In the Trenches

You are a very young teenager,newly dx'd with type 1 diabetes...freshman year of high school. You're at that age where you act like it doesn't matter,it's no big deal & yeah talking about it?not gonna happen.(Not that anyone has any idea of how to go about this) Your mother passed away from T1 diabetes,soon after giving birth. The family dynamics is a complete cataclysmic shroud of mystery. Time heals many wounds,but there are some it does not. Perhaps your family is involved emotionally with your care,perhaps not but the practitioner treating your D is definitely not,because insulin changes are minuscule & insufficient for an adolescent.

This is school nursing,in the trenches. So many things that you can't do a thing about...so many unfair things in this world.(as it is for many things but some situations really get to you.) Virtually every school has type 1 students,& the school nurse has to work with whatever plan has been set in place,even if that plan really isn't working.

*this blog post is HIPAA complient-name,age, & sex of individual not being stated*


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Tsunami

I don't know what to say.

Failure is crash wave over me right now,& I can't breathe. Or think. The problem is the nursing school tests..they are so,so hard & I'm not doing well. 72,67. There are two more tests to go & I have to pull off a 76 average. I want to believe that I can, I study myself into a coma, ask my profs for help.
Not helping. I am so scared that I will fail...& then what? I've never done anything career-wise with my life that I could be proud of, & I wanted this..so badly. Yeah I guess there are plenty of other things but you don't get 3/4 of the way through a program to just fail,without taking things majorly hard. I cannot let myself think about failure, much less deal with that whole can of worms.(prematurely)

All I can do is breathe, & try to find my way back to the top. Focus on the next test, & try to understand everything that could possibly be on it.


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They Cometh

"Do you know how very,very lucky you are?" my instructor gushed. "This is a wonderful opportunity to influence the nursing school process."

Luck,admittedly, is not the first thing that came to my mind.(more like:no absolute WAY am I getting involved in this) And what is this?you ask? "That" is upcoming visit by the National (RN) Accreditation Committee, slated to drop into town Tues/Wed of next week. One day at the hospital,one day at the college. They are here,to check up on our program/interview students & faculty,& basically ensure that we are learning what we are supposed to be learning. They come around every 8 years,hence the "lucky" part. (its a 2 year program)If you are at the hospital,they attach themselves like leeches & follow you into patients rooms,etc.(no pressure,right?) They are a million times worse then the Joint Commission.(that also comes around periodically to harass people)
Fortuently, I will not be at the hospital while they are there...unfortuently,my instructor has to be at the college for interviews so she is cutting short the hospital day & the whole clinical group has to go back to the college to participate in the interviews. UGH. I have no desire to be involved in the program process, these interviews consist of questions like "How do you feel the college has equipped you in meeting the core competencies?" (Uh what-thr only thing I feel equipped for is the ability to get through a 2.5 hour lecture) Questions that actually involve studying(prior to) what the heck they are talking about so that you don't look like a complete idiot. As you can imagine,our instructors A. want us to be enthusiastically involved and B.want us to say good things about the program to make them look good. Now yes,there are a lot of good things about this program but there are things that aren't that I might want to say too. I'm not sure that they want to listen to me complain about the program though. And I am not the mover & the shaker that they should be talking to.(there's one of those sitting in the front row every day)

Mandatory interviews..oh boy. Scary,gut-wrenching, mind-numbing,interviews. I hope the questions aren't hard.

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Gray Days

It's been a rough 1.2 weeks. Begun,of course, with a sore throat & a mild cough,moved to the runny nose, followed by the 101 degree fevers & the addition of some hard core throat pain, losing my taste on Super Bowl Sunday,(I did not go to the party & how sad is that,when the whole of Baltimore was stark Raven mad?Methinks it may never happen again ) The cough set in & Sunday night I probably got two hours of sleep. Monday I went to the doc & they gave me codeine syrup & an antibiotic for my "sinus infection." Sinus infection-really? Yep,within a day my head felt like a literal bomb & the discharge turned a disgusting color. Fever went away,the cough/pressure/pain continued. I don't know if it's a particular nasty bug,or a side effect of the codeine but then came the retching diaries. Cough-cough-cough-retch-retch-cough-breathe. My backup Zofran helped a lot in that regard, but I think I should have a lot more of it in hand. The appetite is at a big fat zero,since eating solids forces my throat into a coughing/retching paramoxeam.(I guess I need to lose some weight,but not like this) So I've been living off juice,yogurt, Boost,Gatorade,pudding,applesauce. It's not that bad when you can't taste but man, I crave real food. Blood sugars are anyone's guess,& since I've taken so much Tylenol my CGM is kind of useless(little processor chip=blown). At nights,when the coughing doesn't stop & I feel like my lungs are going to explode I question whether I can go on,should I drop out of this nursing school course,rest up & try again? I've spent alot of time in bed this week,have not studied at all, barely survived my hospital day & community health 1/2 day & shown up late to 2 lectures, failed a math exam(my "failure" was the result of stupid rounding rules, I got the right answers but still failed the thing) Kept telling myself that this is the worst of it & better days are around the corner.I would have dropped out from necessity if I'd had to be in the hospital,(impossible to make up missed days)but here I am,hopelessly disorganised me,fighting to stay alive.(& afloat)

TGIF.(tomorrow) I have a weekend to do some studying for the first test,& to feel a tad bit better.(& today has been slightly better, I can breathe through my nose again) The J-baby & the hubby got mild colds/coughs,nothing like I got.(& I'm glad of that,but my hubby always claims its because he takes Zicam so religiously at the first hint of anything respiratory,while I think it's just good luck on his part,& being a Mommy Germ Magnet on my part)


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