The down hill slide continues!

Well our hardest test of the semseter is now over and I did not face the challenge too well. With 4 weeks to prepare for this test they gave us the bulk of the difficult material less than a week before the test! This did not bode well for many of us. The class average was a 69 for this test and mine was not much different. This was difficult material but what can you say! I am still passing but I feel for those who have been not passing and are trying to bring there grades up.

We have straight A students who are doing just as bad as I am on the tests. She did finally say that she realized that the way the material was laid out, timing and the amount of material was too much and that she would need to change it for the next class! Wow, thanks, glad she could figure that out after us. Oh well, no time to grovel. We have a mere 5 weeks left in this semester and have 2 tests and a comprehensive final to boot! I hit my wall this past week and decided that tonight, I was not going to pick up the books but was going to take a night to recover. You spend 30 hours a week in class and then another 30 or more hours studying and your mind just hits overload. At some point if I don't figure out how to manage the stress I will weigh absolutely nothing. Nursing school for me is like being on a diet. I'm still eating but 10 lbs lighter and another 2 1/2 semesters to go.

Thanks for all of your encouragement. On the lighter side. Last week in clinicals I got to give medications and give shots. My clinical instructor has been wonderful as have the nurses and they jump on any chance to teach us a new skill. There is still a lot we are not allowed to do, because the rule is if we haven't learned it in class then we can't do it in clinical. However, every week that list gets smaller, and I feel like a nurse more every day.

My challenge for the week was having a client who spoke only arabic and was mentally confused. This combination does not bode well for the typical ways we try to communicate with them. When I first came in I was not looking forward to it but by the end of the week she really grew on me and we began to figure each other out. It was funny, they have this thing called the stera phone. It is a phone that has two headsets on it and I would call a number and ask for an arabic translator. I would say something in english and the translator would communicate it in Arabic. Then she would respond back to the translator in arabic and they would translate it for me. Well, with your average person this would work well. However, in this case there were times when the process made sense and then there were times she would just stare at the phone with a look of what is this.