"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."

This week I managed to survive my first tornado warning! It was very dark and stormy outside, and I was diligently studying in my bedroom for my big test the next day. All of the sudden I heard this noise outside like nothing I've ever heard before. I searched "tornado siren" on youtube...and sure enough, it was the same sound! I was probably a little more excited than I should be for a swirling whirlwind of death. Unfortunately the most exciting thing that happened was when the wind ripped the gutter off our apartment.

This week I had the worst thing happen to me that has ever happened in my entire life. Background information: A G-tube is a tube that goes directly into the stomach. At the end of it, outside of the body, the tube forks and there is a big opening and a small opening, both sealed with rubber stoppers. The tube is very useful for giving liquid medication as well as water, if the person is at risk for aspiration. In order to put something in the tube you have to kink it, attach a syringe to the big hole, and simply pour liquids into it. There is definitely a technique to it, and you have to be careful to make sure you are holding on tight to where the syringe and tube connect. In clinicals we always have our professor with us when we are giving medication or doing new procedures. It was time for my resident's G-tube flush. I told my professor that I was ready when she was, and she told me that I could do it by myself since she had watched me do it three times already. I was so excited to be able to do something by myself! I prepared everything I needed and got ready to start. Before you actually put anything in the tube you have to make sure the tube is actually in the stomach. You do this by holding the stethoscope on the stomach, and injecting 10cc of air into it. If you hear the air in the stomach, you are good to go! Well I was all set up. One hand was holding my stethoscope to her stomach, and the other was holding the syringe and tube together. I pushed the air into the syringe with one fluid motion...and the rubber stopper to the second smaller hole in the tube flew open and stomach juice shot into my face with an incredible amount of force. Now I don't know if you've ever seen juices straight from the stomach...but let me just tell you, it is not a pretty picture. Not only does it have the consistency of snot, but it smells awful too! To make things worse, my resident had a big old glass of cranberry juice for breakfast...so I was covered in pink, viscous, foul-smelling slime. It all happened so fast it took me a second to realize what was happening. I was trying to manipulate my hands so I could stop the spurting tube without dropping the whole contraption. I figured I might as well just finish the job before cleaning up...so I managed to pour everything down her tube while I was still a mess. My poor resident was just sitting there looking at me with an amused face the whole time. She didn't say a word, bless her soul. I was so unbelievably close to vomiting all over. Sheli just reminded me yesterday that the Lord never gives us more then we can handle...

After this whole unfortunate incident I wheeled my resident down to mass and proceeded to walk to the break room to grab some lunch. My stomach was still churning. One of my classmates called me to her resident's room and said she had to run and do something quickly. "Can you watch her? She's been on the toilet forever and she'll probably still be there when I get back." So I go into the room, and not two seconds later her sweet little resident, who is deaf and blind in one eye starts hollering that she's finished. I walked into the tiny bathroom and low and behold there was poop all over her hands, all over the toilet, and all over the wall. It wasn't just normal poop either...it was black, tarry, sticky poop. I'm not exactly sure what the poor little lady was doing in there. So I started to clean her up and I was just finishing as my classmate came back into the room. She took one look at me and said "I am so sorry....I owe you big time!" Little did she know what horrors I had previously encountered moments before. By the time I finally got to the break room I was thorougly traumatized and had lost my appetite completely.

So one of the things I'm most nervous about is learning how to do an IV. Yesterday, my friend Kristi and I went to bar/resturaunt and we were sitting at the table drinking beer and talking about nursing. She used to be an EMT so she has already done tons of IVs. She was explaining the whole process to me. I asked her if she could show me what vein she would go for on my hand. So I wrapped my hair tie around my wrist so my veins would pop out and she was holding my hand poking at my veins and explaining what to look for. At that moment, our waitress comes up to us and says in a shocked voice, "Are you proposing??" The funniest part was that she was totally serious! I'm pretty sure same-sex marriage isn't even legal in Nebraska! We burst out laughing and told her that we were in nursing school and we were just looking at veins. She thought that was hilarious.

Nick was supposed to come visit me in May...but last week we deiceded to go to Hawaii instead!! I am SO excited! I get to see my lover and the rest of the Serrones, I get to go to Hawaii, and I get a break from nursing school all wrapped into one! Life couldn't be better. =)

Just Breathe

Well this week is my spring break, and it was very much needed! The last two weeks of school have been complete insanity and I am proud that I made it out alive. I'm recharging for the madness to begin again on Monday.

Last week I started my second clinical rotation...long term care. LTC is basically the same thing as a nursing home; we take care of older people that are unable to take care of themselves. We are assigned one resident for the two days we are at the facility. The first day of clinical I wasn't sure what to expect...but I assumed we would have a nurse with us monitoring everything we did. Wrong. We showed up bright and early at 6:20am and our professor informed us that all nine of us were assigned to the same nurse and we were pretty much on our own. "It's your responsibility to get your resident down to breakfast before 8:30. Good luck." And we were off.

I was lucky to have the most lucid patient in the facility for the first week. She was very helpful and knew exactly what needed to be done at what time. I learned a whole bunch of new skills in those first two days of rotation. I gave my first insulin shot, I learned how to give medications through a G tube, I learned how to give bath, I learned how to wipe an adult's butt, and my personal favorite....I learned how to clean poop out of a wheelchair. Unfortunately just because a person is lucid doesn't mean they are continent. After this week I realized just how lucky I am to be able to get up and use the toilet when I need to.

Speaking of toilets...I had an unfortunate accident involving my cell phone and the toilet. I was on my lunch break at school and my phone was in the back pocket of my jeans. As I slid my jeans off, my phone shot out of my pocket like a newborn baby right into the toilet. I did all I could to save it, but sadly my attempts were futile. I went to get another phone, and the wonderful people at sprint sold me a broken phone. I didn't have time to go back in for another week...but I finally have a functional phone again.

The weather has been fickle again lately. Within the last week and a half I have experienced a snow storm, 1 degree below zero, a thunder and lightning storm, rain, hail, ice, and a balmy 70 degrees. One morning I slipped on a patch of ice and fell straight on my butt and the next day I was frolicking outside in a tee-shirt. And I thought the pacific northwest was bipolar!

Once again, I have another new love of my life....racquetball! I played it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I cannot get enough of it! I have never before been quite so sore and covered in bruises! The guy I play with, Alex, is a very pateint person. So far I have hit him in the face 3 times and made him bleed once. He has done neither of those things to me. I'm definitely getting better! Yesterday I scored ten points against him!

Thursday night my mommy came to visit me for spring break! We pretty much had non-stop fun the whole time she was here. On Friday we went to the zoo...which is apparently one of the best ones in the country. My friend from school used to work there, so she got us in for free! My friend Clete came with us...which was really great because I'm pretty sure I couldn't have pushed the wheelchair up some of those hills without him! With the amount of walking that zoo requires, they really should give wheelchairs to everyone. Those wheelchairs are hard to maneuver. Good thing she's got a good sense of humor! I ran her into walls, small children, snow piles, Clete's feet, etc. It was like off-roading compared to the facility I'm used to using a wheelchair in! Overall it was a fantastic zoo and we had a blast! It was 70 degrees that day too, so it was just perfect. I decided that I want a wallaby and a penguin.

My mom and I did all sorts of fun things! We went to thai, we went to happy hour sushi, we went to the $2.00 theater twice, we made multiple delicious meals, we went downtown, we went to Iowa, we drank lots and lots of tea, we stayed up way too late every night, and we watched about a million episodes of I Love Lucy! I had never seen the show before...and I'm definitely a fan! I thought it was hilarious.

Countdown till graduation: 9 months, 1 week