeks.

Clinical placement was, well, interesting is a good word to describe how that first week out in the life of a nurse.

First day was nerve-wrecking, made the hour long trip out to Narrandera at 645 in the morning. All teary eyed because I didn't want to go!!! 

But I left and made my way, to my surprise it was not as bad as I had made it out to be, like always. What is it with me blowing things out of proportion inside my head, is it just me?

I arrived about 20 minutes early and made my way inside to be orientated around the doctors surgery and meet everybody. The first few hours was just watching and listening. Then the fun happened.

Well depending on your perspective.

On the first day I watched the doctor remove a tumour from an elderly man's leg. The needle going in was fine, watching the doctors stick it in and move it around administering the anaesthetic, then the scalpel came out, watching him cut, I'm all good, calm fascinated. Then it came to removing the tumour and cutting underneath the tumour to remove it from the leg, still going fine. Removal of the tumour revealed the dermis layer of the skin, awesome, fascinated, white and weird all at once. Then came closing up time.

This is where it all went down hill. I did not faint, luckily, I pretty much know when I'm going to be faint so I removed myself from the room and got some fresh air. Tried going in for a second time but the heat and the nerves were getting the best of me and I just had to sit out for the rest of the procedure.

I think it was just the doctor trying to pull the two pieces of skin together and figuring out how to close it up and it just started bleeding massively when he was pulling and tugging on the skin.

So that was my first day.

On Tuesday was a completely different story! I watched the doctors remove another, wider tumour, even more pulling and tugging and I was completely fine! I watched a sebaceous cyst removed from the head, which was messy, also was a few moles removed and a wart burnt of throughout the week. And I was completely fine. So I'm just putting Monday faintness to the nerves and heat inside that room!

The rest of the week was good, took BP's and BGL's and took histories and watched the nurse do a GP management plan, which tied in more with the primary health care subject in which I was on placement for. 

I visited the podiatrist in the first day, and the physiotherapist, chemist and pathologist and the primary health care nurse.

It was a great week and saw so much, and enjoyed just experiencing the everyday working of a nurse in a doctors surgery setting.

Second semester will be full on, it already it, into the second week now, and in three weeks have another 4 weeks of placement which is exciting and daunting at the same time, but having gotten the first time out of my system, I'm sure I can handle it.

Also finishing off some crocheting projects has been a high so declutter my spare room.

If you haven't noticed from previous posts, I have been waiting patiently for the new arrival of a royal baby, now just have to wait for another baby to be born and I'll be super excited! Now pressure Kylie!

Linking up with Essentially Jess for