Ghost Hunters

One of my favorite shows is Ghost Hunters which airs on the Sci Fi network on Wednesday nights. I absolutlely LUV it. For those of you who don't watch, it's a "reality" show that follows a group of investigators from New England trying to "debunk" hauntings. What I love about this show is that it isn't all cheesy like that other haunted show where some become posessed and all of that other fake malarchy. These guys are ligit, they're trying to disprove that places are haunted and most of the time they do disprove it and find other reasons for the supposed sights, sounds, smells etc... A lot of the time, they don't find it isn't haunted and those shows and their evidence is proven and legitimate. It's awesome. The 2 main investigators Jason and Grant who formed TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) began their ghost hunting investigations because of separate unexplained experiences they had of their own. They're both best friends who work for Roto Rooter as plummers so they use that expertise to debunk a lot of investigations that are caused by gas leaks and pipe issues that I don't know anything about. Ha. The show is aweome and I think anyone who likes paranormal things like I do will love this show. One of the shows that sent chills up my spine was the lighthouse show in St. Augustime Florida. You can actually hear a woman's voice say "help me" and you can see an apparition lean over the balcony..it's wild. On Halloween theyre having a 6 hour live broadcast in the real Shining Hotel which is said to be haunted. They've been there before and it is really creepy. So check it out. The show is also funny because of the chemistry between the investigators and you get to know a little about their lives. So watch and enjoy. I'll be posting my thoughts on the show on Thursdays. You can see a lot of video footage from the show on the sci fi networks's website and at the official TAPS site.

Peace out Denny Duquette

I watched Grey's Anatomy last night and had to comment on it. First of all what's with the story that Dr. Burke grabbed Dr. McDreamy by the throat...in real life on the set? That is seriously dissapointing. I hope this doesn't cause either of them to quit, that would really suck.

I thought last night's show was great. It felt like our old Grey's. My favorite moments...Merideth being drugged up on Morphine embarassing George, poor George. I'm glad he and Callie are calling it quits though...he just doesn't love her. You can't make someone love you Callie!!!! Merideth saying she had all her boyfriends in the room. Ha ha ha. That was cute. I was so sad to hear Denny's voice again. I just loved him so much and when she opened that envelope with that check for 8.7 million dollars I about died! I was starting to get really angry though when his dad implied she was only after his money. GRR! But all was well with that in the end. Who could be a more perfect man than Denny? No one...that's why I'm still mad he's off the show. Moments I didn't like....Derrick telling Merideth he was letting her go. After all of that you're letting her go to be with the better guy? Yes, it's probably what he should do because it's the right thing, but make up your damn mind! Then Merideth let Finn AKA McVet go because she knew in her heart she woulnd't ever feel the way about him that she does about Dr. Sheppard. Sigh! Goodbye Finn....it was fun while it lasted. Now what? Merideth and Derrick go back to the loving looks across the room, the hospital bed trysts, the flirty back and forth banter? I hope they take this is a good direction because we're ready for some changes. What's with McCocky McSteamy? Is he arrogant or what? I was kinda mad that he treated Alex like that, even though I always thought Alex was the most arrogant of all the interns. McSteamy is definately the cockiest of all. I'm tellin' ya, Alex is going to give up the plastics and go for the va-jay-jays...I know it. I wonder if he and Addison will hook up. Hmm....speaking of our dear Addy...I thought it was cute how Addison took up for Merideth and as soon as she told him (Sheppard)not to hurt Mer he waltzes in and does exactly that. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! McSteamy and Callie hook-up...totally unexpected, but what is expected on this show? I'd like to see how that plays out. Is she going to become all obsessed with him too? I can't wait to see Izzy back on the floor. She needs to be there because that's where she belongs. Now that Derrick gave up Merideth I think the show will get interesting. I can't wait to see how it unfolds. Until next week....

I know what's going on inside my cells...do you?

It seems like forever since I've written a post. First of all..I passed my trach care and suctioning skill with no problems. Surprisingly, a lot of people didn't pass that skill. I think one of the main problems was their elbows roamed over their sterile fields while they were laying the drape down. For those of you who know what I'm talking about...don't you hate those sterile drapes? It's never laying in the box with a perfect corner to pick up. You're always left to feel you're playing that fun childhood game Operation. You just know the moment you touch it in the wrong way a buzzer is going to go off... BAAAAHHHH ... and you're doomed. Not to mention while you're taking it out and preparing to lay it down in just the right fashion you have to be concious not to let you arms or elbows cross over that kit. What a nightmare. This is why I would never make a good surgical tech...I'm a hand talker, I'd have everything so contaminated I'd get kicked out of the OR.

I'm on fall break this week... yay, but it's almost over....boo! We have our cardio test on Wednesday and I made a plan to study all week long and strive for an A. Did I study all week? Um...no. I decided last Friday I'd atleast give myself the weekend off, that's fair right? Monday came and I decided I'd begin on Tuesday. Tuesday came and my family started to hound me..."aren't you going to study?" So FINALLY on Wednesday I began and I wish I'd started on Monday. Oh well, can't turn back time.

This next test is going to be a booger. It is the first cardio test of 2. It covers the basic anatomy and blood flow of the heart (wish I'd paid more attention in A&P), then it moves on the how the signals travel (sa node, av node, bundle of HIS, purkinge fibers etc...), then diastole, systole, preload, afterload, meds, blood pressure, EKG interpretations and so on and on and on and on and on. I'm diggin' this EKG interpretation business. It's so very cool. Things are kind of starting to come together as far as how our cells work then onto more of the body functions. I feel things clicking around in my little brain, but not quite yet ready to put it all in an orderly fashion. Someday maybe, someday. I was talking to a classmate/friend and we were talking about the NaK pump (that's sodium and potassium for all you regular folk) and how the meds have an effect on it and how fluids and electrolytes have effects on our cells and we started to actually sound like we knew what we were talking about for a moment. I think I'm going to have a t-shirt that says...I know what's going on inside my cells...do you? Ha! Let's just hope I pass this test.

There are only 7 more weeks left in this semester. I think we only have a couple more skills left too. Woo hoo! I can't believe that this time next year I'll be preparing for graduation and once that day is over I won't ever have school work again. I can't imagine my life without studying and school work. It's going to feel so foreign, but oh sooo good. BUT that is far away and after this semester is complete I'll beginning 3rd semester. I hear 3rd semester is the hardest of them all. One thing is... we don't have any skills at all. Right on. On the flip side we have more tests. I've heard it's something like one a week. Bugger! I also have to take medical micro along with next semester. May the good Lord help and keep me during that difficult time.

Speaking of our trach skills I must tell this story no matter how utterly humiliated and embarassed I feel about it because it's going to go down in the quote book hall of fame by being the stupidest thing ever done....EVER! Please understand that this was perhaps the biggest brain fart moment of my life...try not to judge. Ok...so it was two Wednesdays ago, (the same day we got checked off on trach skills), the night before clinical, and I was writing a paper/speech about diabetes I had to give the next day at clinical. My friend/classmate calls and asks if I got the patient assignments for the next day, I told her I did. I noticed her pt had a stoma from a trach, but no appliance and she was on a soft diet... applesauce, jello etc... So she asks me....if I feed her that applesauce will it come out her stoma? I was like....oh my gosh, I don't know!!! And we started to laugh hysterically, one reason is because we were both exausted and delerious, which made us giddy as all get out, another was because we truly didn't know the answer to this and we got a mental picture of this happening and what would she do if it did? SO I tell her...you'd better look that up on the internet because you definately don't want to ask Nurse Instructor Intimidator, she'll think you're crazy. So we finally caught our breath enough to say goodbye and get off the phone. My husband comes upstairs and asks me what in the world is so funny because I was crying at this point. I told him, he didn't get it and off he went. About that time , still in my delerious, don't even know what I'm even laughing at at this point but just can't stop state, someone knocks on my door. I answer it and there stands a lady all decked out in her blue scrubs with a name badge on from the hospital where I do my clinical rotation. Her name says Christy...RN. Funny thing is, my name is Christy too. My first thought at seeing her is ....who told you? I'm so glad you're here..I need your help. LMAO! I have no idea who she is, but she's looking for her son, who happened to be at the neighbors house. I introduce myself, tell her my name is also Christy and I'm in nursing school. (She also says she's my neighbor and we exchange pleasentries.) I thought it was ironic, judging by the look on her face, it wasn't and I'd done lost my mind, because I was giggling for no reason at all. Now that I think of it, she probably thought I was laughing at her or something. SO she leaves to go to the neighbors in search of her kid and in the meantime my husband comes upstairs and askd who it was, I explain and he says...well why don't you go ask her that question, she's a nurse, she'll know. I say...great idea. Bad mistake....bad, bad mistake. So I trot outside, for some reason I had my cell phone in my hand, and I yell at Christy to come over and that I had a "nursing" question. I know what you're all thinking...what an idiot...and you're right!! We had just had our trach skill that day and when my teacher asked me why I was even doing it, I told her to keep the airway patent. Meaning....clear and free of secretions, bacteria and not to mention FOOD!!! This was a serious DER moment and I don't know what in the hell either of us was thinking. SO there we stood on the sidewalk and I was about to ask her when my cell phone rang. I looked down and low and behold it was my friend who happened to have the patient I was going to ask her a question about. I answer and tell her to hang on a sec. So I ask nurse Christy if someone has a stoma that hasn't yet healed and you feed them, will the food come out of their stoma? I hear my friend on the phone yelling wildly but think nothing of it. Nurse Christy looks at me and says in a strange voice with a strange look in her eye. "Well....it shouldn't." So I thank Nurse Christy and she turns to leave and when I turned back she was gone....gone as fast as speed could take a person on foot. How peculiar. I get back on the phone with my friend and she's laughing so hard I can't understand her and then she explains to me that she realized that a stoma from a trach isn't anywhere near where they eat..it's in their airway! Of course you don't have food in your airway. I told my friend who I was talking to and the irony of her coming to the house. It all dawned on me and I laughed so hard I about peed my pants!
I laughed because I knew that but wasn't putting two and two together. I laughed because we'd just passed the skill. I laughed because my friend was laughing so hard that I couldn't hear sound come out of her anymore, I laughed because of the nurse coming to my doorstep with the same name as me, I laughed because of what I'd asked the poor woman. I laughed because it's good to laugh at yourself then we laughed some more. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life! Of course I had to call up my other nursing school buddies and tell them and I laughed so hard I could barely get the story out and they laughed just as hard. It was all a very hilarious, stupid moment I'll definately never forget and oh did I forget to mention that my buddies made me recite this story to nurse instructor intimidator the next day, before I gave my speech mind you, and believe it or not...for the first time we actually heard nurse instructor intimidator laugh and smile. I've now renamed her Nurse Instructor Sense of Humor. That was a great clinical day. I told you it was going down in the books. I can't wait to read about all of these funny happenings at around graduation. What a hoot. Oh and by the way...the lady had her applesauce with no obstruction and no problems. Ain't life grand?

Until next time people.....

Nursing Student Mess Ups and Other Funny Stuff

How does one get organized at clinical? I always strive for it, but it never seems to work out the way I planned. The night before clinical we are emailed our assignments. I look up all my drugs and do a little research on my pt like a good little nursing student. I get my clinical bag together, make sure my uniform is nice and neat, I even go so far as to write down all the things I need to do for my pt in the morning. I also have a whole page to write down the report from the nurse, but by the end of the day I have little notes chicken scratched all throughout my note pad. I feel like I'm on a scavenger hunt skimming through my note pad searching for whatever I wrote in haste. Sigh! I really need a system, a plan. I feel like I'm running in and out of the room, doing this and that all day while the regular, real nurses sit at the nurses station chatting about their kids and having coffee. They're all really great nurses, and they probably are able to have coffee because they, unlike me, have a system. They do all of the same things I do, but they just have it all together. I guess that comes with experience.

Me and my nursing student cohorts have done some of the stupidest things ever during clinical. Really hilarious sh*t. Really stupid stuff actually, but all you can do is laugh....and write it all down so we can all laugh at it later. Yes, that's right...I'm writing all the little stupid things we've said and done down so we can all look back at graduation and laugh at ourselves and our inexperienced ways. Here are some examples: 1st day of clinical (2nd semester) I was told to empty a pt's catheter bag & record her output. Fine, no problem. I go into the room, look at the bag and realized I've never emptied one before and have no idea how to do it. Of course I'm not going to get my instructor...are you kidding? She would have looked at me like I was an alien...a really stupid alien. I actually know how to insert a catheter, I passed that skill, but couldn't empty the bag...boy did I feel like an idiot. I did figure it out, but it was still one of tose "Der" moments.
Stupid moment # 2 a friend/classmate was told to hang a piggyback bag and she was with the instructor and said..."Oh, I forgot the hanger thing." Instructor said "Why? You don't need it." Student "Why not?" Instructor: "Because it's on a pump." I about died laughing, but kept my reserve until I could write it down. They all know I'm doing this by the way and think it's a great idea. The reason this was so funny was because we never practiced IV piggybacks with a pump at school, we always calulated our own drips and hung it because it was running on gravity. Obviously you don't need to hang it higher than the primary bag when it's on a pump. We all got a good laugh out of that. Nursing student # 3...was about to prepare med ( injection ) in front of instructor. She got out her syringe, had her vial of medicine, took off the needle and threw it in the sharps container....before she drew the med. LOL Instructor was like...where'd that needle go? She was just so focused on throwing that needle in the sharps container...bless her. I have to admit, nurse intimidator has become nurse patience. She has to have some to deal with the likes of us. Ha ha.

Well, that's enough clinical horror stories for now ...I'm sure there will be plenty to come later.
Until next time....