Fundamentals of Nursing Clinical

I did my Fundamentals Clinical at St. Joseph's Villa. It is a long term care facility. It was pretty fun. Well, maybe not fun but I did learned from it and enjoyed the experience. I feared it would be like the nursing home where I did my CNA clinicals, where they didn't treat the residents well at all. They were there for end of life care, and staff gave them nothing more than the minimum care required. The staff at St Joseph's Villa are so caring and friendly. No one passes any person without a smile and saying hello. Sonia, the CNA I worked with in the morning before passing meds was so awesome, she has been working there 3 years and knows all the residents names and everything about them, she seemed to genuinely care for them. The other cool thing about it is that they are a "no lift" facility. They have machines that lift the residents for you so you dont injure yourself in the process with bad body mechanics, the machine does all the work.
It is fun to be a student nurse. As much as I enjoyed the opportunity, I'm glad all the Care plans and Process recordings and 630am shifts are done! For the remainder of the semester all I have to worry about are tests now. Life will be alot easier!

One of the best parts about clinical was having so many awesome people in my clinical group with me, you are never truly alone, they are as terrified as you are and they are right there with you. I love them all! It was so much fun getting to know them all better.


(Diane and Karmen are missing from this photo, they had to leave early)

Fighting Addiction

Hi, my name is Brooke, I am a diet coke-aholic. My last diet coke was 1/22/10, and I only drank half. Diet coke is one of my favorite things in the world. But as most of you know my bowels hate me with a passion. The stress of school makes this ten times worse.. and caffeine apparently makes it worse as well (my GI tract, not my stress level). So that makes me a quitter. I use to consume anywhere from two to six diet cokes a day and I was happy. Then I was trying to cut back because its bad for my bones, so I was only drinking 2 cans per day. Now I don't have any, and it makes me sad. Rarely a day goes by when I don't crave diet coke. I use to just think it was the carbonation I loved, but its not. I drink non-caffeinated soda occasionally still like sprite and fresca but its just not the same. When I eat cake, brownies, cookies or popcorn, I am wishing I had a cold, refreshing diet coke to wash it down.

I am considering taking it back up again for the summer when I'm not in school and my stress level isn't at all time highs, but the withdrawal headaches I experienced for about 2 weeks after stopping were nearly unbearable! So I spend everyday fighting off the urge walk down to my downstairs fridge and get one. So I'm just taking it one diet cokeless day at a time and just trying to get by.

Hang in there...

Right now things are so crazy busy! I have so much to blog about and share with the world but haven't yet found the time. I have finally completed my clinicals for this semester, I have one more test and one more class then spring break! I cant believe how fast it's all happening! SO.. this means I'll be back to tell you about all my nursing school adventures in a few more days! See ya'll real soon!