If you need me, here's what I can do so far....

~do a basic assessment and general survey
~ambulate you, transfer you to/from a stretcher and put you in a wheelchair
~take your blood pressure and check your other vital signs
~change your sterile dressings on your wounds and irrigate them too
~remove your sutures and staples
~put in a Foley catheter if you need to pee
~drop in an NG tube if your tummy is in need of being drained
~administer your tube feedings
~give you an enema

The Week in Bullets

*What made me most nervous on Monday morning? Figuring out how to signal the bus driver that I needed to get off at the next stop...luckily someone else pulled the cord first and I stopped hyperventilating. What happened to the old school shuttle buses?

*There are people born in 1988 in my class....and they'll be your nurse in 15 months.

*I got to see an open chest in the ICU on day 3.

*I wrote my first paper since the year 2000 and turned it in via email yesterday.

*It seems walking miles across campus is much harder and more tiring when you're 10 years older and 75 pounds heavier than the last time you did it.

*The best way to spoil the joy of a Friday morning is to walk into Starbucks and be asked by the barista how old you are because your face looks young but your hair is gray.

A New Chapter

Tomorrow is the end of one chapter and the beginning of another for me. After working in proposals for about 4 years, I am moving on. Tomorrow will be my last day at my current job of 2.5 years and Monday I will begin my 15 month journey to another Bachelor's degree. This time in nursing. I am super duper excited about the nursing program, sad to be leaving the job and coworkers that are family by now, and scared about becoming a poor student on financial aid. Even during my first undergraduate degree program 10 years ago (YIKES), I always worked between 20-38 hours a week so this will be quite an adjustment for me.

At our orientation, the dean told us that there will be some very rough days when we don't want to continue in the program. She said before we start, we should take a piece of paper and write our name out with the initials, RN behind it. We should tape it to our mirror so that on those mornings, we can remember what we're aiming for....maybe I'll just write mine in lipstick on the mirror.

Makenzie funny

Makenzie likes to help w/ chores around the house now awadays. This evening, she got the clothes out of the dryer and put them into the basket to carry into the living room so I could fold them. She was struggling under the weight of the basket, so I asked her if it was too heavy. She shook her head no and kept on trucking until she got just out of my earshot (she thought). I heard her say "Daddy, can we do some teamwork? This is really heavy."