Is it just me, or does my head look extremely big in that photo? Well, my head is a little on the large side thanks to my fathers german engineering, but it just looks ginormous in that picture!!

Anyways, onto some more interesting things...

This week in clinical I got to do a few new things. Well, 2 to be exact. The first was taking out a catheter. For those of you that are not familiar with catheters, they are a tube that is inserted up the urethra (pee hole) to drain urine from the bladder. This gentleman that I was doing this one was quite a nice guy. I was asking him what it felt like and he said it was pretty weird. He never really had the sensation of a full bladder, but he could feel himself peeing. I would think that would be a weird sensation because he's lying in his nice warm bed, seemingly peeing himself but it goes into a tube and into a resevoir. He was on some diuretic drugs (pulls the fluid out of the body and into the urinary system) because he has had some heart problems in the past and he has also had bad edema (swelling) in his legs. All together he lost about 5-7 litres of water from his system, and was so happy that he has normal legs again. When the were edematous, his legs looked like elephant's legs with very swollen legs and balooned feet. So anyways, I deflated the baloon (there's a baloon that the nurse fills with saline to keep the tube in the bladder), and then just pulled it out. I have totally been sensitized to this sort of thing now. At first it sort of grossed me out, but I have to do these things to help my patient.

My second new thing was giving this crazy huge IM injection. It was for this poor old guy that has syphilis. It was 2 injections with one in each butt cheek. It was a rather large and daunting needle with this white penicillin-B paste. I wouldn't say it was a liquid, it was more the consistancy of glue. Imagine having that injected into your butt cheeks - not my idea of fun. And this elderly dude was so skinny that I was afraid that I would be stabbing it into a bone or something because the needle was 2 inches long. Now I've stabbed my bone with a stapler once...it freakin hurt. It sends this shard throbbing pain that centralizes around the stabbing at my finger, and then goes all the way up the arm. I can't even remember how I stabbed myself, but I'm glad no one was around to see my blond moment.

Anyways, I'm getting tired and have some reading trhat I should get done for tomorrow's class. I've been trying to keep up with the readings this week because I really want to get good marks. So far I have two classes that are 90+% so that's great! I hope to get lots of bursaries next year because I've been given the short end of the stick with those my last 2 years. However I'm so broke that the government showed some pit and "forgave" $2500 worth of my 20 something thousand dollar loans. I'll take what I can get!

So long for now~

THIS SUCKS. I had the longest post ever typed out and the program didn't publish it properly. ARGH. For now on I'm using word to type them out and post them. THIS SUCKS!

*edit*

Ok, I got ahead of myself there. The program dosen't suck, it just had me worried. :)

Nursing stuff/Life stuff

This week was nutz. I am so behind on my reading, and I have zero desire to do any in the late evening because I can't focus that well so I loose my place easily and it always seems like I get no where. It's quite bothersome. I have realized this week that I am working too much, and am being too lazy when I'm at home. I think both go hand in hand because when I work during the day I always feel more tired when I get home and tend to get very little done. I have so much to do tomorrow and I'm so glad that I was able to switch a shift because I'm sure my day would have been shot to heck. I have to do a rather short project for sociology, I have to do about a 10 page paper/project for my pharmacology class, and I also have to study for my sociology midterm...Then I have to catch up on my nutrition and I also have to think about my essay for my big nursing class. Holy sh!t is all I have to say about that.

Anyways, tonight I had a good time out with a lot of my nursing people from school. I'm an executive member of the NSA (Nursing Student's Association) and we planned a night of laser tag and pizza. All in all it was a pretty good turn out. There were about 30 people at laser tag and then a few more at the pizza part of it. We got to hear a range of entertaining nursing stories and also talked a lot about travelling. I personally have done no international travelling other than to the states. Once I'm graduated and have some loan paid off, I'm going to go to Australia for a year or so. I hear so many good things about it and how it's a real 'young people' country. I like it mostly for the climate, the beaches, the golf courses and the things to do there. Danielle and I will be married then and we will be able to both work as nurses which it great because of the dual income. I've also seen some advertisements from certain nursing agencies and the set up is pretty sweet. Basically the agent pays for the travel expenses, moving expenses and we also get a signing bonus of up to 10 grand. ALSO, they set us up in an apartment and would also give us living expenses on top of our wages. How sweet is that??? I think until we want to settle down, we will be in a few different countries to experience different cultures and just have a good time abroad. We will most likely end up back in BC somewhere. It's always handy to be by the parents when you start to have kids ;)

I bought a 19 inch LCD screen the other day and am loving it. Its just so freaking huge. I'm still debating whether to keep it or not because it does have a 20ms response time which isn't the greatest. Other than that it is an awesome monitor with a contrast ratio of 800:1 (pretty colours) and a brightness of 300. I have to turn the brightness down a fair ways while I type stuff because it can be a little hard on the eyes. But for pictures and movies the colour, and brightness are so sweet. I've only noticed slight ghosting on a very dark movie during some fast action parts, but other than that I haven't seen any on all the other movies I've watched so far. I think I'm going to watch a movie tonight yet. I should read but I'm so not in a reading mood. I'll work my arse off tomorrow and get a lot of work done then. At least that's what I'm telling myself now.

I talked to a guy that worked at an undergrad nurse tonight. His schedule was totally crazy last summer. He worked full time at the hospital plus about 20 hours of evertime a week. TWENTY HOURS! The UG wage is 23 dollars an hour (that's what he was paid anyways), so he got time and a half for that extra 20 hours a week ontop of his 40 regular hours.... so he made $920 a week before taxes, and then an extra 690 bux worth of overtime...HOLY CRAP! that's $1610 a week then minus taxes, union crap, and whatever else he was raking in about 1300 a week. There's about 16 weeks in the summer that I can work, and if I work as much overtime as he did, that comes to about 20,000 (yes, that's twenty THOUSAND) dollars after taxes! So I'm really looking forward to being a UG nurse next summer. I'm going to miss Kelowna, but I'll be here making a lot of money, and I will also get to spend the whole summer with my favourite gal. Hopefully I can do that well and then loans won't be such an issue for the next 2 years. But I look at the money I can potentially make just as a student nurse, when I'm a full fledged RN it will be almost double...It's hard to fathom having a regular career and actually making good money. Right now I'm paying an arm and a leg while I work my ass off reading and studying and working at staples making a measly 8.50 an hour...

Wow. I'm tired.

I study not enough and work too much. I do too much stuff, and not enough. Argh.

Must...do....reading.....
Must....sleep.......

Thanks-giving

well, this Thanks-giving went quite well. It was my first one that I haven't been able to get home to. I was invited over to my clinical instructor's place because she felt bad that I didn't have any plans. All together there were about 40 or so people there so it was nice to chat with some people and just relax.

I really didn't do anything today. I managed to blow 42.76 on groceries today and I didn't think I bought that many meals worth of food. probrably enough to get me through most of the week...but still. I just was at costco where I spent about 60 bux on food. Maybe soon I'll have full cupboards and I won't get so sick of the food that I have to choose from because I'll have more variety.

I just realized today that I have a quiz in my pharmacology class tomorrow. Heh, *oops*. so I must go study so I can get at least 95% again like I did on my last one. Hopefully I can maintain a 4.2GPA this semester, but I sorta doubt I'll last long once mid terms and my projects are marked. Still have my fingers crossed though because I'm working harder this year because I need better marks so I can get some sweet grants and other financial awards....aparently you have to be extremely poor, and get A's to get any help, just being poor and doing *ok* isn't good enough to get money.

Below are just a few of my personal favourite photo's i've taken of random things and scenes...

BigWhite 

Crabby 

Dolphin at the vancouver aquarium 

Chain around a pole 

Flower (unedited) 

I thought this was interesting results from a 3 questions quiz:

Your Personality Is

Idealist (NF) You are a passionate, caring, and unique person. You are good at expressing yourself and sharing your ideals. You are the most compassionate of all types and connect with others easily. Your heart tends to rule you. You can't make decisions without considering feelings. You seek out other empathetic people to befriend. Truth and authenticity matters in your friendships. In love, you give everything you have to relationships. You fall in love easily. At work, you crave personal expression and meaning in your career. With others, you communicate well. You can spend all night talking with someone. As far as your looks go, you've likely taken the time to develop your own personal style. On weekends, you like to be with others. Charity work is also a favorite pastime of yours.

The Three Question Personality Test

I have decided I want one of these. I want the V6 with the 6spd, and all the cool options like cool seats and what not. It's a freakin' sexy car. 0-60 in less than 6.5 seconds, and the article I reand on it, the author stated: " It’s a rapid thing, the R32. Direct Shift Gearbox-equipped (DSG) models will dispatch the benchmark 0-62mph sprint in 6.2 seconds, six-speed manual versions three tenths slower (6.5sec). That’s over half a second quicker than the GTI. However, this gap becomes a chasm once the speedo approaches triple figures."

He also states that..."Squeezing the throttle doesn’t cause the nose to push on, as you might expect from a car with a hefty V6 over its front axle. Instead the 225/40-profile tires – set 20mm lower on stiffened springs – dig even deeper into the bend, drifting into a gentle four-wheel slide if really provoked. The last car I drove with a cornering attitude like this is the Porsche 911 C4S."

That's what I'm talking about!!! I love my 240sx for the agility, but I just wish it had more beans to push it around corners and around traffic.... 

Well, my experience so far as a student nurse has been awesome. When people ask me what I'm taking at school, some are intrigued, some are wondering if I'm gay, and some ask me why I chose nursing. My answer is simple: it's just what I wanted to do.