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.....