Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Rock You Like a Hurricane

Ugh. Rain.

Yes, I know there are many, many people who have it far worse than I do at the moment, what with the hurricanes that are causing said rain. My biggest gripe is that I can't ride my scooter with the weather doing what it is, and being able to ride would have made going to Wal-Mart this evening much more enjoyable. Why drive a car as mere mortals do when you can ride a pink scooter? Grateful as I am that this IS my biggest gripe, and much as I'm keeping those in harm's way in my thoughts, I'm a whiny brat nonetheless.

You may have noticed that my new blog design has bitten the big one. Back to square one on that...I'll have something going on here with some actual personality shortly. But for the moment, I'm lazy. And whiny.

It's soup weather today...the first chilly day we've had. Except for the rain, I like it! Good timing, too, since our air conditioner apparently pooped out last night.

Today started out pretty crappy. I forgot to take my coffee with me to class, which is never, ever a good thing. Then there was a great deal of folderol and shenanigans surrounding this morning's quiz. Between the rain and the quiz and the lack of coffee, I was in a decidedly murderous mood.

Then I noticed that Pooh-Bear was absent. Suddenly, the sun was shining, birds were singing, rainbows were glistening, and small forest creatures were doing a happy little dance around my feet. I'm pretty sure a disco ball descended from the ceiling and The Fifth Dimension was singing "Age of Aquarius" somewhere in there, too.

Rumor is that she failed her competencies on Friday...I don't doubt it. Frankly, I'd have been shocked into speechlessness if she'd passed (and we ALL know how often I'm rendered speechless). There's speculation that she's not coming back. It seems to me that if she did plan on continuing, missing the next lab session directly after she failed her competencies may not be the best course of action. We'll know by tomorrow or Friday, I guess.

If she does decide to press on, I truly do not think she's going to make it to the end. We are allowed to fail and retake 3 competencies before we are dropped from the class. I don't think she'll be able to do it. If she can't give a bath or make a bed after FIVE AND A HALF HOURS of total practice time (The Expert tallied it up - the rest of us each got 45 minutes tops), how on earth is she going to manage taking vitals or drawing blood? How is she going to read an EKG? I'm pretty sure it's not happening, especially since she will absolutely not be getting that much time for practice from here on out.

Speaking of drawing blood, I will say this...in the highly unlikely event that she makes it that far, she gets ONE shot at poking me. If she blows a vein or moves the needle around, that's it. No more. They can preach all they want about support and teamwork, but I'm the one who has to go around looking like a heroin addict and feeling like my arms got run over by a monster truck if she screws up.

Anyway, we had a lovely lab session today. There was a brief exchange:

Token Male: Where's Pooh-Bear?
Expert: Not here. That's about all we know.
Token Male (to me): Do you need a bucket to cry into?
Me: Does it have champagne in it?

The adjunct that we spoke to about Pooh-Bear last week kept coming over and asking how things were today. Um, fine...notice the entire source of our problem isn't here? No? I didn't think you caught that. Well, she's elsewhere, so we're great! Thanks!

Maybe I'll go for a run tomorrow morning. Should be gorgeous weather for it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, well, well......I am not surprised that P.B. wasn't there today. If she indeed failed the first exam, especially after making such a big production about none of you guys being "serious", she must be bumfuzzled and downright besmoofed. Do ya like my new words? I'm sure you can stick whatever words you'd like in there, many could work! Anyway, sounds like things went much better today.

We were not allowed to practice starting IV's or sticking other students with needles in nursing school. We had to use "the arm" (a big rubbery arm with the hand attached), which had been used many times over. Certainly not like the real thing at all. We just didn't have too many live experiences in clinicals to stick patients or start IVs. When the nursing students come to our office for clinicals, some of us allow them to use us as guinea pigs. Well, that is until the group that graduated in May, 2008. I ended up with a HUGE hematoma on my hand after one of the students tried and tried to start an IV. She got it in and had blood return, but I'm not sure what she did after that cuz it just kept swelling up and I had to wrap it up tight with coban........YIKES! I'll just let Diane be the guinea pig this year.

They're going to teach you how to read an EKG? I can't even do that, bless your little pea-pickin heart (I have no clue what that means). I just could not get the whole cardiac unit with all the pqrstuv waves, V-fib, A-fib, on and on.....it all scared the bejinkers out of me. I hated doing clinicals on the Telemetry Unit, with all the monitors beeping and flashing......TOO MUCH for this little princess to handle. Actually, I wasn't fond of the whole hospital nursing experience and usually left clinicals that day wondering why it was I thought I wanted to be a nurse. Thankfully, I've found my niche, and I'm pretty good at it if I do say so myself!!!!

Okay, well, I'm sick and need to go lay down. Plus, I want to watch my new fav politician make her speech. Love ya, JJ

Danny said...

The only downside to no Poo-Bear is that there will be no more stories about Poo-Bears antics.

However having some stress relieved in an education environment will be a good thing for you and your fellow students.

Good luck to you for her not returning.