1 week down!

I have successfully completed my very first week of nursing school! Yea for me! (Imagine me cheering) Now that you're done laughing at your mental picture, here's the low down. It is hot in Tucson. Oh, you want to hear something new? Fine.

I'll just hit you with the highlights so as not to bore you with the boring details.

Tuesday was our first lab. I paired up with a darling girl, Chrissy, whom I met at orientation. Chrissy is 5'1-1/2" (I know because I measured her) and probably 103 lbs (we weighed ourselves), a former cheerleader at her university and a former stunt girl for her local pro basketball team. She really is darling. So, back to the lab. Tuesday we learned how to assess the vital signs, including the apical pulse. The apical pulse is located at the mid-clavicular line between the 4 and 5 ribs, i.e. just below and to the left of your left nipple. Of course we couldn't hear it through our layers of shirts and bras so my instructor had us remove them (gowned and behind a curtain). So here I am, having known my lab partner for all of 2 days and off come our shirts. SOOOOOO BAZAAR!!! I was so grateful I didn't pair up with any of the guys (who I consciously avoid now). It's like that nightmare of going to school naked come true. Actually it wasn't much different than going to the doctor's office except this was a classmate.

Wednesday and Thursday were lecture days. Lectures are 5-6 hours a day with 400-600 assigned pages of preparatory reading. So I scan the info the night before, go to class, come home and review, scan the reading for the next day and go to bed. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to commit this to memory.

Today was my favorite day so far. We did shift assessments. During a shift assessment (which occurs at the beginning of each shift so the new nurse can get a baseline) we review each body system starting at the head and going to the toes. This is why I'm here. We check the vitals, listen to the heart and lungs and GI track, check the eyes... everything (except unmentionables). It makes me giddy just thinking about it. You know how some people listen to the ocean or the wind in the trees to relax - I think I could listen to heart or breath sounds. We have these SIM mannequins that can be programed to who knows what - we practice all our procedures from codes to drugs to IVs, everything on them. Today we listened to their "hearts" and "lungs". The cool part is they can simulate various disease processes so today I heard a murmur, a mitral valve prolapse, pneumonia, crackles (which is generally bronchitis and sounds exactly like rice krispies), and several others. So, so cool. I wish you were all here so I could listen to your hearts and lungs. Anyway, I'm getting long-winded. Tonight some girls from my program and I are getting together for dinner to celebrate surviving the first week. Oh, and to make my brothers proud - I wasn't the first student to cry. I knew it would happen soon, someone would have a breakdown, I'm just glad it wasn't me. I'm loving this... well, except for the reading.