timing is everything

This last semester of my time at Creighton is a little different. I have what is called my nursing preceptorship, which is basically like an internship. I'm paired up with a nurse and basically work her schedule, three 12-hour shifts per week. We have 10 weeks to complete 320 hours, and that's really all the "school" I have. And let me tell you, it's been quite the whirlwind.

My first week was a friday-saturday-sunday, and let's say I didn't quite make it to Sunday. Friday and Saturday were awesome, I love the nurse I am paired with and the floor I'm on, but I guess my body needed a little more time to adjust. I woke up on that Sunday sick as a dog, and stayed that way all week long. After I finally felt better and was able to back to Children's every nurse kept telling me "getting sick is normal when you first come into peds, it's like sending a kid to daycare, they pick up everything." I'm hoping that got out of my system now, and that I'll be good to go the rest of the semester. I've been back at school for 5ish weeks and I've managed to be sick all but 2 of them, or at least that's what it feels like.

I did make it through my next 3 in a row, however, and I don't think I have ever been so tired. I made it through all 3 days feeling great, not really understanding why everyone talks about hating working 3 in a row. Waking up on that fourth day though, it all sunk in. I was so tired my alarm went off for probably a good 5 minutes before I even realized it. I finally realized why all those people were complaining, it suddenly all made so much sense. Luckily, I have had a few days to recover since then, but it's almost time for me to do it all over again. I'll write again about all the exciting things I've gotten the chance to do this semester thus far- and there are many, many exciting things!

I'll chase the hurt

Two weeks into school and I have yet to start my clinical, I'm at Children's Hospital all semester. I'll be working like a full-time nurse with 3 12-hours shifts. I'm super excited to start, but I have yet to learn my schedule, so we'll see how that goes.

Anyways, as one of our 10 assignments for this semester I recently had to write a paper about my personal philosophy on nursing and I thought I would share the first half with you (the second half is all about Creighton's mission statement). I apologize- it's kind of long.

Throughout every step of nursing school, I have been constantly reaffirmed that this is the profession I was born to be in, however I was not always aware of that. When I was growing up, the thought of becoming a nurse never crossed my mind, until one day when everything changed. I went from being a normal high school athlete to a couch-ridden, back brace wearing 15 year old. I suddenly was in the doctor’s office every other week, getting countless tests done to try and find the cause of my mysterious back pain. For the next 15 months I would come to know my physicians and nurses quite well specifically my orthopedist, Dr. C. After I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that was attributed as the cause of my back pain, I went in for a 6-month follow-up appointment with Dr. C. At this point I was in fairly good health, having stopped the activities that were the cause of my pain, and Dr. C made a comment that forever changed my path in life. He said “you know, it’s usually the kids who spend as much time as you did in hospitals and doctor’s offices that usually end up going into the health care field,” and that really struck me. Prior to that statement, I had not even considered a career in health care, but with that statement in my mind I did a bit of research and decided that I felt a calling to the profession of nursing. Based on the little research that I had done, I decided to start looking for schools with well-known nursing programs and I chose to go to Creighton, somewhat on a whim. Thinking back, I think it was fate that lead me to Creighton, because as a senior in high school I truly could not have known how perfect of a fit Creighton would be for me, and just how good for me it would be.

Because of my experiences in high school, I have a more personal nursing philosophy, which I believe makes me a better nurse. The deciding factor for me with nursing was that nurses have the chance to make the biggest impact on their patients, because they are the first and last face that the patient sees when the enter and then later are discharged from the hospital. I have reflected on my time in and out of doctor’s offices, and I have learned in my clinical experiences how to make what could potentially be a very bad time in my patient’s life a little more positive. One part of my philosophy on nursing is that I will make every patient feel a little better about his/her life, and make the experience of being a patient more positive than negative, despite the negative reasons for his/her admittance. I have also learned from both my personal experience and my Creighton education that nurses should look below the surface, and to not just treat one symptom but to take a step back to examine and then treat the whole person. I have learned that sometimes the a breakthrough in treatment is found when one person steps back and looks at the patient as a whole, not just the presenting symptom. I have always had a strong faith in God, and my faith has taught me that all people are created equal, and deserve to get fair and equal care, no matter the circumstances. With all of these aspects in mind, my philosophy about nursing is to always provide unbiased, holistic, patient centered care for every person.

as we go on..

This is going to be a big year for me. A year of many big milestones such as:

1. Graduating from college.

2. Turning twenty-two.

3. Getting my first real job.

4. Completing my first Century Ride.

5. Becoming a RN, BSN.

With each one of these comes a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it. I've hit the point in school where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I can almost reach it. I'm so close but can't believe that it's almost over, that a new chapter in my life is about to begin.

life in reverse

just a few of my favorite pictures from this past year....

into the light

I'm FINALLY in the home stretch. I can almost smell the Thanksgiving dinner cooking in the oven, I can almost listen to Christmas music again, the light at the end of the tunnel is slowly getting closer and brighter. This is super good, because lately I've been in a bit of a slump. Me and my Texas bones wimped out at the first sign of cold weather and I haven't been on my bike since about the 1st of October (I know, lame). I'm trying to change this- trying to coax myself that once I actually get riding that it won't see so cold (so far no luck though). Other than that it seemed like school worked seemed to implode in 3 week period- it was just one thing after another after another. And all I really want to do is go home. But enough of that, onto the good stuff.

I've been on quite a few adventures recently, one including driving 1,000 miles in 2.5 days. I know, pretty remarkable. My roommates and I decided last minute to make a little trip up to Chicago, for almost 3 days. I also celebrated Halloween, college kid style. What exactly is college kid style--good question. haha. Halloween is my least favorite of the holidays, so I just kinda go along with whatever the plans are and roll with it.

I finished my multiple client rotation, and I have to say that from this past year this was probably the rotation I enjoyed the most. I know that's not really fair because I have probably said that about every rotation, but hindsight is 20/20. I've learned that with each new rotation I realize things that I loved and the things I didn't love so much. But this rotation was very different from my others, in that I really felt like the whole family was involved with the care, it was a much more friendly atmosphere. This is somewhat ironic, consider an oncology floor can be one of the most depressing places in the hospital. However, the nurses on this floor did an excellent job of making it a not so scary place. That's what really made the difference, the nurses.

I hope that I will become that kind of nurse one day, that I can make the scary parts of life seem much more bearable.

enchanted to meet you

This past rotation I was on an oncology unit, and I thought I would share one of my journals from these past 4 weeks, because I feel like it really captures the essence of this rotation.

This week (my second week on this unit) I was truly astounded with the faith, and hope that these patients have. I had two patients this week that had very recent diagnoses of cancer, and it floored me how strong they were. I know I only got to be in a small part of their lives, I only saw snapshot of the big picture, but they really amazed me. From a nursing role, these two patients could not have been more perfect. No, they were not super complicated, in the sense that only one had an IV pump and a Foley, both were independent and other than medications, could pretty much take care of themselves. However, with the cancer diagnosis there was a whole different aspect of care that needed to be covered. Being told you have cancer can be a very scary diagnosis, however I was very inspired by how optimistic and strong my patients were being, and how open they were with sharing their stories with me.

On both a student and a personal level this was extremely helpful to me. I have been very lucky in my life, to not be affected by cancer personally or to not know anyone close to me who has been affected, so this is one area where I feel like I was extremely lacking in both knowledge and experience. I really was amazed at how strong not only the patients were, but also their wives and families. I feel like I could truly see God working in their lives during this difficult time, because I know that if it were me, I might not be so open and friendly.

I do know that not every patient will always be as open as these two were, but I felt like I did learn a lot about the process the patient goes through when diagnosed with cancer, and the grieving and questions that come from the diagnosis. And while both patients had been were not diagnosed while I was there, they were recent enough that they still had many questions and in some areas looked to me for answers. I really felt like I was able to learn and grow with them this week, I felt blessed to be a part of their journey back to health.

i'm just a basket case

It seems that every time I go to post all I ever want to talk about is how incredibly busy I am, like it's some brand-spanking new news. You think I would have gotten the memo long ago that nursing school is pretty dang busy- nothing really ever changes. But of course I always seem to forget this fact right before the world gets thrown at us.

So what's new in my life now? Well for starters I'm busy- of course. I just finished my ICU rotation earlier today and it's a little bittersweet. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, which surprised me. I'm not quite sure what I had in my mind about what ICU was going to be like going into it, but all of my expectations were completely blown away. However, even though I had a lot of fun because I had to chance to do a ton on nursing cares and such, it was still very depressing. I didn't really realize how depressing and serious it was until I moved onto my next rotation, Multiple Client.

The majority of the patients in ICU were on ventilators, had feeding tubes, couldn't talk and most of the time were to sedated to have any sort of response to other people. Now, these patients usually had multiple health problems (hence being in ICU) so there was a lot of care that needed to be done, but I found I didn't like ICU for the same reasons I didn't like NICU- the patients couldn't talk back, they didn't really respond to you. And to be honest, I didn't really realize how depressing it was until I moved onto my next rotation, on an oncology unit, where I can actually sit down and have conversations with my patients. As a whole though, I felt like I really learned a lot, I'm actually starting to feel a little more like a real nurse day by day.

On a different note it's midterms week (ohh boy!) and again, it seems like I seem to forget how busy it is until it's finally here. I took one midterm on Monday, have another one next Monday and then my last on Friday- then it's fall break! And unlike last fall break I will not be anxious and nervous, I am going to throughly enjoy my time off and not worry about ANYTHING. I have been far to stressed out about school-it's high time for a break.