Light at the end of the tunnel

This semester is finally finally drawing to a close. Two cumulative finals, an evaluation, and a final clinical validation remain. I can't believe my first semester of nursing school has so quickly come to an end. I'm one semester closer to graduating.

My last week of clinicals in the hospital went well. It was voluntary but I went to the hospital anyway. Caring for patients is more exciting than anything else I do. I ended up getting two patients. Yes, two whole patients. One I had the week prior. Colon CA. But I got to discharge this patient and saw him on his merry way. The other patient reminded me of someone I love dearly, and although this patient was semi-comatose, I enjoyed caring for her the most of all my patients this entire semester. Nothing super new happened -- I helped DC a PICC line. I didn't actually get to pull it out -- as student nurses we don't do that -- but I did get to assist (read: removed sutures!) I already have my assignment for next semester. I will be doing maternity & peds rotation. And I already know who my clinical instructor is -- someone I think I will love -- a CNM who works closely with the doula co-op I'm also a part of.

I just took my last regular exam and think I did pretty well. I did excellent on my Health Assessment final check-off -- I had to do MSK/Neuro. exam. We had group presentations this morning as well. That went alright, minor technical difficulties, but hey...I can't always be perfect.

Speaking of group work...my mentor situation is awful. I know I've written about this previously, but this woman has stepped to a new level of crappy-mentorness. We had a service learning project that we did right after Thanksgiving. Crappy mentor lady had basically taken over the project and determined where/when we'd do our project. So...whatever. Everyone in the group at this point is so apathetic that we will do whatever to just get it over with. She chose a site that is 20-30 mins from school, but we all drove to, 30 minutes early as Crappy Mentor had asked us. Well, 5:30p comes and goes, no mentor. 6:00 comes and we have to get started. We do our project beautifully without Crappy Mentor. She shows up 5 mins. before our project is over (Read: 6:25p --- 1 hour late. Completely missed our project.) She lamely tried to make it up by taking a few conciliatory photos. So whatever. She's lame. She sent out a few emails to see if she could help out with our group presentation. So -- cut to today...she knows today is our presentation. All of the other mentors showed up for their groups presentations, hell, some even helped out! Did ours show up? Nope. But she did have the courtesy to send me an email, hoping that the presentation is going well. What a piece of crap. The worst part? I'm paying to have such a shitty mentor. And all of my peers have great mentors. What do I need to do to get a great mentor? Mentors can open such wonderful opportunities for you -- not to mention provide support and encouragement when needed. I'm overall disappointed in this mentor program -- and hope this woman never has students to mentor. But I'm glad our group overcame her petty crap, rose above it, and did a wonderful job. But she still gets to grade us. Gr. Although, it could have been worse, she could have been my clinical preceptor.

I'm headed to VA the day after Christmas and I'm so excited to go home (again.) I did manage to make it up there for Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, plane tickets are really not that expensive. $150 roundtrip for this trip. (Can't get much cheaper than that !) I'm still way behind on Christmas shopping. I'm not really sure what to get everyone. Beloved and I will be spending this Christmas as our first together, without our families. Last year she spent most of Christmas Eve in the airport and I was with my family without her (sad.) The year before, we went to see her family together but I wasn't with my family (sad.) So this year we're trying to compromise and create our own traditions. It's hard because although we both have been living on our own for several years now, we were very tied to our family's holiday traditions and had yet to form our own. It seems more and more like our life in Atlanta is becoming our life together.

The wiener dogs are doing fine. Emmie will be getting spayed Dec. 18th. I've finally found a vet that I will trust my little blonde girl to. Graisen also has to get his yearly shots. But slowly but surely, we're wrapping up 2007 on a happy note. Alright, I'm off to the test review.