The Week in Review

Ok, I know that my week is not technically over yet. I have no classes today, and a list of errands to do that is as long as my arm. But for those keeping score, I thought I would recap my first week at Nursing School, etc.

• The reading requirements for this program have us all in fits. Hundreds of pages per day of complex medical information. I swear my brain has stretch marks. I am actually growing new neural pathways, and that causes real pain. This is the exact reason college students need alcohol. It is anesthetic.
• I have some brand new medical equipment to play with. I am having fun getting to know my new stethoscope. For some reason, owning a stethoscope makes me feel like the real deal.
• I'm sticking to my healthy diet and exercise plan. I'm even squeezing in short trips to the gym on days that I would normally have blown it off in favor of going to get a coffee. I am proud of myself for that.
• I can already see where I have some tangible strengths to bring to this program. All that time spent talking to the patients at the VA has given me good tools for assessment and other communication skills that are going to come in handy.
• I need to work on the technical side of things, and learn to handle the equipment confidently. I already know how to give injections, but all those tubes and wires are hard to handle gracefully. I have a bit of trepidation about learning to draw blood and start IV's, but I am lucky that one of my fellow students is a phlebotomist from one of the local hospitals, and he seems like he would be helpful.
• There are tons of interesting people taking the program with me. We are all getting to know each other. I have had lunch with different people every day. I have even proposed getting a study group together with other students who have kids, so Little A can get some play dates out of it, and maybe Tony can get some support from their spouses.
• This is going to be a really rough program, but so far I still feel positive about it. I'd like to think I can thrive, since I seem to manage under stress even if I do whine about it. I have a lot of homework to hammer away at over the weekend, but I am scheduling some leisure time.