Week 22: To drink or not to drink?

Week 21 Addendum
I was reminded of something I did during Week 21.  I added it to yesterday entry. Click here to read about it (it will be in blue italics).

The Joys of a 12-hour Study Session
Exam #2 was some meaty stuff.  Fluid and Electrolytes was a beast that meant a lot of studying to get the understanding down.  12 hours went by fast.  My brain and my sanity also suffered.  We studied at this nice quaint little coffeehouse called Cobantigua that's located at Old World Village in Huntington Beach.  The perk of this place is that there's always room to study and it's a little hidden gem behind Bella Terra.

I got there at 8AM and I really thought the place was closed.  As I walked closer, I realized that it was indeed open.  I was literally the only one there and the owner of the coffeehouse.  We chatted it up a little bit and then I got my drink and started studying.

Eventually, the rest of the gang made it to the study session. We studied, studied, and studied some more.  By the early afternoon, my brain needed a break and needed lunch.  A couple of us decided to go to Chipotle and bring back food.  Because it was such a nice, cool, winter's day, we ate our Chipotle out on the patio.

The studying didn't end there.  We kept on going, going, and going just like the energizer bunny.  The only difference is that the energizer bunny never runs out of energy.  We were clearly not like the energizer bunny.  We failed to keep our brains going.  We got to the point where all we wanted to do is sleep.  8PM rolled around and it was time to called it a night.

To Drink of Not to Drink? (after the second exam)
What kind of question is that?  Of course I DRANK!  That test wasn't the easiest thing in the world.  Got to relieve some of the stress in some reasonable way.  Drinking your nursing worries away is always the best policy in my book.  If you look at the picture above, it was the girl on the left birthday as well.  You got to celebrate that!

Clinicals
I was on the Telemetry Unit this week. Simply put, the patients are on continuous electronic monitoring. These patients tend to had a few more problems that necessitated extra monitoring.  The unit was set up differently for other that I've seen in the past.  Normally, medication is stored in the medication room in each of the patients cassette.  On this unit, the patient's cassette were locked onto the nurses WOW (workstation on wheels).  The instant benefit is that the medicine is at your fingertips if you are the primary nurse.  The downside is that I'm a nursing student and to give medicine to a patient, I would need to borrow my nurses WOW to do that.  Thankfully, my nurse was awesome and kindly let me use her WOW during 0900 meds.

I know it was Ash Wednesday.  I was hungry.  Please forgive me!

Nursing is a dirty job and I have no idea how I got this stain on my scrubs.

Female Catheterization Day!
As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, we get assessed on two nursing skills this semester.  The IVPB and Female Catheterization.  The assessment were finished for the first round of assessment and it was time to learn a new skill.  The med/surg people got shown how to catheterize a female patient, while the women's health people learn how to adminster medication through an IV Piggyback.  The fun part of lab was getting a chance to interact with the people on the other side of the wall and teach them all about IVPB.  Likewise, it was nice for them to show me how to catheterize a patient.

Catheterizing a patient is one of the reasons why patients get a Urinary Tract Infection.  Staying sterile and not contaminating the sterile field is important when you're going to stick a rubber tube up someone's urinary meatus, into their urethra, and finally into their bladder.  Part of the procedure requires putting on sterile glove.  Let me just say that the pair of sterile glove that came in my catheter kit was one of the worst that I have ever seen.  Tell me how I'm supposed to put those gloves on without contaminating them.

Lunch on a Meatless Friday
I've learned that I study best at the library.  It was during this week that I learned that I like studying at the HB library and I absorb the material well there.  I needed something good to keep me going because my day wasn't going according to plan. Being the foodie that I am, food always makes me feel better. However, I didn't realize the restaurant I wanted to try was a vegetarian restaurant.  But it looked like the place was worth a try.  Plus, it was Friday and I shouldn't be eating meat anyways.  I'll make the pictures larger so you can savor more!

Vegetarian Spring Rolls

Soy BBQ Pork and Egg Roll Vermicelli, Soy Chicken Dish, and Garlic Fried Rice

Vegan Tiramisu

After I had finished eating, I underestimated how tasty vegetarian food can be.  It was amazingly delicious.  If all vegetarian food tasted like this, I wouldn't mind becoming a vegetarian (...on second thought, I still love meat way too much to give it up now).

2 More Entries To Go! I hope you've been enjoying!