i thought UTEP was just trying to scare us when they told us to say goodbye to our beds when we began this program, but they were not joking at all! the last three weeks have been absolutely INSANE! between clinical, class, studying, tutoring and breathing, i can't think of anything else i have been doing since i have seen you all.

after two rotations through clinical, i still feel like i have no idea what i am doing most of the time. give me a written test, and ill ace-it with no problem, but jeez, coordinating all the things nurses do with their hands is killing me. Usually they have sixteen things in their hands and are unscrewing lids to some highly caustic chemical with the pinky of one hand and cutting off bandages on some gnarly wound with the other- and all this time carrying on two entirely different conversations - one with me and one with the patient. i am trying to work on my ambidexterity, but mostly i just feel like a fool. another thing i am trying to adjust to is the amount of crap they expect us to carry around in our pockets. i have the entirety of the store room on my person at all times - it makes bending over, without making a huge mess, an almost impossible task!

in our spare time we sit around and practice starting IVs on each other. this picture is from our very first practice session. these particular needles were "borrowed" from some lab at school. later we found out that the reason they were not locked away with the other needles is because they were not sterile and had expired years ago - - OOPS!! lucky for us, no one got an infection - we've been more selective with our borrowing since then!

unfortunately, that was my first and last successful IV start. since then, i have totally jacked-up a couple patient's veins - the technical term is "blowing a vein" - not wanting to hurt any more patients unnecessarily, i decided to practice on myself - that didn't work out too well either - i blew my own vein...who does that?? needless to say, i need a lot of practice -- ill be accepting volunteers over thanksgiving, so prepare yourselves!!

love you all - very very much!!