Math :-P

The bane of my existence and the reason for a less than perfect score on my 2nd OB Exam. Will know later today what the official verdict is.


***update***

Damn math, yes that was the only 1 I got wrong... so damn close to a 100%. If only I had had looked over the math problems before class as I had planned. It was a really easy question too and I missed the original ml the med came in, those damn dilution questions are tricky! LOL Oh well an A is still an A.

Let's get this show on the road...

Last day of Med/Surg Clinical... the day I have been dreading. IR aka Interventional Radiology, home of the IV starts! Time to get over my fear and nervousness and drop some IVs like they were easy peasy!



*** update***

Two for two... IVs that is :-) Had a blast today, it's like Pre-Op, OR, and PACU all rolled into 1. MY FAV!! Of course that means that I ran around like crazy today. Boy am I exhausted!

I now have to meet with the trainer at 6 and because I don't have clinical tomorrow I said I would work, but man I am soooo tired already! Although if anything were to give it'd be the trainer right now, cuz I am happily losing right now without his or the gyms help and am OK with that too!

Echo Heron

Love her books. I have two on my Nook right now. One I read prenursing school and one I picked up last night to aide in my careplan procrastination and to try and keep me awake during my 12 hour NOC shift.

Careplan Hell

Yeah that is how my weekend will be spent. God I did not miss this! Yuck. Urgh... procrastination is all up in my grill over this. LOL

Ok I must go cook dinner and get ready for work, while trying to think about what I want to put on this waste of a paper!

Dreaded Questions Begin Again...

Question 1.) How do you study?

1. Effectively apparently but my methods won't help much. Are you doing NCLEX questions? If not do them.


Question 2.) Can you send me your notes?

Nope that would require me typing them out, and I don't type out my notes because I honestly type without thinking about what it is I am typing. I type on auto pilot. Why? Because I had to learn how to do it fast and without looking at the keyboard in order to get a million purchase orders typed in every day for 10 years.

I write my notes out in my notebook in a weird format, that no I will not explain to you, because once again, my methods may not work for you to study by.



Question 3.)Can I call you when I have questions?

Sure and if I am home and or answering my phone that day I will be more than happy to help you out. I will meet you a little before class or stay a little after class to help, but I will not make a special trip to campus on my day off to tutor. I honestly do not have enough time right now to do that. I AM TIRED!


Question .)Are you in a study group?

No I don't do groups!

OB Exam #1

16/17 94% Apparently there was 1 question tossed out because there were 18 questions on the exam to start with.

We only have 54 possible points in each section this term. So our OB section is made up of 3 exams at 18 each guess there will be an extra one on the next exam.

Next exam is next Wed the 27th and the last exam and the end of OB lecture is July 5th.

113 Degrees

Has caused my feet to swell despite the 50 mg of Hydrochlorathiazide... hummm did I spell that right? Anyway, I have also been battling a UTI or something for about a week to no avail. Not that you needed to know that, but both have been pretty distracting this week.

Anyway, 1 more day of clinical at the VA. I so far have actually have had a pretty good run at it, so not too bad. Had to give a "shift" report in post conference on my patient, hahaha, like I haven't done that before. I like to see that surprised look on our instructors face when she realizes that we actually know something. So anyway I was passing meds with the LPN, oh joy right, like I haven't done that before, I like their MAR way better though,scan scan scan. So he pulls out a med for a pt and is like, " oh not sure what that med is", and hits the look up feature on the EMAR, I like that function better! So, anyway I told him what the med was prior to the search engine hitting it's mark, but yeah, Pharm has become sorta a strong point for me, in a way, I mean I can't tell you exactly what class every med is in, but I can tell you what they are used for.

Ok off to take the first OB exam. I tried to study, I really did. But alas, I really just did a quick overview of my notes, did the studymate exercises and practiced a few IV calculation problems last night. The test material I hope is still in my brain, because Labor and Delivery is NOT a new concept to me and I remembered a lot of it, I just kept losing focus.

Well wish me luck, cuz if I bomb, it will totally be my fault!

I was worried why?

I have no idea why I was so freaked out about clinicals at the VA. I mean heck they have been awesome so far. The nurses I have worked with have been great, as have been my patients. Of course I spent most of today pretty much with my LTC LPN hat back on, despite being on a surgical floor. Of course I do still have a love for the "with it" elderly population, if only all of my patients were like that.

So two days down, 2 more to go.

In Careplan mode with a soup to nuts type of instructor, hopefully I can pull enough outta my butt to cover what she wants.

I also have some stupid PICOT question due tomorrow, which I am not exactly sure what exactly she is looking for, but whatever I don't think she knows either.

BTW, I totally kicked ASS on my teaching/teachback presentation... she started to butt in and ask a question, except I shut her down-because had she not butted in mid sentence, I was addressing the issue in my very next sentence, I mean come on, I may not be an RN yet but that does not mean I haven't spent the last year in health teaching mode, especially the importance of diabetic footcare.

Anyway, off to somehow throw in some math calculation studying for the OB exam on Wednesday and a review of my notes. Glad nothing new was presented there, also glad she tests in NCLEX style questions on her powerpoints :-) Hoping I do well.

Soooo tired... why oh why did I download "Shades of Gray" to my Nook this weekend?

Working while in Nursing School

Is a totally new experience to me. I did not work during LPN school, of course that led to so much drama, that I had to rearrange my plans and forego RN school until... well now. So anyway working during this jam packed crazy summer semester has been not as hard as I thought it would be yet, but I am sooo damn tired when I am there that I am very limited to actual study time most nights because my eyes want to close if I focus too long on my notes.

I think what I will have to do is drag the exercise bike into the client's room with me and read my notes while on it so I can keep the fatigue away, I really want to kick ass in the OB content to raise my points as high as possible, going into the HESI and FINAL I want my numbers as high as possible, I expect there will be some crazy PEDS questions looming on that thing that could destroy some people's dreams.

But I digress, I mean it's not like I have a very demanding position currently, which is the only reason why I probably don't seem over stressed about this semester and working in general and overall have a lot more energy despite constantly having to flip from being awake days to being awake nights. But studying time at work is still limited to brain fatigue and the instinct right now to sleep at night again.

Although it could also have to do with the fact that I am in multiple modes currently, student mode, mom mode, working nurse mode, and weight loss mode.

I have been trying to make it a priority to do all of them at the same time. I think I am doing ok there. I mean I have managed to get in 36-40 hours a week since school started of work, I have managed a 91% in PEDS so far, which is only a B, but whatever. I have also managed to get in at least two days a week of hardcore exercise at the gym or a gym every week, I need to work at least two more days into that though, but I have managed to lose 32 pounds in 10 weeks as well, so I will take what I can get and keep trucking. I think I may have even finally managed to get to a point with my LapBand, after getting filled every two weeks since surgery that I may even be in the Green Zone, thus maybe another big drop of weight will be in my future if I play my cards right!

Anyway where was I going with this? Oh yeah working during nursing school... Not for the faint of heart.

What week is this?

Ok I lost count as to how many weeks I have already been in school. Anyway the first OB exam and the second week of clinical is upon us. OB exam is on Wed, first careplan of the semester is also due on Wednesday. I also have a teaching plan to work on over the weekend.

So yeah the time has begun for some major focus this weekend to get shit done... of course I also have to fit 40 hours of work in there somewhere too.

And what is the way to make my day?

Assign me on my first clinical day to the OR/PACU!!

Ok so this day rocked! We all know that my goal is to become an OR nurse someday... which is the only reason I am getting my RN in the first place.

So yeah today was good. Next week is 2 Med/Surg days, they actually don't seem to bad, I transferred a few patients up to the ward today that I will be on, so yeah everyone seems really friendly and of course used to students. The last day of the clinical on the 25th is in Interventional Radiology/CT. Which is where I hope to lose my fear of IV starts that all started back with my IV class back in the LPN year. But as my instructor this semester has said, "This is what these rotations are for practice and confidence."

I need to work on a PICO Question presentation... not to be confused with the eating inedible things PICA, but the Evidenced Based Practice approach. As a BSN student, which is EBP heavy it'll be great to get a jump start on the modality of working through EBP methods... especially when I get to my research class.

I also have to do 1 careplan and 1 teaching plan for diabetic foot care for this rotation. I am sooo out of practice for careplans so I imagine

I don't want to do it...

I just don't want to go to clinicals at the VA tomorrow. I don't want to. I hate when I send stuff in and then I get an email from the instructor saying they hadn't received my paperwork and to call the lady at the the VA.

I have called her every day since that day and have NOT gotten a response at all! WTF?

Stress is causing some major anxiety and IBS issues today. So much so that the gym was out of the question today.

So anyway wish me luck. Hell first I have to find the damn place at the butt crack of dawn.

OMG I just don't want to go :-(

Pitocin Math

Great just what I need more math formula's to know. So currently I am stuck on a Case Study because I have no idea how to determine the amount to set pump to give 40 mU/min out of a 1000ml bag that I added 1ml of Pitocin to to equal the 10ml per 1ml amount of solution based on the ratio in the bottle.


LOL If that makes any sense? Course we have not had an OB lecture and this was NOT material covered in LPN OB... so hey it could be worse... this could be the last day of lecture and not the first.

Peds Exam Results

20/22 Exam 1
29/32 Exam 2

91% over all and 49/54 points!


**Side note** I posted this under the comments but:

That wasn't the total number of questions, only the total number of points available for each exam. Very weird grading system. We had all fill in the blank, essay, short answer, and med math or priority questions.


One more theory class and Peds is over until clinicals, practicum,& final.

On to OB theory next week as well as the first day of Med/Surg clinicals.

This and that

Trying to get on here and post because as per my luck, my laptop has broken, so I am borrowing my daughter's. Of course that means I won't be able to get on here much until Dell returns mine, hopefully completely healed!

So let's see week 3 will look like this:

Yesterday (Mon)was OB pre-clinical. Which just means that we spent the morning going over OB assessments that we will need to know for clinical, then spent th afternoon in the lab practicing skills like, measurements on the newborn, estimating blood loss amounts, focused assessment of a postnatal mother, female catheritization, IV insertion (after 2 years I still remembered this- huh go figure), and watched some pretty graphic movies.

Today (Tue)no school! Woot! Of course doesn't mean I don't have a ton to do. Need to study and complete a 20 page packet on GU/GI disorders in pediatric patients. Plus do two more Pediatric case studies online.

Tomorrow(Wed) Is the second Pedi Exam. Like I said before this one is cumulative. So what we already learned plus the new content is up for grabs. Of course this does make sense as the final is cumulative, as is the HESI and NCLEX. It makes you closer to being totally prepared for those tests if you think about it.

The day after Tomorrow (Thursday) is more lecture. Case studies and packets due.



Next week starts clinical. We have Monday off to prepare and then Tuesday is clinical. It's weird but there are only 12 onsite clinical days this semester, with 2 alternate SIM days in the lab. Seems like I did way more clinical time in the first two Blocks.

Oh well off to study!

Week Two

Is over. I think I will try and post after every week. I still like to reread through my LPN Block posts. Who knows this might help someone else.

So what did I learn after the first two weeks? A LOT!! I thought I had covered the Pedi facet of the world of nursing the first time around, but this is all so much more in-depth. Mostly there are way more complicated math problems that is for sure. I know I have to focus on assessments and getting more thorough with them too.

So far the tests have not been that bad. Of course test #2 is coming next week and all of this Blocks tests are cummulative, meaning of course that all material from all of the blocks are up for grabs. Which is why I am glad I have, and continue to study by doing NCLEX questions as well as study the powerpoints and lecture notes.

I more week of Peds then it is on to OB for lecture and Clinicals start with Med/Surg... for some reason I am dreeding this. I am looking forward to OB clinicals though, maybe even Peds, but not Med/Surg... I think it is because of the location and the fact that although I have the utmost respect for service men and women, I really do not like the demographic of the typical case on a Med/Surg unit at that location.

Oh well whine whine whine.... bitch bitch bitch... still happy to be in an RN program and hoping to get some great experiences out of this either way. Maybe all of my fears will be for naught.