TurboNurse

I was told this morning by the PA I went to see that I am resilient (sp?).  I guess I should take that as a compliment but quite honestly, I can't imagine living my life any other way than that which I have chosen.  It's just me.  Who I am.  What I do.

I'd like to take a moment to say how thankful I am for where I am in life right now.  Life isn't perfect but I'm pretty happy with where I am at.  I feel very thankful for my wonderful job and everything else I have worked so hard for.  I'm thankful that I am going back to school in January with my end goal being my MSN.  I'm thankful that we are where we are financially, it hasn't always been this way.  I'm really happy that my body is holding up through all the stuff I put it through with my different exercise endeavors.

That being said, none of this happened by chance.  I've had to be strong to stick to my goals.  I wouldn't have been able to do this if it weren't for the support I've had from my husband, friends, and God (in no particular order).

Yesterday at work I got my butt kicked.  I wouldn't say it was a bad day, just busy for me.  I had a pretty alright assignment and was also 2nd admit.  The assignment I had was totally appropriate as an admission assignment.  What threw me is that we got our first admit yesterday at about 9:30 or so and about 15 minutes after that baby arrived on the unit, the team was called over to another delivery.  It was a term c-section so I wasn't expecting to get anything.  Then I realized they were over there for quite some time for a term secion so I got to thinking I was going to be getting this baby.  Term babies that come to us scare me because we don't typically get term babies unless there is something wrong with them such as congenital diaphramatic hernia (we've has a run on these lately) or if they have severe respiratory distress from things such as meconium aspiration.

This kiddo had niether of these.  Let me clarify that a litte bit more.  The baby did have respiratory distress but not from meconium aspiration.  My guess is either from having a low H/H or TTN (transient tachypnea of the newborn--common with sections becuase the secretions are not being squeezed out of the lungs) or  a combination of both.

It was amazing how white this baby was when it came to us.  The parents are of the darker skinned variety and this baby was more white than the whitest white person I know.

This admit ended up being more sick than the first admit which we expected would be super sick and wasn't.

So we did the typical lab draws and all that stuff.  Had to give a bolus right off the bat and then another bolus after that.  Then they ordered blood to be given.

This was a new experience for me.  I never had the opportunity to give blood on orientation and since I've been off, the opportunity just has not come up for me.  It wasn't that bad.  We had to double verify the blood, double check the orders (again 2 RN's involved) and then prime the tubing.  We use special tubing for the blood but it's different that giving it to adults.  There is no normal sailine carrier that goes with it.  It's just the blood which was different for me.  The only time normal sailine went in was when the line was flushed.  There was still the usual charting.  I charted every 15 minutes for the first hour and then every half hour after that until the blood was done (it goes in over 4 hours).

I am feeling more comfortable at work but I still have so much to learn!  I've been there for 7 months now but I feel like I'm still trying to find my feet.

What I'd really like to make as a goal for next year is to start doing flex and going to deliveries.  I'm going to talk to my charge nurse about that and see what she has to say.

I'm so excited about going back to school in January.  I got an email from my director saying that I can sign up for my CAP III.  CAP is basically an increase in pay grade for things like education and certifications. 

I'm a little confused because I was asking about this earlier and was told I wouldn't be eligible until I start the actual BSN courses.  Right now I'm taking the last of the prereq's required for the BSN.  I need to go talk to her about it.  Not that I'm complaining that they want to give me more money, I just want to clarify everything so that I don't get in trouble for anything.

Tae Kwon Do testing is on Saturday.  The husband is able to come and I'm so excited for him to be able to see what we do.  I can't wait!  I feel very ready for this!

In class on Monday we were doing test review and another green belt and myself were working on our patterns.  Mike came over and was watching me do the last half of my pattern.  It made me so nervous that he was watching!!!!  I lost my concentration for a bit but got it back.  He told me my pattern is looking good, I just need to work on my sine wave on the move in the pattern right before the side kick.  I will be working on that tonight.