Two down, three to go!

Well now I can say that the semester is OFFICIALLY and COMPLETELY over, so I have two semesters down and three to go! I had my theory final on Tuesday morning and I basically decided to protest studying but I still did fine on it. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted an A in the class, but I guess I will have to settle for the B+. I guess I am okay with it because while I know that I could have gotten an A if I stayed in Grand Rapids and studied on the weekends, I decided it was more important to come home on the weekends and spend time with my friends and family. So I guess I really don't have any regrets about that. I also had Nursing Research this semester and I ended up with an A- in the class so I'm really thrilled about that. Also I got it over with early so I don't have to take it next semester with 350!

So overall, 320/321 was NOT even that bad of a semester. Everyone kept telling us that 320 was terrible and insane and crazy hard. I kind of want to punch those people in the face for freaking us all out and making us think it was going to be awful when it wasn't bad at all. Yes it was a lot of work, it was insanely unorganized and usually really confusing, but it was completely manageable and not worth all the freaking out. My only really big criticism of the class was how HORRIBLY unorganized it was. I probably had 12 professors for 2 classes and all of them would tell us different things. If the class could just get organized it would be much more enjoyable and much less frustrating. Really though, I loved having OB this semester and I didn't hate primary care. I'm just really really glad it's all over.

I'm super excited to start Nursing 350, working in a cancer center, and a home for people with mental disabilities, and learning new things :)

Pap smears and Primary Care

Today is the END OF THE SEMESTER!!!!!!!!! :) And even though I still have a few assignments, a presentation and two finals, it still feels good to have the actually class portion of the semester done. Yesterday and today I had my two days in the primary care clinic. We were at the GVSU Family Health Center from 8-5 rooming patients, charting vitals, reporting to the Nurse Practitioners and going into the room with them for the appointments. We actually got to see a lot more things than I thought I would. I was not at ALL looking forward to primary care and thought it would be boring and that I wouldn't learn anything. In reality I actually was able to see quite a bit over the two days I was there. I got to see a medication review, two pap smears, consults for a rash, asthma, anorexia, hypertension, lab reviews and lots of other things. I also got to give a few injections to patients. Primary care gets a bad rap but really it's pretty interesting, and the faculty member that was there with us was really good at making us think critically and dig deeper to figure out diagnoses for our patients. Everyone pretty much told me he was awful, but thankfully I think they were wrong because I really liked him, probably because he is super sassy, but also because I felt like I learned a lot from him in a really short time. Moral of the story, primary care was not that bad, and the semester will be completely over in 5 days.

Say your prayers that I can make it. And not go crazy. And not kill my research professor. And throw in some smiles for good measure.

Correction: Aliens

After this tough Facebook post from Nicole: "Idk if anyone has broken this news to you yet... I hope so, bc I don't want to be the one who has to do it. But, I'll take one for the team. Those are not monsters on your blog. They're aliens... that's why it says 'take me to your leader.' Alright, let me know how you're holding up after this harsh blow and if the...re's anything I can do to help you through this difficult time. :)" I now realize that there are ALIENS on my blog. NOT monsters. What an oversight on my part.

Anyway, I didn't update last week because nothing much happened! I had class all day Tuesday, met with my nursing research group to get rolling on our presentation that we have to give next week, and worked on some stuff for Webquest. Webquest is this super fun thing we have to do for seminar where we have to do a presentation and provide a teaching tool on a topic (my group is "Avoiding the Freshman 15") So we have to do website critiques, annotated bibs, answer questions, evaluate group members, etc. So we have to finish that up during break tomorrow and then present it in seminar at 3. Then classes will be over :)

I also had my last visit with my LEI client on Wednesday. This visit we began to make a time-line of our client's life covering the first twenty years. So basically I just got to sit and listen to my client tell me stories about her life, siblings, parents, friends, school, activities, etc. I LOVED it. She had so many funny stories to tell me and I loved just being able to sit and listen to her talk (while taking extensive notes of course). It was my favorite visit by far. So now I am done with all of my LEI stuff for the semester.

This week I FINALLY do my primary care clinical days on Thursday and Friday at the Grand Valley Family Health Center (which is the picture). Then in addition to doing all of my clinical assignments this weekend, I also have to study for two finals. It's gonna be a wonderful weekend.