Just a stick and a burn....

Things are moving along at a really swift pace at school. In the last three weeks we have learned all the specifics of taking vitals (temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respirations), how to give subcutaneous and intramuscular shots, and how to do an IV push or bolus. We have these fake little sponge things that can be strapped on to a person to practice shots. Our lab group is made up of four ladies. Two of us are the "non-traditional" a little older type. We affectionately named our sponge, Ms. SpongeBob Squareform. The young whipper-snappers in our group look at us like, "those poor women, they have already lived the best part of their life." They have know idea how great thirty something is!

I had two tests yesterday. One in health assessment. Who knew an assessment was so - um scientific. Identifying abnormal data, clustering, taking inferences, throwing out, validation - and on and on. I made a 94 on that test. So good start there.

The second test was in my skills class. We are required to take a medication calulations test. Like the physician orders 250 mg of such and such drug. The drug is available in 60 g/10 ml. How many ml do you give per dose? We have to make a 100 on the test. We are given three chances to make a 100 - after that we are forced to withdraw. I felt pretty confident about my knowledge, but I have terrible test anxiety. I took the test, pushed the submit button on the computer and it came up that I had missed one. My heart sank. It seems only a few of the 27 even made a 100. I stayed after class to find out what I missed, so I could work on it for next week's retake. The one I missed, I had entered .5 ml instead of 5 ml. The professor said, "did you turn in your scratch paper?" (We figured it out on scratch paper, then had to enter the answer into the computer). She pulled my scratch paper and low and behold - I had the right answer on the scratch sheet - and bless her heart, she gave me credit. She said, "you have someone looking out for you." I told her, "you have absolutely no idea!"