A Busy Week...but a good one.

This week has been quite jammed packed with events, but it has really been a great week. On Monday I had a scheduled LEI (longitudinal elderly initiative) visit. When I got to his house (which is a long 45 minute drive) he had forgotten that we were meeting today. Fortunately he was not busy and still let me visit. Then for seminar we went to Gilda's Club. Let me just say that this is one awesome place. You walk in and right away you get this home and peaceful feeling. Gilda's Club is like this house that has been transformed into a beautiful place were people with cancer, those who have had cancer, or those who have loved one with cancer can come for classes, programming, and support groups. The had three people come in and tell us their cancer journey and how Gilda's Club has had an impact on their lives. It was extremely emotional and cool to see how such a simple place had such a huge impact. After Gilda's club we went to back to class and had a lecture on chronic blood disorders. This is a picture of the Gilda's Club in Grand Rapids:

Tuesday we had a lecture on the child with cancer which was very informative but also cram packed and fast. I like learning a lot of information but I find it hard to learn when you have to focus so hard on being able to fill the blanks in on your notes before the professor turns the powerpoint slide, that you can't really listen to what they are saying. Then after that class, for my death and dying class we went and visited Faith Hospice at Trillum Woods. (Yeah this week was filled with field trips!). This place was also very cool. We heard from three of the staff - a chaplain, a nurse, and a social worker. It was encouraging to hear how they find so much passion in their job and how they don't find it depressing at all. I mean you think that being with people who die isn't very much fun, but they each explained that they get so much joy from being a part of helping people LIVE they way they want for the last months and days of their life.

Wednesday and Thursday I had clinical at the hospital. It was interesting that after all the talk in class lately I had a patient that had just been diagnosed with cancer. Anyway my patient was quite the character. My patient was really fun to work with and had a lot of life stories to tell. I got to do my first PICC line dressing change. A PICC line is sort of like and IV on steroids. Its put into a vein that is larger and closer to the heart. This allows for quick effects of medication and also you don't have to poke them every day to get blood, you can just hook up the tube to the lumen and blood will flow out which it nice for the nurse and the patient.

This week I also registered for my last semester of classes until I graduate! That was a good feeling, and I also found out that for my leadership (which is a clinical rotation in which you follow around a certain nurse for a large amount of hours is a specific area) I will be in the PICU which is the pediatric intensive care unit, which I am very excited about!

Going from the word everybody wants to hear (VACATION)...to the word that no ones wants to hear (CANCER)

Spring Break was awesome! It was so fun to get away for the week and not have to worry about doing anything with nursing school. I went to Denver, Colorado for the week with my girlfriend and did some hiking and sightseeing. It is so cool to be in the mountains and see God's indescribable creation surrounding you. At times I felt as if the beauty had taken my breath away. We went through Garden of the Gods, drove into Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, and did some hiking through some other state parks. We also went to the Denver Zoo and the Olympic Training Complex in Colorado Springs. And the whole time we were there the weather was amazing (like upper 50's and into the 60's)! Here are a few pictures of some of our adventures:

It was a little tough getting back into the swing of things after coming back from such a great vacation, but I survived. I think that it was helpful that we talked about a topic that interests me in our lecture class....and that would be cancer. Today we are going to the Gilda's Club here in Grand Rapids for one our classes so that should be pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to that. Last week we also had a seminar on living with HIV/AIDS. We had a special speaker come in and talk to us, and that was a pretty cool class. It's interesting to me that when you take the focus off of yourself for an hour or two and really listen a person who is talking, how much you can learn and get out of hearing about their life experiences and struggles.

Break Progressive Spring Care

Hey, shout out to my readers! Bet you didn't think that I would post again so soon! Well your in luck! If your confused about the title of the post I was having a hard time thinking about a creative title so I just picked out some of the major topics and scrambled the words! This past week I started my second clinical for the semester and it is more of a general med/surg rotation on the progressive care and burn unit floor. Sadly we won't get the opportunity to work with the burn patients however we hopefully will get to see some of the procedures they have to get done! So what is progressive care....good question! Progressive care is like a step-down unit from like an ICU or a floor where more monitoring goes on but not at the intensity of the ICU.

Anyway our clinical professor seems really nice, and she is not a big strictler on doing a bunch of paperwork which is really nice, because when you have to do a lot of paperwork it is really hard to get the full nursing experience. She doesn't make me feel as nervous as some of the other professor had done, and she brings candy to our post conference meetings! Score! I have clinical on Wednesday and Thursday from 7 to about 3ish, so I have to get back into the early morning thing again which is a bummer. The patient that I had last week was wonderful. When I left on Thursday the patient told me that I did a really good job in making them feel much more comfortable with being in the hospital. So that made me feel good.

This week we are on Spring Break! YAAHHHHOOOOO! So I will be spending the majority of the week in Denver, Colorado with my girlfriend going to visit one of her really good friends from high school. I'm excited for the break to get away for a bit! I'm sure I'll have some pictures to post when I get back.

Also GVSU is doing relay for life, and the nursing student's have a couple of teams. I'm am raising some money for that, and I am excited for that event as well. That is still about a month out, but I'm sure I'll have pictures from that too! But for this week its off to Colorado!