Tales of a Nursing Student

Winter

2012-02-14T09:00:00.001-05:00

Is growing old. The theme of this winter was put very well by a dear friend of mine. It goes something like this:

"The more it

SNOWS-tiddely-pom,

The more it

GOES-tiddely-pom

The more it

GOES-tiddely-pom

Snowing.

And nobody

KNOWS-tiddely-pom,

How cold my

TOES-tiddely-pom

How cold my

TOES-tiddely-pom

Are

Growing."

Thanks Pooh-bear. I agree wholeheartedly.

I'll be really glad when spring rolls around again!

When you are cheap...

2011-11-08T14:05:00.003-05:00

You don't buy a trowel.
This weekend I decided that it was well worth $3.00 to have daffodils this spring and next by my porch. But it wasn't worth buying a trowel; someone I knew (namely, my brother) was sure to have one! But he didn't.

So I undertook the planing of my bulbs without any real digging tool.

This is the poor serving spoon after I was finished with it. It both washed up well and bent back into proper shape.
This is one of my little patches (with a matching one on the other side of the porch.) I am very much looking forward to spring now!!

The last few weeks

2011-10-21T19:13:00.000-04:00

...have been really busy here at the Bakery. Just a few highlights.

There was October Break! Which was great, but came to an end with three large papers due back to back. My professors really like making things due after breaks.

I locked myself out of my house for the first time. We had been warned by the girls who lived here before that it was easy to do, but up till now nobody had, so we hadn’t bothered hiding our spare key anywhere. My roommates were asleep and in the shower and didn’t hear my pounding on the door. So I had to scramble in through a window (about four feet off the ground) in a floor length skirt. The key got hidden outside not too long afterwards. (And the only injury suffered to either me or the house was a scraped knuckle. Pretty good, especially considering the only window unlocked was the one that fell apart in our hands earlier this semester.)

I also got myself laughed at by a car packed with guys this afternoon. I probably deserved it. While talking to my brother outside, I started walking the iron fence around my porch like a cat. Such is life.

Finally, I am becoming incredibly thankful for my Godly professor who pushes me towards Godliness in my care for my patients. It is so encouraging for to be stopped in the hall and be told of God’s goodness and how God displayed his power in this or that patient’s life.

Treasures in Tippecanoe County

2011-09-29T16:37:00.014-04:00

There are lots of places in and around Lafayette that are beautiful.

This is the portion of Wildcat Creek that runs through the Clegg Foundation Botanical Gardens. It was such a beautiful day today and fall is really starting to peak through.

The place is a unique blend, going from thick woods to an oak savanna with few trees, to riverside life. One of my very favorite places and just outside Lafayette!

Then there’s this place:

Prophetstown State Park.

Prophetstown mainly has prairie with two great hiking trails, a historic farm, and the beginnings of a reconstructed Native American village. It’s a wonderful place to learn about local history and what life was like back around 1920.

The pigs are awfully friendly.

Yep, he’s eating my foot.

There are barn cats all over the place.

Milking time!

I thought the nesting boxes were pretty clever. Now if only the chickens would use them…

Gladys and I both love the bike trail there.

The Chief’s home on a moody day on the prairie.

Kristen Was a Junior

2011-09-15T18:03:00.009-04:00

Some of my favorite books are the Betsy-Tacy series. In Betsy’s junior year of high school, told in the book Betsy was a Junior, she created a sorority, went out with the handsomest guy in school, and generally had a blast.

My junior year of college is turning out to be much different than Betsy’s. Instead of creating a sorority, I am spending my time writing twenty page weekly care plans, memorizing medications, and wading through all of the legal issues, mostly confidentiality, that go along with nursing.

The upside of this year is that I get to live in a cute little house, which I have finally taken pictures of (just for you, mom!)

The front of the house. On sunny, warm days I take up residence with my computer and books on the front porch. It’s pretty fun sitting there because it’s pretty likely that at least one person will get ticketed in the space of two hours. Good thing we have parking in the back. :)

Andrew and I decided that our door looked like a Hobbit hole, what with the all its roundness.

These mums are my constant companion. I didn’t like mums until this year when I decided to plant them, but there is something really nice about having flowers on the front porch.

The fireplace even works! We are piling up Exponent’s for fuel this winter.

The Bakery

2011-08-30T22:21:00.000-04:00

Living at The Bakery has been really fantastic so far. Not only is it only a few blocks from campus, making my morning bike ride only about 5 minutes, but all of us girls get along really well. We eat dinner together four nights a week, and tomorrow for the first time we are having company.

This afternoon, after I got back from class, I was on the lawn reading a book when one of my neighbors came home. I had yet to meet this neighbor, John. He just moved in last week from the Dominican Republic. John was a bit surprised to see me reading on the lawn, he told me. “I saw the sign that said it was a Bakery and got really excited! I love bakeries!” So we took them cookies this evening and invited them all to dinner tomorrow. “Cookies are such a great way to end the day.”

We all agree.

Another School Year!

2011-08-23T21:26:00.001-04:00

I am so happy to be back in school, happy, but already tired.

This year I am living in a neat little house about 100 years old (hereafter known as the Bakery) with three other sweet girls. So far we have already managed to (almost) overflow the utility sink and break the rotten wood on one of the dining room windows.

The sink happened because the washer drains into the utility sink (who knew!) and it was clogged with old soap scum and lint. Yuck! And if that ever happens to you, the answer is a plunger.

The window happened because we were trying to take advantage of the beautiful weather by opening up and it fell apart in our hands. Ooops. Good thing we have maintenance to call. :-)

My classes are going to be rigorous, but I’m looking forward to at least some of them. Today, for example, one of my professors came to class in a body bag on a gurney. Gotta love the sense of humor of forensic scientists! One of my other professors, the prof. for Medical-surgical and clinical, will have to miss class on Friday because she will be radioactive (for thyroid cancer. Please pray for her as she fights it. She’s my Christian professor and I am really hoping and praying that she will be well enough to continue teaching this semester.)

Also, despite having 17 credit hours, I have Wednesdays off! Wahoo! An entire day devoted to studying, and study breaking (exploring the trails, biking and hiking, around Lafayette.) Tomorrow: Prophetstown State Park bike trail!

End of Semester Reflections

2011-04-21T13:31:00.002-04:00

“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting for this is the end of all mankind and the living will lay it to heart.”
Ecclesiastes 7:2

I’ve been reading through Ecclesiastes this week and I came upon this verse.

A few years ago, I remember reading this verse and wondering where the house of mourning was. I know now. Any nursing home or extended care facility is full of mourners; mostly, it holds those who are mourning their loss of independence and complete dependence on the staff, but occasionally family visits who are mourning the impending loss of a loved one.

Today was my last day of clinical for the semester. As I went around to all of the residents I have taken care of over the semester, one thing stuck out at me. They all remembered something specific about me, something different, even if I hadn’t taken care of them since January, but they also all remembered me specifically, even if they didn’t remember the other girls who were with me and also took care of them I started wondering why that was and realized that it was probably because I invested my time in getting to know them. I spent time with all of them, talking about their lives, what they have learned through their lives, their stories, and with some of them, reading the Psalms and singing hymns.

There were days when I came home so emotionally and physically exhausted that I crashed at noon and slept for hours. But there were other days that God used the residents to encourage me. Today was one of those days, and I thank God for it. All of my patients are dying, some closer than others, and they are all thinking about and reflecting on the meaning of life. Several have become angry, masking their fear. Others become sweeter and sweeter, leaning on Christ to carry them through this last period of suffering. All of them have taught me something, and I will lay it in my heart. At the end of school I will probably not remember their names, but I will always remember their stories and how God used both them and me to show His glory in that nursing home this semester.

I almost killed my patient today!

2011-03-22T20:28:00.002-04:00

Thankfully, it wasn’t my fault. Thankfully he wasn’t real but rather a robot. And thankfully, it was just because my professor pushed a wrong button.

Still, it was terrifying when he stopped breathing. “Are you still there Mr. Jones? Can you keep breathing for me? On no! Please, please just start breathing again!” Once he did start breathing he said something like, “I feel I could die.”

“Me too,” I responded. My Prof. started laughing at me… I think she has forgotten how scary it is when you kill your patient in front of your professor.

Once he started breathing, my professor came in the room playing an angry wife. We both lost it when she stuck her lip out at me. Apparently playing the angry, upset, exhausted, hungry wife of a dying patient is pretty fun, and funny when your poor student looks at you in horror when you start yelling at her.

I don’t think I failed the simulation, though. Which is really good. ;)

“What a lot of funny people it does take to make a world”

2011-03-03T17:56:00.001-05:00

My major is special because it combines science and people skills and integrates them completely together. It makes it difficult when it comes to testing because people skills aren’t exactly measurable. However, the program also throws us into the path of many different types of people.

Between clinical patients and professors alone we have to use a multitude of communication techniques and people skills. One of our recent assignments was to go out into the community somewhere, find a senior citizen and interview them.

Where on earth was I going to find a senior citizen? There is one couple at church over the age of 70, but I wasn’t going to use church as a means to do my school it on Sunday.

So, I started looking around for senior citizen communities. This afternoon I called one up and asked if I could go there and talk to anyone sitting in the living room. They gave their OK, so I put on semi-professional clothes and headed over.

When I first got there, the living room was virtually empty. “Great,” I thought, “there’s no one here to talk to!”

There was one lady, but she was very interested in her medical bills. I interrupted, though, and asked her if she had a few minutes. “Sure!” she said. I guess it gets pretty boring sitting in that living room.

I talked to her for a while. She was 82 and had COPD, was on O₂, and had grown up in IN. I asked her some of her favorite memories from high school and she told me about the dances they used to have at lunch time in the recreational room (they danced the Jitter Bug! All I could think of was Cheaper By the Dozen.) She met her husband at Indiana Beach during a big dance there one summer, and a summer romance turned into a marriage of almost 30 years before he died in ’79.

Right about then, another, slightly younger lady come and sat on the next couch over. (I never found out the names of these ladies. The first lady I nicknamed Flo and the second I nicknamed Gypsy, which I think was actually her nickname. ) Flo told me that Gypsy was really the one to interview, so I asked her if she minded and she said, “Oh no! Go right ahead.”

And boy, did Gypsy have an interesting story. She was married four times (one of her husbands, #3, just disappeared and was never found, either by Gypsy or the police.) She had breast cancer (which ended marriage #2), lost her first born son in an accident (ending marriage #1) and attended every class with husband #4, who was deaf, while he got his bachelors and doctorate. She took care of her baby brother, a Marine who was in the honor guard of Jimmy Carter, went to Vietnamn twice, and came home with nurses training, (and who went on her first date; the guy never asked her out again) until he died of cancer.

I asked her about her favorite memory of high school too.

“Oh my!” she giggled. “Well, let me tell you. I was out late one night with some friends. It was a Saturday night and we were driving one of the country roads off of 25. There were four of us, Rags, Diane, myself, and Tommy. It was Rag’s car and he accidently hit a skunk. Well, he and Tommy got an idea. So they wrapped the skunk up in some rags from the trunk and stuck it in the car. Then we drove over to West Side High. The boys left us in the car and they strung that dead skunk up on the flag pole. You see, we went to Jeff and we hated each other!”

To this day there is still bad blood between Jeff and West Lafayette high schools. It was an interesting afternoon, to say the least.

What a funny lot of people it does take to make a world.

I don't know how to fix most thing

2011-02-12T17:26:00.002-05:00

I had been warned that there were hazards of being a nursing student, but I didn’t really start experiencing them until this semester. It happens like this:

John: “Hi! I’m John.”
Kristen: “Hey, I’m Kristen. So what’s your major?”
J: “I’m in engineering. What’s your major?”
K: “I’m in nursing. What kind of engineering?”
J: “Oh, you’re in nursing? Hey, I have a pain right here. What is it? Should I go to the ER or just wait it out? Am I broken or should I just ice it?”

I have no idea, so usually it doesn’t do much good to ask.

Or like this:

Phone rings
K: “Hello”
Family member: “Hi Kristen! How are you? Say, what do you do for_____”

Both of these things happened to me in the last 24 hours. This first was with some guy at Navs who had a pain in his chest and wondered if his heart was stopping… I really am not the right one to ask about that. The second was my brother who had burned himself on his motorcycle. That I can deal with… :-)

Just for further reference, I’m not a doctor. I never will be a doctor, or have an advanced degree in nursing. My knowledge is pretty limited. Feel free to ask me, but I’ll probably just send you to the doctor’s office or ER.