Graduation May 15, 2010

In December, my dad had a "mini-stroke" that hospitalized him over Christmas. I had just finished up my semester a few weeks prior and completed the credits needed to receive an Associates degree in General Studies. Although I am proud of my accomplishment, the degree in General Studies doesn't really hold much meaning for me. The degree completion was done for my parents. I received my diploma in the mail the day before Christmas eve and I decided to make a copy and frame it. I wrapped it up with bows and decorations and took it with me to the hospital Christmas Eve when I went to visit my dad. My mom was there visiting too. I gave my dad the gift and he gave it to my mom to open. Once she opened it, she started to tear up and my dad was wondering what it was to make her tear up. She handed it to him and his eyes began to swell with tears as well. I told them, "Merry Christmas. Now you have 2 college graduates." That piece of paper meant the world to them and although it didn't have much meaning for me, I was glad to see how happy it they were because of it. So, to fast forward to the present, this past Saturday, May 15th, was graduation day. I did not want to walk at graduation but my parents really wanted to see the ceremony to make the diploma come to life I guess. So, I signed up to graduate. My parents and family found me in line before the procession and I took a picture with Matt and the kids before they went to find seats. After the ceremony I looked and looked for them and eventually found Matt and the kids outside waiting. I guess my parents had to leave in order to open up the flea market. I didn't get a picture with them but it's ok. The next diploma will mean more to me -- my anticipated graduation date from Nursing is December 2011...so May 2012 I will be walking again only this time, I will be doing the walk for me.

FIRE!

We had a scare two nights ago. Everyone was asleep in bed while I was awake watching "Army Wives" and repeats of "Drop Dead Diva" on Lifetime while studying. As I was sitting on the couch, I noticed this orange glow from the window. I figured our neighbors were getting ready to light up some fireworks. So when I looked out the window, I saw the neighbor's shed had caught fire. I grabbed the phone and raced upstairs to wake Matt as I was dialing 911. By the time I reached Matt, the shed was engulfed in flames. Matt immediately got up and ran outside...in his underwear mind you....to make sure all were okay. My neighbor caught video of Matt racing back across the yards to grab our house in his underwear. LOL! Thankfully it was dark out so you can't see much but the image is still hillarious. She has footage of Matt with the hose spraying down the tree and our fence. The water pressure isn't the greatest so Matt's silouhette looks like it's peeing on the fire. LOL! If I can get the video from the neighbor I will definitely add it to this post. The neighbor's shed is totally gone and because Matt was out with the hose, he was able to save the other neighbor's tree and the kids' playset. Our fence has about 6 rails and a post that needs to be replaced. Some of the images my neighbor captured with her camera are quite freaky too. They gave me chills when reviewing them. In the clouds you can pick out faces and a few look like demons or possibly what the devil may appear to us as. It was quite chilling. I'll see if I can post some later.

Ethan's hose

Okay, this morning I was in the office reviewing some notes. Then, I hear this noise like someone taking a hose and filling a bucket with water. Curious, I leaped out of the chair and headed towards the kitchen. I then see Ethan standing by the basement door with his little hose out pee'ing down the basement stairs. NICE! He immediately said he was sorry when I screamed out his name. *sigh* All this right before having to send Katheryn and Brian out the door to school. Sometimes I wonder if Ethan will grow out of these mischievous acts. Right when I think he's put it all behind him, something like this happens. LOL!

Week for the Medical Experts

What a week we had here. Sunday evening our washer started to leak water from the bottom while Matt was washing his PT's. Then Monday evening, Brian wasn't feeling well at all. He had fallen asleep on the couch right after school and slept until 5pm but seemed to be back to himself on Tuesday. When he got home, he had started a cough. I thought maybe the change of weather was getting to him with the flowers beginning to bloom. Wednesday I received a call from the school nurse as I was sitting down to prepare for class. She wanted to know if Brian had any cough medicine before coming to school because he was coughing up a storm and was distracting himself. I went to the school after class at 12:30 and administered another dose of cough syrup and gave Brian the option of going home with me or staying in school. He seemed fine other than the persistant cough and he chose to stay at school. Later while at Katheryn's dance class, Brian was buzzing around and then suddenly he just stopped. He didn't seem well at all and I was getting worried. I had clinicals the next day and if I miss class, it counts against me. Once we arrived home, Brian's skin temp had gotten really warm. I took his temp, 102.5. I gave him some Ibuprofen and lots of hugs. I had then received an email stating clinicals were cancelled so this brought much relief. Matt then tells me that he thinks he broke his ankle. Great! He was limping around the house and before bed soaked it in some epsom salt. I was able to schedule Brian an appointment for the next day. Thursday I let him sleep in and when he woke up at 7:30 he came downstairs dressed and ready for school. Hmmmm. I almost took him to school but decided to let him stay home. We went to his appointment and the doctor said he was the third kid now in a row with the same symptoms. He said he was ok as long as his fever didn't come back. Thankfully it hasn't been back. So this leaves us to today. I had clinicals this morning and my friend picked me up at 5:30am. My patient was ready to go so I really didn't have much to do. I was finished with everything by 8:05 and we are there until 12. I had a lot of time on my hands that I needed to fill. Thankfully the adjunct let us finish at 10:30 and were out of there at 11am. I went to the lobby to wait for my friend. She finally came at 12:15 from her floor and looked like a train had hit her. She said they were so busy. We leave and are headed to school so we can test off our skill of hanging IV bags. We are both extremely tired when we get there and I volunteered to go first. She starts recording me and my cell phone rings. Great. We stopped the tape and because I didn't recognize the number, I chose the ignore option so I could continue with the testing. As I start back up again, my voicemail music starts to alert me that I received a voicemail. Again, we stop the session and I check it. It's the YMCA calling to let me know that they think Ethan has nursemaids' elbow. Lovely! I can't get an appointment and I'm in the middle of a skills test. I finished the skills test and am flustered. I hope I passed it but I'm sure I made some mistakes. The hard part was that I couldn't just leave because I didn't drive. I had to wait on my friend to test out too. So she begins and keeps having to restart because all she can think about is getting me home. Finally we make it out of there. As we're going down the road, I put on my sunglasses and I find it to be blurry on one side. I kept wiping it with my finger trying to rid the blur but it wouldn't go away. My friend and I continue talking and at one point I turn to look at her while she is talking and she starts to laugh out loud. I asked her if she saw what was blurry on my sunglasses and through heavy laughter, she says, "you just need to look in the mirror." She was in tears laughing and I pull my sunglasses off and gosh darn it....the lens on the left side is missing. No wonder that side was so clear! We both are laughing hysterically and I had my camera with me so I snapped a shot of us. We so needed to laugh. aaaahhhh. The minute I got home, I let Cody out for 2 minutes...poor guy....and the kids were walking around the corner when I left to get them from the bus stop. We get Ethan from the Y and head over to the ER. Ethan puts on a show for the lady checking us in and puts on his puppy dog eyes and whimpers, "can you help me? I have an owie." Pathetic and yet so cute. We go into the room and a nurse comes in. He says, "hi doctor! Can you help me?" She tells him she's a nurse and she checks out his arm. She goes to order an x-ray of his wrist. Then the PA comes in. He takes Ethan's arm and moves it just so and it pops back into place. He told Ethan to move it and he didn't believe that he fixed it. So the PA moved it for him and when Ethan realized it was better, he told the PA, "you can come to my home, it's clean!" The PA asked what was for dinner and Ethan told him pot roast. Then as we were leaving, he invited the ER volunteer, RN and receptionist to dinner at our house at 5pm. LOL! Thankfully no one took him up on his offer. :D I'm so thankful to be home now.

New Discovery

While trying to figure out how to video a class project and edit it, I realized that our home camcorder is a digital camcorder. We've had it for years and I don't know why I never realized this until now. I'm not tech saavy so please don't laugh. I researched video editing online and found that all I needed was a firewire cable to hook my camcorder to my computer to allow me to download. I didn't understand how that would work since I have tapes and not a memory stick but I guess having the mini DV tapes is best and it allows for better quality on the video download. So, for the past two nights, I have downloaded one tape each night. I can't believe how time has flown by. Katheryn in 1st grade on these videos ...wow! I can't wait to get everything downloaded and to make them into DVD's. It'll make sharing videos so much easier. I can't wait to share!

Day 1 of P90X

Okay, so here we go. It's the morning of Feb. 22. I have claimed this to be day 1 of P90X since I've had it in the house now for 2 weeks. It's so hard to find the time to get anything started with school going on. If it wasn't for Matt and his helping hands around the house, I don't think I would be organized. Matt has done so much to help. He has taken over making the kids lunches and he's even cleaning the house and doing laundry. Last night he made dinner. He's doing so much to help me achieve my goals. I am so thankful. For breakfast I am having an egg white omelet with mushroom, tomatoes, green onions and some cheddar cheese. I have lab in about an hour and when I return I will be doing the first workout. I will blog about it tomorrow I suppose...if I'm still alive. LOL! This is something I really want to do. My brother's wedding is in August and I want to at least have arms that have some definition to them. :) Deep breath in.....head held high. I can get through nursing school and I can get through P90X. Bring it!

First Day of Clinicals

Thursday was orientation at the hospital. I was excited to be going away from the school for learning but not looking forward to the long day of 8-4. We got a tour of the unit we would be working on and a quick class on the computer system and our badges. It turns out that my adjucnt didn't quite give us the tour we needed or the information we needed to start on Friday. Friday morning, clinicals start at 6:30am. Luckily I have friends here in the neighborhood and we decided to carpool. However, we are each on a different floor/unit. I am on the rehabilitation floor. I am thankful it's not trauma! I got my nurses' report at 7am about my patient and reported back to my adjunct with notes. My patient is a 72 year old female with R-CVA. I went to introduce myself and take her vital signs only realizing that there wasn't a blood pressure cuff in the room. I excused myself and came back with a machine. After I took her blood pressure, I noticed her RN was in the room waiting to take her assessment. So I stepped aside to allow her to take her assessment as I watched. I was very thankful because I really didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. I observed the nurse take her assessment and then it allowed me to fill in the gaps of what I needed for my report. My patient probably thought I was a nuissance but I was able to get everything done that I needed to. Phew! The hardest part of this whole experience was just getting in there and doing it. We didn't go over head to toe assessments in class other than just lecture. We didn't actually have to do one and get checked off so I wasn't quite sure what I was doing when I got in there. I felt like we were fed to a pack of wolves. However, I survived but I am now wondering what the heck I am doing in nursing. I'm not sure that this is something for me. I won't quit since I've started but it's going to be one rough road. I feel as though I am playing catch up all the time and that the kids may be suffering from my time away from them. Ethan spent the night with my parent's Wed and Thursday and when I went to pick him up, he told me to go away and that he didn't love me anymore. It broke my heart. At least he was able to change his tune before I left and said that he loved me forever and always. :) After clinicals, tensions and emotions were running high. Most of us had to report back to the school to get our sterile techniques checked off and donning sterile gloves. I hadn't slept the night before because I was busy preparing my prep card for clinicals. We get to the school and start to work. Everyone is just chaotic and confused. Overwhelmed. We all needed to relax somehow but it was just too much for one day. I made it home, went to my parents to pick up Ethan. I sat on their couch and about 30 minutes later I fell asleep. I didn't wake up until 9pm. Yikes. I made it home and immediately went to bed. I slept in until 12:30pm!!! I so needed it. Now I am studying for my quiz on Monday and exam on Tuesday. I'm no where near ready. This is soooo much!!! I would love for the semester to be over with already. Red Bull has become my friend.