Sick!

I just put that little video in because it makes me smile.

So I haven't been able to post because I've been really busy.... and sick. Anyway, this last week I was able to pass my first 4 skills. The first two were medical hand wash and isolation gear. We had to check off on these in front of a classmate who had demoed it a few days before.

Hand washing is weirdly more difficult than it should be. There are actually people who have failed this skill. It involves washing with your hands, elbows, clothing, nose, and everything in the right positions, not touching ANYTHING, soaping and rinsing several times, and more. I passed it, but was a little nervous.

Isolation gear was difficult for me because I'm so big, and the isolation gear we were given was made for tiny little nursing student girls. So, the paper gown part of it basically came apart at the seams if I moved wrong in it, but I still passed. The picture above is pretty much exactly what I had to put on (except the girl in the picture is not Justin sized).

The next was Asepsis, one big demo of two skills on video. An instructor demoed putting together a sterile field and putting on sterile gloves in front of the class, then we had to practice and individually record ourselves demonstrating it. I don't recognize myself on camera. I recorded, then went back to watch myself and all I can think when I see myself on tape are things like 'who is that guy?' and 'they picked a weird looking actor to play me'. I passed those too, and got it all turned in over a week early so that was a relief, and has made this week much easier. I had my first 'prelim' today, and got a 92. Prelim is just a fancy word for exam, or test.

I'm proud of myself, because I've had some sort of stupid cold / sinus infection throughout it all and have felt pretty bad. My symptoms are fading... so I'm in the convalescence phase of my illness (that's a fun word that was on my prelim). Poor Susan's been sick too, and she's had to work, so I think everyone should take a moment of silence in honor of Susan.... Okay thank you.

This week we're learning about vital signs, and I wanted to get a little head start. So today, I went and watched a video about taking temperatures with different types of thermometers, on various types of patients, and in different parts of the body. By 'in' I mean IN. I know I'm going into nursing, and I know I've got to see, touch, and do things I normally wouldn't want to do... but the last thing I ever expected to see on an educational video at school was various types of thermometers inserted into an elderly man's anus... with closeups. (shudders).

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Anyway that's what I've been up to. Oh, we got new glasses, here's a picture:

Coffee Coffee Coffee!!!

One week of school down. The first week started off easy, the first day mostly consisted of those 'getting to know each other games'... you know where you partner up with someone, learn some things about them, then tell the class about the person you met. We also had to choose an adjective starting with the first letter of our first names... then go around trying to name everyone off with their first names and adjectives... of course I got called on first and I'm terrible with names. My whole life I've hated this game because my only options were things like jovial, jiggly, jubilant, or if you aren't picky about the adjective, jumping. I chose Jerk Justin, I know it's not quite an adjective but I thought it was funny and so did everyone else.

After the first day lecture started. And all of the out of class reading and studying that goes along with that. I love lectures, especially when it's something that I find interesting so it was good. The only thing was, I didn't finish reading / studying until somewhere between 9:30 and 11pm every night so that kind of sucks. Skills start next week, in combination with lecture so the difficulty level / time consumption is going to ramp up substantially. We'll be learning 3 skills that we have to practice, and video tape / demonstrate on our own time. It's gonna be fun :)

I did find that getting up early, in combination with long days has unlocked a need for caffeine in me. Susan got me one of those Keurig coffee makers, and I am in love with it. Now I just have to find out which kind of coffee I like the most (there are so many to choose from).