What's Been Going On

I'm using these few free minutes to give you all an update because we have been crazy busy this past week and I know we will be again this weekend with Little Bit's birthday.

Briley is doing well. Saying lots of sentences. She poked me (ok, more like stabbed me, but I'm trying to not be dramatic) in the back of the head with a stick a couple of weeks ago while we were playing outside and when I said "Ow!", she stuck her little face in front of mine and asked ever-so-gently "You okay, mama?" Speaking of being dramatic, though - she is quite the drama queen herself. And I'm not talking about fits here. She's all the time saying she has a boo-boo when she doesn't, but what's really funny is when she tells us she hurts. She'll hold her head in her hands and say over and over "I hurt, Mama. I hurt!" Now, don't get me wrong - sometimes she really does hurt or have a boo-boo, but when she does, she'll always tell us exactly where it is. I can determine when she's faking it because when I ask her where she's hurting or where her boo-boo is, she'll pause and then completely ignore my question and start up with the "I hurt, Mama. I hurt" all over again. Oh my......

Nursing school is going well. I guess. Thank you to those that have called to check in and ask about it. I have had hard classes before, but school is very important to me and I do enjoy learning, so I've pushed through them with mostly A's. I've always felt like even though these classes were tough, they were something I could handle. With nursing school, this isn't so much the case. I can honestly say I have never been more overwhelmed or stressed. Not only is a lot of the material VERY difficult, but we cover it very quickly (about 4-5 chapters a day). I had my first written quiz yesterday and did well, but the stressful part was our skills check-off. This is where our instructors come around the classroom and check you off on different skills, one by one. I was a nervous wreck. Anyhow - clinicals start next Friday, so that should be very interesting. I hope the first patient I work on is drugged-up or comatose because I'm already feeling sorry for my guinea pig!

Also, I am now able to do bed pans & bed baths, change the sheets on an occupied bed, take a person's BP, assess heart rate/respiratory rate/pulse rate, change gowns on an IV patient, empty a catheter, measure bodily fluids, measure a person's daily intake and output, wash my hands correctly, clean incisions, find all the pulses (there are 10!), blah blah blah. All of this is pretty basic - but the directions are very specific. You have to be very careful with gloves and contamination and safety issues. And a lot of it I will not even have to do that often when I become a R.N. Apparently, the bed pans and bed baths are delegated to the CNAs and LPNs. Oh well.

I will try and have some more pictures up soon. Right now, though, I have to go do some errands before tomorrow and try to get some things ready for our Chattanooga trip on Sunday. We are not going to be able to spend the night there (bummer!) because Adam has a work function tomorrow evening and they are doing a "cash spin". For every car a sales associate sold last month, they will get one spin and no matter what you land on, you get at least a little moolah. Obviously, we aren't going to pass that up! And then we cannot stay Sunday night because I have school on Monday. Oh well. We already have a trip to Nashville planned for the weekend after my finals in December, so we are just trying to look forward to that! I won't have class and we already know Adam can get that Monday off (we're going on a Sunday-Monday-Tuesday trip, so Adam only has to miss Monday because that Sunday is one of the two that he has off for the month). It will be nice to just do something different for a few days!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday and I know I'll see many of you tomorrow at Briley's party!