It goes without saying that missing any of your clinical time is a bad idea. My program has no clinical make up time built into the schedule, and our instructors have advised us not to miss clinicals, period. But, one cannot control when they get sick. And, we really should not be continuing the line of thought that we should go to work/school/clinicals no matter how sick we are. It isn't good for the person who is sick... and it isn't sick for those they are exposing to their illness.

So, as luck would have it, last Sunday I woke up sick. I took some tylenol to try to bring my fever down and put myself back to bed for the day. I was hoping to sleep it off and be able to go in to my clinical Monday morning. By late Sunday afternoon it was obvious that was not going to happen. I e-mailed my instructor and let her know I would be heading to the doctor instead.

Yes, I was worried about how I was going to make up my clinical time, or even if I may have been kicked out of the program for missing time. But, I was too sick to go in, and my elderly patients did not need whatever illness I had. I'm a young, fairly healthy adult with a good immune system; most of the residents of LTC facilities are not. What is a uncomfortable, inconvient illness can be deadly for them.

As luck would have it, there were three of us sick and unable to make clinicals last week. We all went to our doctors, and were all diagnosed with the same illness. The incubation period would be accurate for us to have picked this up the week before in the LTC center. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. We all spent a very uncomfortable week at home and (hopefully) will all be back in class and clinicals this week.

Our program has been kind enough to schedule us a time to make up the hours we have missed.

We are coming to the end of our second quarter! I can't wait for the week long break between classes!!

It's hard to believe how quickly this is all going. It seems like just last week I was starting nursing school; now here I am, almost finished with my second quarter! The pace of lecture and assignments is intense. We are constantly juggling multiple projects and homework assignments and seem to be always getting ready for the next test.

We took another ATI predictor test and according to the results, both my husband and my self have a 99% chance of passing the NCLEX. Wow! I'm in disbelief that I could have even a 10th of the knowledge necessary to perform as a RN.

Last week was our first week of second quarter clinicals. We are in the LTC setting again, I believe this is the last time we will be in LTC as we move to the hospital in summer quarter. This time we are being allowed to perform more nurse like duties. We can change dressings, insert or discontinue foley catheters, take blood glucose readings and give insulin and we get to do one med pass. I was challenged to work as a team with another classmate, and our assignment was 2 very heavy care residents and one fairly easy resident. By the end of this assignment, we were both exhausted and feeling much more nurse-like. And, although I went home both days completely worn out, I really loved every minute of it. This week helped silence the little voice in the back of my head that wondered if I was really headed into the correct career.

Today I head back to the LTC facility to pick out new residents for the rest of my second quarter clinical experience. I'm passing meds on Monday, so I was instructed to pick one resident with a nice long list of meds! I'll be spending the rest of the weekend looking up that long list of meds in my drug guide, and trying to get my project due this week finished so I don't have to work on it after clinicals.

"If you have time to read a book or enjoy an afternoon with family or friends, we aren't doing our jobs!"

True quote from one of our instructors. No joke.

Is it just me, or does that seem unreasonable? Yes it's a lot of material to cover, and we need to study a lot. But, are we just setting ourselves up for a miserable career if we don't teach ourselves to take time for ourselves? We are no good for anyone if we don't take a little bit of time to enjoy something other than our med-surg book.

Speaking of the med-surg book.... it's just no right! Books, even textbooks, should not be this thick and heavy! And we are assigned to read at least 150 pages a week in this book....

Still loving nursing school... the drama that comes with having that many women together for such a long period of time, not so much. Oh well, I have my happy little group that knows and loves me and I'm choosing not to entertain the rest of the nonsense.

Mid-terms are coming up quickly! It's a great excuse to spend lots of time together "studying."

It's been so long since I've been able to take the time to sit and write. Nursing school gets really busy, life gets really busy, and before you know it a whole month has flown by.

To make a long story shorter, my husband and I had our first round of clinicals. I was in morning, his was in the evening. And then I got sick on top of it all. So, I would be at the clinical location by 6:30 am, leave again at 2:30 pm, pick my youngest up from my babysitter where my husband had left him at 2 to go to his clinicals. Next it was off to pick the older kids up from the after school program and home for the evening routine. Dinner, homework, manage the house. All sporting a fever of 103, my husband would get home from his clinicals around 112 pm. I wanted to cry. I did cry. Our program does not allow you to miss any clinical time, so staying home was not an option.

After clinicals we had an ATI test, still no time to get to the doctor so went to that sick too. Somehow I tied for the highest score in the class, not sure how that happened. Finally made it to the doctor and got antibiotics. It took days to feel human again. Then we were running straight into finals week.

Finals were last week, and I did well. I wish I would have had more time to study, but thus is the life of a married/mothering nursing student. After our last final exam we went out as a group to celebrate the end of our first quarter. It's fun to get to hand out with the class outside of the classroom. For the most part, we are a really fun group of students that get along really well.

We also had a class picnic at a local park. Great fun! Got to meet a lot of the spouses and kids of class mates and it was nice to put some faces to names. The next day I left town with a group of girlfriends to have my very first spring break. Spending 4 days worrying about nothing and no one but myself was fabulous!

So, now I'm back and spring break is almost over. Another field trip with some of my class mates is scheduled for tomorrow, and I need to finish my assigned reading. Second quarter, here I come!

Oh, and first quarter grades have been posted. I earned two 3.9's, a 4.0, and a pass in my lab/clinical.

You dream of range of motion exercises at night.... and wake up actually doing range of motion exercises!

Yup, that was me. Our first clinical skills check off was this week, and though this was the most basic of the skill check offs we will ever have, we were all a little nervous. I enjoyed a late study group the night before and fell into bed exhausted. As I frequently do the night before a test, I dreamed of the material I needed to know the next day and awoke in the middle of raising my arm over my head, 'exercising' my shoulder.

Passed my first set of clinical skills!

In every group there seems to always be one person who can't help but try to stir up some drama. Is it from boredom? Does it make them feel more important, or noticed? As the person who prefers to sit in the back corner and be noticed as little as possible, I can't answer these questions.

We have one in our class. At first I thought it was going to be horrible sharing class with this person for the next 18 months. But then I realized that most others in our class seemed to share in my frustration with this person. And then, it was almost as though they realized that they weren't making any friends with their abrasive nature. They started being a bit quieter, less apt to force their way into every lecture and finding fewer nasty comments to throw out about our fellow class mates. It was really nice while it lasted.

The quiet is over.

Instead we are having to endure more and more harsh comments. Cutting down of more students. It just makes the whole class roll their eyes as this person interjects yet again. Some class mates seem to be more sensitive to this than others. More than a few students have received e-mails letting them know that the class as a whole did no agree with this person, and trying to smooth any hurt feelings that may have been caused.

A friend went to one of our instructors to get their opinion on what was going on and to ask if maybe an effort should be made to try to get the rest of the class to not be so frustrated by our pot stirrer. The conversation didn't mention names or identifying statements but the instructor did interject that she had seen the behaviors that were frustrating us, and asking my friend not to try to calm the class down, but to allow this person to dig whatever hole they were going to dig and live with the consequences.

Fair enough.

I'm so glad that I genuinely enjoy the company of the majority of my class mates.