Lame

I have been feeling down on myself this week. I realize with all that has been going on with school, I feel I just need a break to do something really fun. And this would be the time I would call my girls to go out for drinks and dancing with me. But my girls are in VA. So instead I'm stuck at home, wishing I could go out. I'm a true Leo, so I don't really like being solitary. But I'm not quite comfortable yet with the area to simply find a lesbian bar and go have a beer. Beloved would totally have a beer with me, but we're on completely opposite schedules. She has days off when I'm in school -- I have days off from school when she's working. And I know how hard she's working, so I hate to selfishly ask her to go out when I know she's tired. And then my classmates...I see them all week, I'm sure they'd like to get a beer too, but I *think* none of them are gay (well, maybe one is...) or would feel comfortable going to a gay bar. I loathe straight bars. Going out isn't complete without at least one drag queen.

So what am I to do? I haven't felt this sort of loneliness since the awkward years of high school. Even then I had friends.

In other news, school is going well. I have to re-take my medication administration quiz in order to go to clinicals. We have to get a 100% on it. I missed 2 questions the first go-round. It's not that the math is difficult (because it really is simple) but the program where we have to enter our answers is very specific. Ie. your answer is wrong if you wrote "tablet" instead of "tablets." So blah -- I think I will try again this afternoon. We had our first validation on Thursday. I did my VS correctly. My partner was a "patient" who had just had a LLE (lower left extremity) surgery, so I had to insure I checked peripheral pulses and he was on CBR (complete bed rest) so his VS were taken lying down. I played a "patient" who had DOE (dyspnea on exertion) and a cough. Fun times. We actually *do* our validations in practice exam rooms.

Yesterday we did medication administration -- IM, ID, SQ, and PO. So meds by mouth or different forms of injections. We didn't practice on each other -- we had this "slab" which is meant to mimic human flesh. One of the girls in our class faints every time she gets a shot or has her blood drawn. I was pretty good. Needles still kind of freak me out -- especially 5 other people who are inexperienced with needles running (not literally) around with them. I did not get a needle-stick - thank goddess! Someone else did from (just like our text says) recapping needles. Our needles were kind of older and crappy. The insulin syringes weren't fitted correctly so they kept drawing up air. And then the insulin syringe is the one that broke through the cap and stuck my classmate. Luckily it wasn't dirty. Next week we learn how to start IVs. Apparently the first week of clinicals we practice our IM injections because we help out with the flu shot drive in the hospital. We'll be administering flu shots to doctors, nurses, etc etc. I'm excited about it. Learning how to do things is really interesting to me. I feel like I'm getting somewhere!

In other news, we had our first topless moment in Health Assessment on Wednesday. We were doing cardiovascular and pulmonary exams. So we had to disrobe, wear a gown, and have our partners do complete system exams. Inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation. It wasn't that bad. They tried to make our little rooms more private and I was wearing a bra after all. No big deal. My partner was pretty cool. The hardest part was writing up our SOAPs in like 30 minutes. Complete health assessments are due on Wednesday of next week. I still have to finish mine.

Coming up next week is our first Health Assessment test (Monday) -- lame. I really need to get to work studying for it. We're also moving right along in Integrated Science (Pathophys + Pharmacology.) Pretty soon we'll be seeing real patients in the hospital. I hope I don't kill anyone.