Wait…what?

3/7/09

It’s been 5 months since my last post. I passed all my Level 2 classes, and have gotten a 4.0 GPA both terms (woohoo!). Tuesday was my last day of Management clinicals, which were awesome except that they started at 5:30 in the morning. There are 7 weeks left of Level 3, meaning the end is in sight! I’m doing quite well so far—passed Management clinicals, got an A in both OB and Peds lecture, and will take the Mental Health final on Monday. I feel like I know enough to get by now. Not enough to start work tomorrow, but enough that, with several weeks of orientation and precepting, I could probably do a decent job as a floor nurse. Nursing home charge nurse, not so much…but I probably won’t apply for that sort of job anyway. Rehearsals for this year’s Gilbert and Sullivan show (Patience, May 14-17 at the Wealthy Theatre) are going as well as can be expected, and Bells of River City Morris Dancers are preparing for a show on St. Patrick’s Day.

So why do I feel so bad? For the last week or so, I’ve wanted to curl up in a corner. Yesterday I took the day off school (don’t worry, only 4 hours, and it was exam review) to help see a friend off at the airport and work on some things at home. I ended up sitting on the couch, wrapped in my dino blankie with pillows piled around me, trying hard not to freak out until Mike got home. When he got home, I told him I’m not okay, but I couldn’t give him any reason why. I DID say, “I went outside and puttered around for a while, since it was so nice out, but I couldn’t enjoy it,” and that gave him some idea of what’s going on. For those of you who’ve never been there, here’s a post from January about what depression feels like for me:

— In cheezfrenz@yahoogroups.com, (someone) wrote:
>when you’re really down deep, it’s hard to take any initiative for
yourself. You have to start feeling better in order to do the things
that will make you feel better.
>
(The rest is me…)

Wow. That’s just how my depression feels. Watch a funny movie? No;
I’ll just look at it and think, ‘I should be laughing at that.’ Go
visit a friend? No; I don’t have the energy to pick up the phone and
arrange it. All my thoughts and efforts are directed toward keeping
my $#!* together while I’m around other people, the rest of the time I
just sleep and breathe and take up space.
When I have the right medications, I still feel crappy a lot of the
time, but I have the energy to do something about it. Today I was
incredibly bored, so I took down the Christmas lights and thought
about how, next year, we’ll be able to put up a tree and invite people
over because I won’t be in school. Without the meds, I probably would
have stayed on the couch and thought, ‘This sucks. It’s the middle of
January and my Christmas lights are still up. What kind of *$^&$*(
loser leaves their lights up so long? #$^% this, it’s not worth it.
G%$ d#@& it Melissa, what the ^&$* is wrong with you?’ Notice how
many dimes I owe the dog, and how many quarters I owe the swear jar?
That’s what depression is like.
–teenie

Aside: ‘dime in the dog’ is a variation on the swear jar…a friend’s family had a bank shaped like a dachshund. The slot in its back was so small only dimes would fit through, so the dog sat in the living room and any time someone put themselves down they had to put a dime in the dog.

Apparently, even with the proper meds and self care, I can get into that horrible downward spiral described above. I think what’s going on is, things are going well, and that scares me. There, I said it. I’m scared. I’m scared out of my wits that I’m going to screw up, or that since things are going well for me, something terrible is about to happen. So here I sit, wrapped in my blankie, wondering what it’s going to be, and berating myself for not doing something…but I have neither the energy nor the motivation to do anything, and I don’t know what to do anyhow. If I can get past the next week or so, I think I’ll feel better…there are a lot of major assignments coming due, and some of my anxiety is probably about them. Whatever.

La la la laaaaaaaaa

7/5/08
See, this is the problem with having a blog. I need to have TIME to write in it! Not that I don’t have any time, I just don’t make my blog a priority. I would much rather look at lolcats, talk with friends, hang out with my husband, play with ratties, and pet kitties than re-hash my day here. I am going to make an effort to update more often; once a week at least. Tomorrow is the last day of summer break. I’ve spent my break sleeping, doing yard work, hanging out with family, and dealing with storm damage. Wednesday we got a killer line of thunderstorms that dropped nearly 3 inches of rain (and some half-inch hail) on us in a few hours. It also dropped a very large tree branch on our roof, which let some of that rain fall in our guest room. @#$%&!!!!! The insurance adjuster is coming Tuesday morning. In the meantime, we have tarps on the roof and a bucket in the guest room. There isn’t a hole in the roof, but water is coming in, so there’s gotta be some damage there. Whatever. At least the tarps are brown and they kind of blend in with the shingles.
School-wise, things are going reasonably well. Here are my grades so far (I’ve posted some of them, but I want everything in one spot).
FUNDAMENTALS:
A&P 1: 104
A&P 2: 107
A&P Final: 103
Fund 1: 94
Fund 2: 93
Fund 3: 100
Fund 4: 100
PHARMACOLOGY:
Pharm 1: 102
Pharm 2: 100
Pharm 3: 95
Pharm 4: 105
MEDS PUBLISHING:
Safety: 50/50
Culture Awareness: 10/10
Medication Administration: 25/25
Safe Dosage: 14/15
Calculating Oral Meds: 25/25
Calculating Injectable Meds: 25/25
Clinicals are incredibly challenging. After 5 weeks I still feel really clueless, but I have learned a lot. My instructor says I’m doing fine, and my written work is “excellent” so I guess I’m doing okay. I can’t imagine how I’m going to manage more than one patient, though. I think I’m also waiting to screw up, like I know I’m going to make a giant mistake and it’s just a matter of time. Does everyone go through this, or am I just really neurotic? Yeesh. Oh yeah, I also have migraines. I was diagnosed on June 16, and since then I’ve had exactly ONE headache-free day. Not fun. At least I have medication for it now. La la la la laaaaaaaaa…not much to say, really…just posting to say “I’m gonna post more!”
Sleepy for no good reason,
Teenie

8-9-10…where’s teh YNG when I need him?

5/16/08

The last time I wrote was Tuesday, right? *thinks hard* So on Wednesday we covered A&P chapters 13, 14, and 15—The Heart and Heart Disease, The Cardiovascular System, and The Lymphatic System. We did the group project from Tuesday, which was to draw a diagram of blood flow through the heart. I sketched a picture of the heart and lungs, then we put numbers on it and a legend showing what each number meant (1. Vena Cavae, 2. Right Atrium, 3. Tricuspid Valve, etc.). I think I enjoy playing with markers a little more than a 31-year-old should. Wednesday afternoon was SSP. I got some more practice taking blood pressures, read the material for Thursday, and got home around 3:30…then I took a nap. It was quite nice. Yesterday we did head-to-toe assessments—lecture (learning what to do) in the morning and lab (practicing and learning how to do it properly) in the afternoon. I always feel silly doing assessments and things on fellow students, because they KNOW what I’m doing and why, but I still have to explain as if they were a patient. Pleh. My lab group went second, so I had nothing to do between noon and 3 pm. I ended up going to Lowe’s and buying some pansies for the front yard, which I planted this afternoon in my topiary baskets. I actually bought too many and had to put some in a window box! This is a good problem to have. Today I didn’t have to wear my uniform to school. We did a lab on hygiene and had to give each other bed baths, so we could wear whatever as long as our arms and legs were accessible. I actually sat down and read last night’s newspaper this morning, instead of ironing uniform parts (paging teh YNG!). We watched a couple videos on how to give a bed bath, how to provide oral hygiene, and how to make an occupied bed, then paired up and did each thing. I’ve done all those things before, no problem. What I haven’t done before is be on the receiving end—it’s really strange having someone else brush your teeth. I had to tell my partner what to do next (she’d only ever brushed her own teeth) and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for someone with communication problems to sit through it. If I hadn’t said, “I still feel some gunk on the back of my bottom teeth,” I would have gone all day feeling it with my tongue and going “EWW!” The bed bath, though, was incredibly relaxing. All I had to do was lie in the bed and get clean. Afterward I wanted to stay there and fall asleep! I didn’t, though, I went to see Grama-Grama. She said she was doing okay, but she was still in her bathrobe at noon…apparently, one of the cats has taken to sleeping on her bed, and she ‘slept funny’ a couple nights ago trying not to knock the cat off the bed, which aggravated her arthritis. So I fixed lunch and we had quite a nice conversation about cats and their various eccentricities. When I got ready to leave, around 2, Grama-Grama was going to take a nap. I’d like to take a nap, but A&P quiz #2 is on Monday and Fundamentals quiz #2 is on Tuesday. Must…study…vocab…cards!

Teenie