Thursday, September 20, 2007

A Week of Excitment

This week has been pretty...eventful. To start with, Monday I woke up with bug bites from my toes to my waist. This annoyed me all day and only seemed to get worse through Monday night and into Tuesday. Tuesday I washed all my bed linens and that seems to have taken care of the problem. The bites are so itchy and annoying I couldn't tell if I was getting more or not, so last night I circled them all to see if any new ones appeared. Then I decided since they were all so obvious now I should count them. Well I lost count somewhere around 70! I'm pretty sure I've gotten no new bites and the problem is now under control. There must just have been some bug in my bed. The only problem now is that they itch like crazy. I've been taking Benadryl at night to prevent myself from itching and today when I got home it was overwhelming. I popped a Benadryl and in 45 minutes the room was spinning every time I moved too quickly. I'm much recovered now, but the itching it back in full force. At least the problem is contained now.

Tuesday and Wednesday for my clinical I was in the ER. Tuesday was ok, but Wednesday was quite eventful. I got to insert two foley catheters which doesn't sound so exciting but is a major think you practice and hype up for in nursing school. Then, someone came in CPR in progress and we were allowed to do the chest compressions. While I wasn't happy about it, it was exciting and a great opportunity to practice a needed skill hands on. Way different then "Annie" in the BLS class. The weirdest part was when tje ribs cracked. If you're doing CPR correctly the ribs should crack (after all, you're pushing all your weight into somebody's chest to try and pump blood to their whole body) but the feeling and sound were very weird. It also made me very aware just how much power our little hearts have.

Today, we oriented at a home care agency for community health. It's a very extensive agency with many, many services. Listening to the different nurses speaking about their roles and their passion for advocacy for their patients really got me excited. It reminded my why I went to nursing school in the first place and where my true passion lies. (In case you didn't know, it's to hopefully go to a developing country and provide services and resources to marginalized women and children). I think the community/home care setting is really the area where I'm going to get the best experiences to prepare me for the kind of work I want to do. I think my clinical instructor thought I was a little crazy when I all but begged to go to the AIDS clinics. I'm really looking forward to the semester and it should generate some good stories.

In other news, I'm going to add two new kinds of posts to huruma. One I've been planning for awhile and they're going to be about my favorite, moderately healthy, easy, one-person friendly meals. I've tried cook books, but there are always too many ingredients or too time consuming so I've worked out some of my own (which usually consists of putting everything in one pot/skillet/dish) and I'll share them with you. I don't claim to be gourmet, but they're pretty good and pretty easy and won't cost you too much, time or dollars. The second kind of posts are going to be things I discover that I think are really cool and kind of want. I have a whole folder in my bookmarks of fun things I find and so I figured it's time to share them with someone. Anyway, just some things to look forward to. Happy Friday everyone!

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