Yippee

I took my first Advanced Pathophysiology exam, and I got a 92. I'm surprised - boy, did I make some bonehead mistakes. I was very relieved though - the exam was fair and the questions were clear. I left feeling confident. Maybe I should take this for a grade instead of pass/fail - ha -- nah! No way! Like I need more pressure in my life! Here's the stupid stuff I did on this test. One of the questions was which heart valve makes the S1 sound and what is it doing - opening or closing? And yes, I actually had to throw the dart on that one. But here's the type of question I got right: Your patient presents with fever of 100.4, respiratory rate of 18, heart rate of 120, his lymphocytes are 80% and his WBC is 12.8. His Bili is 1.2 and is ALT is > than AST. Which of the following differential diagnoses is most likely? And which diagnostic test do you order to confirm that? I put a lot of time into being able to know exactly what the lab test values mean and which diagnostics to order. And there was a whole lot of other stuff to memorize, like what is the SOC (standard of care) for heart failure medications with left-sided systolic failure vs. right, vs. complete right-sided failure. You can see why I was so worried about this test. But it's all over now....and I'm happy.

And the weekend before my test was Austin City Limits Music Festival. And yes, we got tickets for Sunday and went. We heard some good music, here's who we saw: Broken Social Scene, Death From Above 1979, Fleet Foxes, Empire of the Sun, and then Arcade Fire. We were walking over to see Randy Newman and saw Empire of the Sun playing. Man, it was contagious. We had to see them - it was like Las Vegas, their show was so good and honestly, I really like their beats too. Like your hips have to move (kind of like Zumba, but in an Aztec sacrifice ceremony kind of way -- ha!) Really, I mean these guys are totally insane & unique and I now love them. You've probably heard their one hit: Walking on a Dream. (If you listen to Alt Nation, that is.) Anyway, here's a link to them. Way cool. They had an incredible stage show (cool video, freaky dancers, wild Aztec costumes, charismatic front man) - and this is at ACL, an outdoor festival. This is not the Erwin Center. Anyway, sorry Randy.

http://www.walkingonadream.com/

So yes, I studied for a few hours before we went, and then we left early when Arcade Fire played -- they sounded good, but not exactly energetic. But I'm glad we went. It's such an Austin thing to do and you know me....I loooooooove Austin. Which disgusts Dani, all she wants now is to move to NYC. She's too cool for Texas as she tells me. Tonight she said she's going out to meet friends, I ask her where and this is amusing: she blushed, embarrassed, and said "well....we're going to the football game...." Yes, my precious 17 y.o. daughter thinks football is silly and beneath her. Not sure how her friends talked her into it, but they did.

Anyway, I've got a backlog of work to do this weekend because all I did this week was study for Patho. It paid off, but here comes the price. I have two write-ups to do for Advanced Health Assessment, basically my examination of my lab partner's skin and EENT (eyes, ears, nose and throat). And yes, my favorite class: Psychosocial Nursing - I have to turn in a plan for a paper with references, etc. My topic is healthcare for the gay community and how their different needs/concerns get addressed. Seeing that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" finally came to an end this week gave me the idea.

Oh! And guess who's playing here on December 29th! Better Than Ezra! Can my life get any better?

My Life Now

I am settling into the life of a student. I have class 3 days a week and Monday is a killer - from 9:00 am to 7:30 at night. I will be adding a day of clinical next week. My Patho class, as feared, is the hard one but I think I will be able to handle it. There are two instructors, and one I seem to click with more. I bet I can get most of her test questions right. The other one is the question mark, but I plan to go see her next week to get a feel for her philosophy on test questions -- is it lots of patient scenarios, asking us what to do next? or is it more along the lines of left-sided heart failure causes which of the following symptoms? A little discussion won't hurt.

It's a lot of material. Here's a shot of my notes. Yes, that's Crabby's paw. She likes to "help" me study. I think I spend more time moving her off my books than reading some days.

I can see that I've let some other parts of my life slide. I haven't been in the pool in a week. I haven't made some appointments that I need to make. I haven't been good about returning calls (if that's to you as you read this -- sorry!). But the good news is that things feel quite manageable. My Advanced Health Assessment class has no exams -- unless you count them critiquing our physical exams as we perform them on a guinea pig. We have a quiz every Monday on the readings that we should have done, and I'm happy to say I got a 93 on the first one. And here's the thing -- it was, by far, the easiest test I've ever taken in a nursing class. It was basically a check to make sure you'd done the reading - nothing tricky, a little basic memory things. One of the two things I missed was where on your hand do you check for vibrations in a patient's body (where do you apply your hand to the patient's body part). The answer is the ulnar portion. This is the flat part alongside your pinky. I'm sure it was in the book. I think the ease of the exam is the correct approach -- this is a class on learning how to PERFORM skills and that's where we'll be graded.

We have ACL (Austin City Limits music festival) this weekend and we'll be attending on Sunday. I probably won't be in spin class as usual on Monday at 5:30 am, but other than that, I expect to do everything on Monday at school as usual. It's up to me to spend the next 3 days preparing and making that happen. And guess how many chapters I need to read? It's 8. Kind of ridiculous, but nursing is nothing if not an overwhelming amount of information. I mean, the education time stays the same in spite of all the medical advances being made, so guess what.....they just cram it in there. Because it's all important.

My psycho-social class has an interesting real-life experience component. It's on culturally competent nursing; being able to work with people of many different cultures. A good thing to know, and a good goal for someone in the helping professions. The professor decided that she didn't want to keep us so late at school (the class should be 3 hours, it's the last one of the day) so she lets us go after two hours. Which is a big relief on long Mondays, but here's the kicker....we have to make up those hours in "cultural contacts" with people different from us and then write a paper about it. Again, a good goal - let's make it real - but we have to go out and find those people ourselves and we're not allowed to use our workplaces or classmates. I'm wondering how to line this up. It's quite a stretch - get waaaaay out of my comfort zone. (that probably is the point, right? ha) I have no idea how to line this up. I thought about utilizing the place where I volunteer - AIDS Services of Austin. I'm sure I'll find this a valuable experience when it's over, but getting started is proving hard. More to come.

Anyway, I'm going to go study some Patho.