Monday October 9, 2023 (post for October 2nd-9th)

 This past week was the busiest week of the semester as far as having to be places. I had to be somewhere for school 4 out of the 5 days of the week. All day. I was petrified going into it, wondering if I’d be able to handle it. Here I am a week later and still alive! But just barely. This upcoming week will be my busiest week of the semester as far as homework, assignments and preparing for exams go. i have two different exams next week to prepare for, a virtual simulation, a paper to write on psychiatric care all on top of all the regular things I do during the week to prepare for lab and lecture day. I know I’ll be right here next week having come out of alive. But it’s terrifying to face head on.

My week began at Arizona State hospital on Monday morning. We had to be there by 5:30a. So I woke up at 4am. Then I went to the school to pick up two classmates who I offered to drive to Phoenix for the clinical. We got there are listened to shift report. It all sounded a bit terrifying. They talked about patient’s behaviors. It was all a bit overwhelming. Then I went to do med-pass with a nurse. That all went fine. But about an hour and a half into it there was a code gray. I can’t really talk much about it because it would violate HIPAA. But to this day, a week later, I still don’t know if the person involved is dead or alive. So I’ll just leave it at that. It was terrifying. We were told if patient’s aggressor that we should go to the nurse’s station and stay there. The event took place in front of the nurse’s station door so I couldn’t go in there. I tried going in the med-room, but someone came in after me and said I couldn’t be in there because I was a student. So I went out and watched it all. It was quite traumatizing. It was for the patients, too. They kept asking me to let them into the quiet room or open the bathroom doors so they could get away from it. But I wasn’t allowed to do that. I wasn’t allowed to do that quiet room, but a nurse said I could let two people into bathrooms. Anyway, I don’t even want to think about it anymore. So I’m not going to write about it anymore, but basically it was traumatizing and I hated every second of it. 

Tuesday was lab day. I can’t even remember it because it was so much more uneventful than Monday and Wednesday. So Wednesday we had our second psych exam. I did much better this time around than on the first one. 

I ended up with a 92% which is an A by nursing school standards. I am very happy! However, something did dampen the day. . .  A fellow student decided to cheat on her exam. She had her phone out and was looking up answers. Another student who saw it told the teacher and she was kicked out of the program. That student did right by all of us to tell the teacher. She did the right thing. Unfortunately, it was just one of those times when doing the right thing doesn’t feel good. 

Wednesday night I worked in the monitor room. I love working in the monitor room, but it is getting a little frustrating because she only has me in there once a week or once every other week. So every time I go in there I feel like everything is new. 

Thursday I started to feel a little sick. Josh has been sick all last week so I figured I picked up something form him. Or I’m just run down from doing too much.

Friday we went to a place called L.I.F.E. It is a school for special needs people. It was a neat place. I enjoyed that much more than ASH.

Friday night I worked and didn’t sleep very well on Saturday. I worked Saturday night and then literally slept the entire day on Sunday. I slept until 5pm! This is a picture of the view I have in the morning when I am leaving work as I am waiting for my elevator down to the parking garage. 

It’s a little different every morning as the earth moves in relation to the sun and the time the sun comes up changes. So it’s something different every morning!

This post was a little rushed, but I didn’t want to wait another week to do it because so much happened. This upcoming week I have one more rotation at ASH. Lab Tuesday. Lecture Wednesday. Wednesday also happens to be the anniversary of my sister’s actual death. Her death records say Oct 19th, but we were able to determine from her phone and the sent text messages and unread text messages that she died sometimes after 8:45pm on Oct 11. I work that night :/ I also work Thursday and Friday. Busy week. I can’t believe we’ve made it through this far and I haven’t had a break down! Well, I may not have had a breakdown, but I have been severely depressed. I’m getting better though. ON TO MED/SURG!!!