no sleep = nursing school

This last week has been crazy-- but full of a lot of amazing experiences! I had clinicals mon and tues at timpanogos hospital (still) wednesday 5 hour lecture thursday all day utah nursing assoc. conference friday peds lab saturday primary children's clinicals! and now again monday and tuesday at timpanogos. i've done some pretty cool things and all of them i had never done before! the nurse at primarys was amazing and let me do anything and everything i could. our poor little 5 year old had to get an enema and i know thats not too exciting or pleasant but it was awesome to expand my skills and then she threw up and her ng tube (it goes in through the nose and down to the stomach) and my nurse had me put a new one in!! that was so so cool and i had never done that or even practiced it! today i was in ICU and the doctor let me help him put in a pic line (catheter that goes from a vein in the arm to the right side of the heart and it delievers meds right to the heart) which was awesome! i didn't know they were so complicated -- i was in a sterile gown and gloves and had to maintain sterile technique for a long time and i almost got to suture the cath in place but then the other cath lady doctor did it :( but i have had a blast and all the nurses are amazing! thanks!!

i am

so tired

grey's anatomy here i come!

today was an AMAZING day at clinicals. kendy and i got placed in same day surgery, and we worked with the nicest nurses, doctors and anesthesiologists i've ever got to follow. the nurses were so helpful and really wanted to give us a great experience at same day surgery. the first nurse took us in the endoscopy room to watch the doctor do 3 colonoscopys and an something with a really long name and i don't remember what it was something like esophagealsomething something which they go down through the esophagus into the stomach and small intestine. the doctor was so fast at all the scopes! and the nurse said he was very good at what he does and i can totally understand. he looked at the whole colon and explained what was to a good colon and i learned so much that i haven't ever learned in my many classes.

after all the scopes were done the next really nice nurse made sure we got to go the OR as soon as one of the OR doctors came over she sent us over with him and kendy and i got to change into OR scrubs (!) and put on the booties, hat and mask. i felt like i was in grey's anatomy it was so cool! the first surgery i got to watch was someone who had endometriosis and they were trying to lessen the effects of it and cutting parts of the endometrium out. the second surgery i got to see was the craziest for sure, the surgeons took a 9 pound ovarian cyst out of a girl. it was so crazy and i couldn't believe that something could get so big and that no one would catch it until it was so big that the surgeons couldn't go in laparscopically and remove it but instead had to make an enormous abdomnial incision which required many stitches and staples to close it back up. the doctors were so excited (i could tell that it was something really out of the ordinary for them too) because once they took it out of the abdominal cavity they got a little measuring ruler and started taking pictures of the cyst. the third and last surgery i got to watch was mesh that had been placed in a woman's vagina to hold it up had eroded and they had to go in and take all the mesh out. i felt so bad for this woman and can't imagine what's she's had to go through since this was her second time through it and will have to do something again in a few weeks. it makes me scared to have children because i wouldn't want to have to go through that. ever.

i was so impressed with the OR and how smoothly they work. everyone is so professional and their number one goal is (besides the patient) to keep everything super sterile and they just have it down to an art. it was also surprising how EVERYTHING on the patient is draped and covered head to toe except for where they are going to work. even the face is covered and draped with plastic. it was kind of unnerving to see that their face was covered, but they are intubated and that is how they are breathing so the plastic isn't affecting breathing.

the anesthesiologist was also amazingly nice, when he intubated the patients he let me look over his should and see the esophagus and the vocal cords. he also was the one who came over and explained about what was going on in the surgery and answered any questions i had. it was such an amazing day and such a good first clinical!!

emerald

This all started when i watched a program on judy garland, who played dorothy in the wizard of oz, and i remembered my favorite childhood book - The Emerald City of Oz. I don't know how many times I checked this out from the library (the old building :)) and read it over and over. The reason why this was my favorite book out of the Oz series (yes there is more than just wizard of oz --- there are like 14 books...) was because this book had green glitter on the picture plate pages!

During the program i hopped on amazon to find my childhood book and i found it! it promised metallic green ink as in the original book. i also bought the patchwork girl of oz which is the 7th book (emerald city of oz is the 6th). i plan on buying the whole series one day :) i waited anxiously while it was slowly shipped to me and when i got it it had metallic green ink -- but no glitter. i was so disappointed but once i started reading it the magic of Oz came back to me.

Then mom had the marvelous idea of going back to the library and seeing if they still owned the green glitter book and they did :)

Holga

Double exposure

So andrew bought this camera awhile ago (ok so like beginning of the summer) and its a way old school camera, nothing is automatic and you have to use electrical tape to tape the sides to attempt to keep light out (which i dont think it does so well, or maybe it was cause it was our first roll and we didnt know how to quite work the camera yet) but it is an awesome camera and you can do sooooooooo many cool things with it and so many different effects that we have yet to explore.

andrew also started using 35 mm film in it because it is cheaper (the iso film was 18 dollars for 16 pictures....) 35 mm is tricky because you have to guess how much to wind the camera to get to the next frame and so sometimes you end up inbetween frames and a cool thing about the 35 mm is that the camera exposes the WHOLE frame top to bottome from the notchy's at the top to the notchy's at the bottom.

andrew got the film back from our first adventure and it's taken be awhile to get it on the computer because i had to scan it instead of simply just downloading from a memory card (or "chip" as bronwyn's kindergarten teacher would say) but i love these pictures and i'm excited to see what andrew does with his future holga camera :)

super nintendo!

ok so andrew and i have pulled out my old super nintendo and already have hours invested in the last couple days. we are trying to beat super mario world which is sooo fun! we can't even move our eyes away from the computer and now we have learned a coupld tricks. first we go to the forest of illusion to get a bazillion lives and feathers and maybe a yoshi and then go attack whatever level we are trying to beat. currently i am trying to beat a castle and andrew is trying to beat bowser's castle place. this picture im sure will surely remind andrew of exactly where we are and that we STILL haven't beaten this castle even after hours of trying to beat it, ok im sure that's an exaggeration but we're still remembering the controls of snes and are getting the hang out it :) i'll have an update for when we beat super mario world!

second semester

so today was my first day of second semester of nursing school and my lecture was five long hours. the very first day and we had orientation, a guest speaker and a lecture on the perioperative part of nursing. and had a quiz, i don't know how its possible to have a drug quiz on the first day but we accomplished it and i get to look forward to 4 more months of this exact routine, plus clinicals, plus labs, plus professional hours. well wish me luck and my goal for this semester is to not fall asleep due to boredom too often :) lol just kidding i WONT be able to i think jacquie would kill me if i did (the dreaded 2nd semester teacher.....)