whatever's meant to be will work out perfectly

I passed my statistics test with an 89! I did much better than I thought I was going to. Now I need to focus on studying for my A&P lab practical this Tuesday. I was afraid I would have to spend the weekend studying by candle light. With all the rain we got the other day and the powerful winds, we were without power for almost 24 hours. I couldn't even shower yesterday before work. I would've even settled for a cold shower, but because we have a well and didn't have power, we had absolutely no water too! But there's plenty of water in my garage thanks to the rain! When I got home from work last night my poor little pup, Simba, was so cold! We even piled his bed with blankets too! The three of us ended up cuddling on the couch to try and stay warm.
I woke up this morning to find out that a nasty earthquake hit Chile and now they are expecting a tsunami to hit Hawaii. Hawaii is where my sister is stationed. So I am a little on edge today. I'm not exactly sure how I am going to be able to stay focused on studying but I know I need to try. I'm sure my sister, Rick, and their dogs will be okay. Whatever's meant to be, will work out perfectly.

not ready!

I have a quiz in statistics today and to be completely honest, I'm not ready for it! The last couple days I have been so busy working, then coming home and trying to cram for statistics, that I totally forgot to check and see if I have a lab due today in A&P. When it's my weekend to work in the ER, I have to do Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday because of my school schedule and it totally drains me! By the time Tuesday comes around I am never quite sure wether I am coming or going! And work has been bad enough lately that on Friday... I thought it was actually Monday! I'm pretty sure I'm starting to lose my mind! Maybe that's why I'm so unprepared for this stats quiz today. I should probably going and look for my mind before I attempt to do any more studying! Please excuse me while I go and do that!!

A&P 101

I finally got my grade back from my first A&P exam. I totally passed it with a 101! A few extra credit points definately has never hurt anyone! I have another statistics quiz coming up on Tuesday. I'm not sure I'm ready for this one. I'm just getting tired of having to teach myself everything! I'm not getting paid to teach, so why should I have to do it?? Isn't that teacher's job? Oy! I'm just going to have to keep my fingers crossed and pray that I pass this one!

and I wonder why I'm exhausted!?!

So, classes on Tuesday got canceled. It was truly a blessing since I was not at all ready for that histology quiz. But now my teacher is going to have to cram six hours of class, into the usual three hour block of time. I figure she will either do it today or next Tuesday. I don't see her as being the type to just scratch what we were suppsed to do on Tuesday. And I know for damn sure she won't let us just scratch the histology quiz! But maybe I'll get lucky again and she'll push the histology quiz to next Tuesday so it doesn't interfere with our lecture time today. I just can't seem to find the energy to study this morning. Which is strange, considering I slept for about twelve hours. I'm still so, so tired! Between school frying my brain and work physically exhausting me, I don't know which is worse. I can barely function these days! I'm thinking that the problem is work. When school started, I was doing okay. I was able to manage. But back then, the ER wasn't the disaster that it is now. I'm sure it's not just me that work is doing a number on. I think everyone is feeling about the same way right now. Everyone is busting their butts and bending over backwards for the patients, and it still feels like we are all unappreciated.
The doctors are doing the best they can to see all the patients in an appropriate amount of time and get them out of the ER, wether it be by discharge or admission. Although there seems to be more admits than there are discharges. And that doesn't help the crisis of there being no beds anywhere in the hospital. Sometimes it seems like we could use more than two doctors, but that isn't the problem. The doctors get to all the patients, it's the patients not getting up to the floors that is the problem.
The nurses are exhausted. They are going well over their nurse to patient ratio. Especially when more than half the patients in the ER are critical. Some days we could definately use a few extra nurses, but administration doesn't want to approve the over time for the people who actually don't mind coming in to help out. They would much rather have us work with a skeleton crew. Sometimes I wonder if they find it funny? Well, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Wether it be a nurse or a patient. And most likely it'll be a nurse. Because if a nurse gets hurt, they still won't care. We all know that if something bad happened to a patient, then something would be done about the staffing issue, and the nurse responsible for that patient would, of course, be punished regardless of the situation.
And lastly, the ER techs. Which would be me. We are tired! We are not assigned to specific patients. We have the entire department! We are responsible for checking the airway carts, IV carts, EKG machines, checking oxygen tanks, checking sharps boxes, stocking supplies in all the rooms, stocking linens, stocking fast track, and stocking triage. And along with our own list of things to do, we have to do everything that nurses don't feel like doing or don't have time to do. We constantly have to clean up after people, plug machines in so the batteries don't die. Lately, two or three techs on the floor, just isn't cutting it! We can't keep up with everyone's demands!
I really can't wait til I graduate, become an RN, get my required amount of experience, and can finally apply to medflight! Sigh.

Learning to love it

This morning, I am frantically studying histology. I hate it. I honestly do. But in the next seven hours I better learn to love it. I have a quiz today on it. I'm praying that class is canceled tonight now that it is snowing out. But I know that my prayers are useless. My teacher has already told us she will never cancel class since she lives only five minutes away from the school and drives a huge SUV. Sigh. Of course I could never be so lucky. I brought my histology papers to work yesterday to try and study some of the slides I will be quizzed on today. Unfortunately, the ER was SO busy that I barely had a chance to catch my breath! I was totally exhausted by the time I got out of there last night. I was thankful to have made it out of there alive! By the time I got home and settled in, I was able to squeeze in about an hour of studying before I was completely passed out on the couch.
I do have more to blog about, but it's just going to have to wait until some other time. I need to get back to studying. I need to pass this damn histology quiz tonight!!

that's what I get for having to teach myself!

I really don't have a whole lot to blog about today. I need to get my butt in gear and study for my rather large A&P test today. On Tuesday, I got a bunch of quizzes back from my A&P class as well as my first quiz in statistics. I was rather worried about the stats quiz. Since my teacher isn't really the greatest, I have had to teach myself everything I am supposed to be learning in class. Last week when my teacher handed out the quiz for us to take, I found myself sitting there just staring at it. I was drawing complete blanks and was rather disappointed in myself for not teaching me well enough! I had that gut feeling that I was going to bomb the quiz! After ten minutes of just flipping through the pages wondering what the heck I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to pass it, I started looking for things that I did know and took it from there. After another ten minutes went by and other students started getting up and passing their quiz in, I couldn't help but feel stupid. I felt like I should've been done already too! But I guess slow and steady does win the race. Only one person scored a 100, and five students scored between 90-99. I was lucky enough to be one of those five people! I made only a couple silly mistakes and managed to pass it with a 90! Thank God! Now I just need to pass this A&P test today!

monotony!

I can barely move this morning! My back hurts in the worst way! I am sure that I didn't hurt it at work and that it is only muscular. I am comfortable as long as I don't move. But the moment I try to do something, the pain is horrible! I'm not quite sure if I just over exerted myself this weekend at work or if it has something to do with my backpack that weighs almost as much as I do! The damn thing weighs in at 10 pounds!! And people are wondering why I'm losing weight!! Going to school is a work out and a half!! Not to mention all the stress that's been piling up for me the last few weeks! If one more person has the nerve to ask me if I've lost weight, they just may get a punch in the face! I'm sorry if my first priority isn't food! Although I suppose eating at least breakfast would be a good idea. Lately, I find myself going to bed hungry, waking up starving, and that most likely, the noises that I hear while I'm driving to work in the morning, is my stomach devouring every last internal organ I own! By the time I get to work and start running around, I forget how hungry I was before I got there. Sometimes I don't remember until I start shaking and feel like I'm going to pass out. And other times I just don't remember to eat at all! By the time I get home, there's dishes, laundry, or studying to be done. Those take precedence. But nine times out of ten, I don't have the energy to do the dishes or the laundry, so sitting my butt on the couch with a school book in my lap becomes priority. On school day mornings, I wake up early to get some more studying done, but I'm still exhausted from not allowing myself to sleep in. I'm even too tired to make a fresh pot of coffee, so instead, I fill a mug up with left over coffee from yesterday morning and stick in the microwave. Gross. I know. But to be completely honest, I really don't care. However I can get my caffeine fix is good enough for me. Back to the couch I go with my reheated java, waiting until I'm awake enough to get some last minute cramming in before school. By the time I am fully awake I can usually get in a good three hours. Then I shower and head off to class until 8:30ish PM. By the time I get home it's about 9PM. Sometimes later than that depending what time A&P finishes. And once again, I'm far too tired and my brain is far beyond fried to want to do anything but plop down on the couch and not move a muscle. And the monotonous cycle just keeps going and going and going...

tired isn't the word

I am beyond exhausted! For some reason, over the last week, I haven't been able to get more than three hours of sleep. I'm guessing that maybe, subconsciously, I am freaking out way too much about school. But who wouldn't be stressed with 3-4 quizzes every week!? I'm trying so hard not to fail and yet I feel like all my hard work.. is working against me. And now I have one more bit of awesomeness weighing on my mind. The VA has struck again! Tony and I got our tax returns back today. It hit our bank account first thing this morning. We had some big plans with that money. Mostly just paying extra on rent, and bills, and getting the vehicles up to par. But the VA wasted no time at all. They took every last penny of our tax returns due to Tony's whole mess of a GI debt or whatever it is that we have been struggling to fix over the last six months. So now we have almost nothing. And of course Tony felt the need to tell me about this while I was at work today. I broke down and cried. I'm so sick of being stressed, and worrying, and trying so hard and still getting nowhere! Between my lack of sleep the last week and how much I cried today, my eyes are burning! It's only a matter of time now before they just fall right out of my head!
As for studying tonight.. I thought I wasn't going to get much done at all. However, I registered on a pretty cool website tonight: www.myaandp.com I have been glued to it for the last two to three hours just playing around with all the tools and labs and what not. I found it to be very helpful.
I really need to try and get some sleep now. I have to work again in the AM and if I don't get more than three hours of sleep tonight.. well, I apologize in advance if I'm just plain cranky tomorrow!

New year, new goals, new blog

I've decided to stop blogging on my other account. I am still a very proud army wife and I always will be. I have just decided to do something new. As of last month I finally got my butt back into college. And this time I plan to stay in college. No one to two year breaks in between. I have new goals and dreams. I still want to get my nursing degree, but I just want to do something different with it. For a while I thought the ER would be it for me. That I had finally found something that makes me happy. I don't mind the ER at all, I do love it, but I am a definate adrenaline junky. And the ER does not give me my fix every day that I am there. I want to work for a med-flight company. Saving lives on the chopper. The more I think about it, the more I want it! But I know that once I get my nursing degree, I need atleast five years of ER or critical care RN experience. It's kind of discouraging only because I want this so badly and I don't want to wait five years before I can apply for med-flight. I want to do it now!
So this where the new blog comes into play. My dad actually mentioned it to me the other day. I guess he saw the whole blogging experience in the movie "Julie and Julia." I have yet to see the movie, but I figured I'd give this back to school blog thing a shot. And then maybe I will have my little brother help me turn this bad boy into a book. Depending how successful I am at this, of course. Right now I feel like I barely have to breathe. And I'm only taking two classes. It may not seem like a lot, but I'm still working forty hours a week in the ER as well. My weeks are very repetitive lately. Working every other weekend, monday, wednesday, and friday. Tuesdays and thursdays consist of waking up much earlier than I would like to do on a day off from work and cramming every last bit of statistics and/or anatomy and physiology that I possibly can before being stuck in classes from 3pm until 9pm.
My statistics teacher isn't all that great. He's a great guy and all, but in my opinion, if you're going to teach statistics then atleast take a statistics class yourself. He informed us all on the first day of class that he has never taken a stats class in his life. And it shows. I feel like I would be better off not showing up for class, unless it's for a quiz or exam, and just reading the book at home according to the syllabus.
Anatomy and physiology is definately more my cup of tea. But, WOW! Holy memorization! That stuff is dry, dry, dry! I don't really care about protons and monosaccharides. I wish we'd get to the good stuff already! I want to dissect in the worst way! I'm that seems a little morbid to most, but come on now! I work in an ER. I've seen a total arm degloving, a saw sticking out of someone's chest, and held a person's brain in their head! I'm just a hands on kind of girl. I learn better that way. And it's a lot more interesting than sitting through the lecture days and taking notes for three hours straight! And not to mention I have to rewrite all my notes when I get home so I can decipher my chicken scratch before I forget exactly what it is that I had to frantically jot down before it got erased from the board.
Sometimes I wish that I didn't go back to school, but I know I need to get it done. If I ever want to get anywhere or do something with my life, it's now or never. I must commit to excellence!