jaysnursingschoolblog

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

Well I have not updated in a while…lol.

I’m not very good at this. And it’s already almost a month since my last post! Let’s see…a lot has happened.

Fundamentals ended at the 9th week mark on October 12. Managed to get an A in the class and the clinical portion! I honestly cannot believe 1/8th of my nursing school program is already over. Time is f l y i n g by! Feels like just yesterday I sat down in my seat not known shit and not knowing what to expect. But man, learning is real people! You learn new stuff and you don’t think you’re going to remember it, but you DO! It’s there! Somewhere in your brain!!

Lol so I’ve been trying out a new tactic where I’m switching between different study groups. I like to see what other people know outside of my regular group. Maybe they study different or understand things differently. Anyways, so I’ve been hopping around lately. I guess it’s been working, I’m doing pretty well. I did well on the final for Nurs 1.

Ugh but I didn’t do well on the second exam for Nurs 14. Which is BS how we have exams for that class, btw. It’s an extra class meant for supplemental help! Got my first B of the semester. And it’ll be all downhill from there lol.

MedSurg has started on Oct17 and we hit the ground running. Math exam first day and 2 homework assignments already due. Clinicals have been changed to only Wednesday so I only have school 3 days out of the week now! First week was just orientation at our hospital. It was nice but dang we are spoiled at my hospital. I have a new found appreciation for my job site :-) anyway, that day was so much fun! Soooo much laughing, our super strict instructor was laughing so much too! Tears down her face and everything lol.

I have medpass the first day of real clinicals. SO intimidated but glad to get it out of the way. Going to have to prep heavily!! I really don’t want to fail that. At least afterwards, I won’t have to be scared so much. I’ll have 2 careplans due but those won’t be until the 3rd and 4th week of medsurg.

Nursing school isn’t tooooo bad. It IS a TON of work that never ends. You’ll never get a break from busy work. BUT it makes winter break and holidays that much more exciting to look forward to lol. It is certainly do-able. There are still plenty of days where I seriously thought about quitting. I just get so so so frustrated with myself. I’m also discouraged very easily when I see a low grade or I have to be corrected on skills. Gotta work on that I guess. Being a waitress in a nowhere diner is always on the back of my mind lol.

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

Sept 26, Week 7, Day 25

MATH EXAM AND PHARM EXAM DAY. Ok tbh I forgot about the math exam. This stupid pharm test got my shit twisted the last few days!! Spent the whole fundamentals class looking over the pharm test review. Tuesday's are starting to feel just as long as Thursday's now. Or maybe just because I didn't have anything to do today. I actually have a free day today after school! Oh yeeee. Med Math Exam was given in foundations class. I did pretty well on it! In our first semester, I think we're supposed to get 85% or higher. By the end, we HAVE to get 100% to pass. I don't think it's too bad right now, but everyone says IV drips are the serious stuff. We don't start that until 2nd semester though and I've been OK on the tests. During lunch I went with a classmate to purchase a bouquet of flowers at a local flower shop. Today is our "not as strict" instructor's wedding anniversary with her husband, who she lost right before school started. Today was going to a sensitive day for her so we got her a card and a gift. Gooooood shiet As nice as she is, her pharm tests are sooo difficult. I seriously felt lost in this test. So many extra vocab we didn't need to know. Ugh my brain hurt at the end. I feel bad because some of my friends didn't pass and I'm so worried that we'll really take it to hard. Everyone deserves to be here because we're smart and capable. I wish there wasn't so much anxiety circulating.

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

25 Sept, Week 7, Day 24

Holy shit. Well I missed out on a lot of days of blogging. Too much stuff going on!!

Today we learned about different med forms. Like liquid, pills, topical creams, inhalants, etc. pretty easy day. Half of the class left for their clinical training and our group stayed for the skills lab. We also learned how to draw up a med from an ampule into a syringe. That was cool! My first time really working with needles. They said we were going to stick each other today but they ended up waiting for the other half of the class. They got in too late so we rescheduled for next week.

So we've been studying for this pharm test on Tuesday and its soooo much stuff. I feel like they could have split up these tests better. Siiigh. I need to get my shit together. I wanna blog, and watch shows, and study, and do hw, and sleep, and swing and the park, and paint rocks, and also work some hours. I bet I could do it all if I just manage my time better lol

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

12 Sept, Week 5, Day 17

OK so, the BRN comes every 4 years to evaluate the program and the instructors. AND TODAY WAS THE DAY THEY CAME. Our instructors have been preparing for their arrival for some time now. They held a conference about what we should expect from them, how to answer their questions, etc. They made it this huuuge deal, and they came and talked to our class for only 20 min! lol. They just asked questions along the line of, do we think our instructors are doing a good job, do we have enough resources, are the clinical sites good, etc. They went a little bit over their time so i picked up our taco tuesday late :( Taco days are always good. I really enjoy our lunch time together. Most of the time we’re reviewing for tests or talking about any other school stuff, but i like when we just sit there and get to know each other and make jokes and talk about other things. Pharm after lunch is death. I can never stay awake and our instructor goes too fast and doesn’t really explain well. I sometimes just end up scrolling through  amazon or working on something else. Our mentors had warned us that the pharm instructor was hard to learn from, so i dont feel toooo bad. She gives really good test reviews at least. I already know im getting into this bad habit of nitpicking my care plans the night before its due. I just have so much stuff to do the rest of the week and i have to focus on other things aaaahhhh. theres so much to doooooooooooo

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

11 Sept, Week 5, Day 16

Mondayssssssss are lame.  I went to school kinda late today because of family stuff, but it seemed like everyone else got there late too?  Skills for today was NG tubes! I see these at work all the time for SBO but i only just disconnect it from the wall when the patient wants to get up and walk. It looks so scary cause it’s all in their nose and im scared i’ll accidentally get caught on it and pull it out or something lol. The procedure itself was easy enough. Clean technique so no fumbling around with sterile gloves. I’m sooo scared to hurt patients! Our instructors told us some stories with a lot of bleeding and coiling of the tubes. But i guess they have to so they can teach us to be careful, and also that things like that can happen and it wont always be our fault.  I feel ok with that skill, but like I said before, these mannequins are so different from people. And they dont cough or get teary eyed and make me worry with their facial expressions lol. After school we had study group at a classmate’s house. Got all my homework done and worked on the study guide together for a little bit.  Sometimes i feel tension between some people or maybe thats just me... idk, i’m just minding my own business here haha. Still never got the grade for my 1st systems assessment. And our 2nd is due this week! So I dont even know what I did wrong on it. 

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

7 Sept, Week 4, Day 15

IT IS THE END OF WEEK 4! Ok the numbers are throwing me off a little because I'm thinking it should be day 16 but since we had Labor Day off, it didn't count. Oh well so anyway. Here we are, Thursday lecture day. I'm so glad the last day of the week is just PowerPoint city. I can mentally check out for a little bit without causing too much damage. A lot of my classmates were pretty focused on the pharm exam. Again, it's our first one so we didn't know what to expect but it wasn't that bad! Only missed 2. I would have only missed 1 if I didn't rush through the math part. 🙄 well lesson learned, won't do that again. I don't wanna think about it too much, but I've been scoring well on these tests! My study group is AMAZING and we work really well together. I really should thank them more for helping me. I wasn't feeling sociable today so instead of going out for drinks, I just helped a classmate with computer problems and then went to the library with my clinical partner and attempted to do some paper work. After that I just went home. I have a homework-free weekend this week and I just wanted to relax. SO FIRST MONTH DOWN! 4 WEEKS IN THE BAG BABY! I can't believe I'm here! I can't believe I've lasted this long 😭 there are still some days where I think this whole thing is INSANE. I sit and think how I'm really here willingly subjecting myself to this stress and non stop workload and sleep deprivation and piles of homework and long days and short nights and studying studying studying studying studying round the clock. It's crazy but I feel good right now. It's so weird to think how different my life was a year ago. I've definitely learned a lot about myself in that whole year I had off from school. I needed order. I needed a schedule. Out of school, I have too much free time. And even when I worked, 12 hour shifts still gave me 4 days off if I worked the max hours. I became lazy and sad. I was just watching the light change from sunrise to sunset everyday from the little slits of my window blinds. I think I was so depressed from not being able to start school when I planned, I was starting to be ok with just being a bum for the rest of my life. I was settling in to that mentality. But the start of nursing school kicked me back in to gear. I like being busy. I like having goals to hit every day. I like tests and learning new skills. I like learning in general. Lowkey I'm scared this is all I'm good at though. Just the school part of this whole nursing thing. I'm scared I'll struggle out there in the real world. But I just have to lift myself up. I have to be confident. I like where I am right now, I want to ride this contentment as long as I can. It doesn't take much to knock me off the flow. But right now I just wanna coast on this. I hope it lasts longer.

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

6 Sept, Week 4, Day 14

FIRST DAY OF CLINICALS!

Wow we’re finally here! Although these next couple weeks in the nursing home will be easy basic stuff, it feels like a huge milestone for us.

I already know Wednesday’s are gonna suck. I have to wake up at 0430 just to leave my house by 5 and then head to the nursing home at 0515. Our facility is about 45 min away and we start at 0630. We all got there and parked at the target across the street and we gathered around for a little prayer. It was nice. Starting the day off all together, excited and nervous and just making sure we have everything. It was super cute, for sure haha.

The day went by so quickly though! 8 hours are so fast when you’re so used to 12s. I felt like I didn’t have enough time to complete my asssessment almost haha. Our patient was so independent! She didn't want to be questioned or assessed so we were having trouble with that lol. But we did our best.

After our lunch, it was the residents lunch and we helped feed for an hour. By 1, we got off the floor for post conference and then we were out of there by 2! Flew by!

I'm definitely gonna enjoy these 8 hour clinicals though. The 12/13 hour ones are just around the corner and I'm definitely dreading those. Just cause it's med surg and it'll be harder stuff. I need to be more confident. I can do this!! I can!!!

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

5 September, Week 4, Day 13

LABOR DAY WEEKEND PSSSHHHH YEAH RIGHT

We had a long 4 day weekend and we had hellllaaaa shit due today! I'm pretty sure none of us even got to enjoy that extra day!! I was supposed to go camping or whatevs but nooooo I mostly studied and did hw :(

Got my systems assessment done and studied for the tests. Did my hw all last minute cause I'm garbage.

Took the 14A exam and I passed it with 100%!! Wooooo! I really felt like I didn't study hard enough but oh man I'm so surprised :-)

She rescheduled the pharm test for Thursday and that one I feel like I didn't focus on because we had everything else to complete!! Thank god it's not til later haha.

Tomorrow is the first day of clinicals! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

31 Aug, Week 3, Day 12

We made it to Thursday guys. Getting harder and harder to get up for school. Wait didn’t I say this in another post? Oh well I’m repetitive. But for real, I feel so blessed to live just 4 min away from school. I can’t imagine my classmates who live an hour away and have to get up at 5am just to get to class by 7. I would be deeaad driving that hour.

So today our instructor was mad that we don’t have elaborate answers in our workbook but our answers come directly from the book so we were all confused about how to do our hw from now on. Super annoying! Just adds more busy work! 🙄🙄🙄 on a lighter note, her cranial nerve quiz was EZ mode. Brian helped me study last night so I did excellent!!

In pharmacology, we took a math exam and I passed (At first with 100% but I saw they missed a wrong answer because I forgot to round. Had to make sure they caught that but at least I was able to celebrate that 100 for a while). A couple people didn’t pass again and I felt awful seeing my friend cry. She’s so smart, and she knows how to do the math but I think she just forgets to check her work. I don’t like seeing her sad because she’s usually the positive one out of the both of us!

Have a lot coming up

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

30 Aug, Week 3, Day 11

Foley Catheter day! It's finally time to do skills that I've never done before!! Skills days will now be more intimidating and more exciting lol. I'm really into learning all these new things!!!

The whole sterile field shit gets me man. So my first time unwrapping the package the sides kept closing so I was already fuckin up in the first 3 seconds!!! I'll get it down. Hopefully lol. I know these mannequins aren't even close to the real things. The urethras on these are enormous lol. I just need a lot of practice on real people.

We had our medmath quiz today. Got 100%. But it was devestating to see some people fail. There were a lot of tears. It's because we have to pass it to go to clinicals and if you miss clinicals, you can't make up those hours. But the people who failed they just made dumb mistakes! Easily fixable.

We also went to out clinical site today. A nursing home 45 min away. We watched an elder abuse video and went home. Honestly a waste of time and gas. The car ride with my classmates was kinda funny though. We got Dutch bros together and told some funny stories. Need to get to know my clinical group more!

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

29 Aug, Week 3, Day 10

Oh wow I didn't even know it was the 10th day today.

Ok so our other instructor went over the systems assessment section by section and that helped A LOT. Yesterday everyone was like huh what WAT because we were just given handouts and was told to just go off of those. But now we actually know what to put! Big sigh of relief. They seem less stressful to do. It's still a big paper though. A lot of points.

Took an abbreviations quiz today which I passed :-)

I passed the Nurs1 exam but just barelyyy. Im still in that NEED AN A mode but I know I shouldn't be.

Ok so one of the teachers emailed us saying we need to elaborate on our answers in the workbook. Like look for more info on google and our class articles, etc. but literally who has time for that! On top of the exams and daily quizzes we need to study for, and the endless amount of hw, there's literally no time for extra shit like that. Siiiiigh. And I didn't even get full points. Such BS man. I get it, we're supposed to get this crap hammerfisted into our brain, but it's just busy work that doesn't motivate me to learn it.

Siiiggghhh. Ok I gotta stop complaining. I'm here. I'm doing ok right now. My classmates aren't going to let me fail. So I'm ok. Right? Right???

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

28 Aug, Week 3, Day 9

WELL IT WAS A MESSY MONDAY. Feels like everything’s on fire!!

And also I already wrote a long ass post but forgot to post it! That’s how tired I was last night lol.

But anyway, we learned assessments today and everyone was so confused. We didn’t even know what questions to ask. Idk why we were having so much trouble. I think we’ll do a little better once we’re doing it on our actual patients at clinicals. Felt like walking around blind though. We didn’t know exactly how to word things in the different sections of the systems assessment, we didn’t know proper techniques. I mean, I know we’re responsible for looking stuff up in class, but I feel like I need to see one thorough assessment in person first. Oh well, that’s probably just me.

Everyone was visibly stressed today though. Week 3 claims another victim for a breakdown. A girl started crying, but I’m not sure why. Someone said it’s because she felt overwhelmed and didn’t understand the assessments. It’s so much work man. Next week is about to be hella crazy. No breaks over the 4 day weekend either. 2 exams on the Tuesday after Labor Day! 😩😩

On a lighter note, had study group today. Feel like I’m learning a lot with them. We stayed in the library for a long time again. Think that forces me to get my work done. Definitely not as productive in my room haha.

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

24 Aug, Week 2, Day 8

FIRST EXAM DAY! Holy moly I was so scared. Mostly because I was intimidated by how the questions would be worded. We only have 50min for 50qs but I wanna read each question like 10 times to make sure I know what it’s asking. I’m pretty sure the whole class passed though. We could only miss 11 on this test and everyone got either 10 or less. Ok so I checked my answers and I could have sworn I got 6 wrong. Later on that night, my class groupchat was lit with everyone saying they got 1 point better and our instructor must have thrown out a question. But when I looked I did worse and got 8 wrong :( Wtfffff and I’m the the only one that it happened to! Idk man I feel like I now have to dig myself out of a bigger hole :( I’m so upset man.

Week 2 is over. Only gonna get harder from here on out. Got another exam and a couple quizzes next week. And then the week after Labor Day we have 3 exams!!! We just keep going and going and going. It's expected but I feel like my brain is getting fried from all the info lol. On top of all these tests, we have a fucking shitload of homework! Which I'm still mad about because no other nursing programs in the area have homework and all this busy work just feels meaningless!! At least we start assessments next week. Getting closer to our actual clinical days 😱 Another week down! 70 left!

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

23 Aug, Week 2, Day 7

And so it is the day before the first exam. Idk man, I can't even think straight. I don't know what I don't know!!?!? The last couple days I focused a lot on the study guide. I can feel it in our class group chat too; it's a lot quieter and not as many questions. I think everyone's kinda silently freaking out on their own. One guy had a meltdown today in the parking lot. Life happens, I guess. Sometimes it all comes crashing down at once, and the worst timing is during nursing school. Fortunately everyone's helpful. And nobody's afraid to ask questions. We had skills today. All the vital signs and we even got to hear all of the cool breath and abnormal heart sounds on the mannequins. Very easy day as expected for clinical days. Blahhhh can't focus. Hoping to sleep early so I can get enough rest and a good breakfast. It's a make it or break it day tomorrow. Siiiiiiiigh. I want to be confident so bad buuuut.

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

22 Aug, Week 2, Day 6

Today was Taco Tuesday! Coordinated with my classmates to order 50 tacos from a local shop. Had a good lunch all together. Our first exam is on Thursday this week so it was nice to spend a couple minutes just enjoying tacos and doing less stressful studying with each other. I like these little bonding meals we have during lunch. I try not to talk about the school work and just have a casual conversation with them. It’s only the second week so we’re still getting to know each other. Gotta have some good morale, after all, we’re gonna see each other 4 days out of the week for the next 2 years, lol. 

I was pretty awake today! Got some restful sleep and was actively taking notes during the whole lecture. We sped through 2 powerpoints today so i feel like it was a whirlwind of info. I think our main problem is that our teachers always have these great stories that go with our topics and they often get lost in them and everyone wants to pitch in their stories and it just becomes this long discussion. But now that our exam is getting closer and we havent gone through all the chapters, one of our teachers had to quickly do 4 chapters today and left the rest to our own reading. 

Thankfully she did a review session after class today. She quizzed us on the various topics covered in our study guide. I liked that she didnt directly tell us the answer but kept questioning our knowledge and asked to show where that information was located in our books and other resources. I feel a lot more confident in the study guide I filled out, but im still super duper duper nervous about the exam :( Hopefully we get those drinks after the test that we talked about!

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

21 Aug, Week 2, Day 5

Weeeek 2, let’s gooooo. Lol jk. I was dead today again. Woke up kind of late, and stayed half asleep throughout the whole class until lunch. 
We don’t have school on Fridays so we have 3 day weekends for the first 9 weeks. Feels good but I came back feeling confused all over again lol. I feel like nobody can get organized! 😩😩😩 So today was skills day. We did bed baths, occupied bed, bedpan, feeding, brushing teeth, restraints, and applying tedhose all on each other lol. We also shaved balloons. Again, very easy because I do all those at work every single time I work. Oh yeah, the solar eclipse was today! Our instructor let us watch it using 2 X-ray sheets to block the rays. It was super neat! The maintenance guys also let us use the welding helmet, haha. I just looked at all of the stuff due for these first 9 weeks and holyyyy cow it’s so much. I’m getting anxiety right now 😖😖
But I just have to remember to take it one day at a time, prioritize, and breathe breathe breathe.

[jaysnursingschoolblog]

17 Aug, Week 1, Day 4

LECTURE DAYS DRAAAAAAAAGGGGG. Don’t get me wrong, I love learning, I love all this cool shit I get to do, but powerpoints all day just make me feel sleepy. And today was pretty bad! For some reason I couldn’t wake up for the first couple hours of the day. I think I was half asleep during Nurs1. I went and walked around with a classmate during break. I needed a slap in the face, honestly lol. We turned in our first piece of homework today so that was neat. Got to make a fat checkmark on the calendar. Woo! Our class decided to do a study group after class. It was pretty chill. I liked how we can all keep each other up to date with our reading and homework assignments. We’re not afraid to ask each other for clarification on some stuff. I think our group is working really well together. I feel blessed to be with an amazing group of students that really try to help. One of the girls started crying today. She said she feels overwhelmed and she’s scared to fail. But that’s so understandable and I’m pretty sure we all have that fear! We tried to make her feel better and just the amount of help and positivity she was offered made me really thankful I’m in this program. Like, wow, everyone is so friendly!

I hope it always stays like this! No drama please lol.

I MADE IT THROUGH THE FIRST WEEK!! Omg I can't believe I'm really in this bitch right now. I'm really in nursing school 😱😱😱 and we knocked out 1 week! 18 more months to go! Haha. It's only gonna get harder from here.