Hound dog
Nana's are Beautiful
I am quite literally at the end of my rope.....and I'm not finding a knot at the end to hold on to.
It has been a very long year. School is bad enough with the workload and the stress and demands it makes. But coupled with that I've had crisis after crisis, poor health (to put it mildly) and had my bff die. This quarter has been no different. Had that whole WW III break out between sister in law and Nichole that carried over to easy child....... And although I refused to get in it.......still felt stuck in the middle. Mom keeps having psychotic breaks. Now I'm dealing with a severely infected tooth that I think the infection has spread to the sinuses. And we get a call today mother in law's health is failing pretty bad. So sister in law and husband's bro are mad cuz holy cow couldn't just drop everything and run to nursing home and talk 96 yr old mother in law into going to the hospital. (been in clincal all day) Not that I'd have tried to talk her into it anyway. The woman is 96, suffering.....how about they just live her alone and let her pass in peace....omg.
1st week of medication passes were a nitemare with instructor breathing down my neck making me feel like a complete idiot. Survived that, had 2 good weeks passing medications with preceptors......and feeling like maybe was not so stupid........
Only to have the most nitemarish hellish day today. I will be honest. If it hadn't been for my classmates......I'd have quit today. Yes. It was unbelievable. I'm still rolling the whole quitting thing around in my mind.......
So, been passing medications this whole quarter, no patient care at all. This is a new facility to us. I had no patient care. All I saw for those weeks were medication books and medication. Period. Today was to be my 1st day of patient care, was to share 6 pts (we've only ever had 1-2 max before) with another student who has had patient care before so she could help orientate me into where things where and how to do treatments ect. This suited me just fine as the entire course all of my patients have been super easy with most of them being discharged by noon. And the patients where we are now require much complicated care. So I was nervous.
The infected tooth thing started last weekend. Missed a day of school trying to get in to a dentist, not happening without insurance.......all booked. Finally found 1 who will see me and they're supposed to call when they get a cancellation....they are packed solid cuz they do welfare patients. So am in horrendous pain without pain medications, sick....... Still I go in because I don't want to leave the other student hanging with all those patients by herself.
Other student no called/no showed on me. Instructor was livid. Evidently decided to take it out on me. Sooooo I go to do vitals and assessments on my 6 patients I now have all by myself in a facility I've not been oriented to. I stumble through that half way decent. Time to do the 8am charting. Ok, not like I haven't done that before. So we have to write them on another sheet before entering it into the patient chart.
And the day went straight to hades. Suddenly nothing I wrote was good enough, worded correctly, not in the right order. She'd check them find something wrong......not always really wrong, she just didn't like how it was done.....and make me rewrite the whole thing again. She'd pull one away in the middle of me writing it then gripe at me that it was incomplete. Got to the point where I couldn't write a sentence to please her.
Now honestly I don't know if it's because I'm sick or because of the brain injury. But my brain just completely shut down. In a scarey sort of way. I couldn't make sense of what I was writing, couldn't make sense of what she wanted me to write, couldn't remember what order she wanted things in.........And I got slower and slower about rewriting them. Because it got worse and worse.
My brain will go into shut down mode under extreme stress. There isn't much I can do about it. Usually can cope by stepping back taking a few mins to regroup/rethink. But she would not let up and leave me alone long enough. Finally at almost 1pm she let me take a break.......my 1st break, not lunch, a break.
So for 4 hrs I'd been re-writing 8am nurses notes. I did get to quickly see the trach suctioned on one patient and 2 dressing changes. But seriously by then my mind was just gone and it didn't register at all. Barely have any memory of it.
So I'm walking to the breakroom which thankfully is far from the unit. I am so livid/frustrated I'm fighting back tears, clear signal I've reached my breaking point. I passed the student working that unit.....she recognized the look, cuz she'd had it the week before when instructor did similar to her and I'd talked her out of quitting. She stopped me and helped calm me, went to break with me and talked to me letting me vent some.
Even then it took everything I had to walk back to the unit and deal with her again. now she's even more mad cuz it's after 1pm and of course I'm still working on those 8am nursing notes she won't approve to save my life. So out of desperation I grab a chart of one of the patients and looked to see how another student had charted the day before......basically copied it word for word except put in my own findings and vital signs ect. She had approved that student's entry and even praised to to me. So I show it to her and she went ballistic again. omg
Let's just say those notes weren't finished until 1:30pm. Then she was mad because she'd made me work on them all day so she had to give report to the nurses because the other student passing medications had done my treatments ect. Then told me to stay after the students left she wanted to talk to me.
Sooooo. Yeah. That wasn't much better. She told me I had acted totally incompetent, then asked what the hades was wrong with ME. So I did explain that I was sick ect and taking over the counter medications in attempt to deal with the pain. She just basically told me not to show up tomorrow if I didn't feel better.
Then told me if it happened again......even remotely close to what happened today she'd flunk me out of clinicals.
Ok. I can take criticism with the best of them. I wasn't working up to par. I know that, I'm not stupid. I probably should've just stayed home. But then she'd have been furious with me for missing a clinical day. So no win there. I don't know what made my brain shut down so completely....I mean seriously...I was there....but I was NOT there if you know what I mean. Really hard to describe. And scary once I was out of there and to my car and it began to subside. Still had to sit there a while and let my brain sort of regroup.
This was a much more severe version of what happened the 1st wk of medication pass.
They don't know about my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and I won't tell them. Instinct tells me I'd never make it through the program if I did/do.......and I trust my gut. So I explained my reaction as over the counter medications. But I only took extra strength tylenol this morning. So I'm pretty sure it was the stress/being overwhelmed thing that caused the shut down. Just never had it happen to that extreme before.
I feel like I've wasted both my time and money on this program. Instructors that don't teach. Lessons ect that come out of books other than the ones we're told to buy. Clinicals that are basically a joke because for 3 quarters you're not allowed to do anything hardly at all, then in the 4th you're expected to step up to the plate and act as if you've been a nurse for 10 yrs.
It's a shame, but other than pharm......I'm not leaving this program with any information that I hadn't already known going in that I learned 30 yrs ago. If I hadn't had that knowledge base I doubt I'd have made it this far. There is a reason we've lost more than half the class. (a 1st in this program)
Obviously since I'm up at 2am I'm not getting up at 4am to go to clinicals. I'm headed to the ER in hopes of pain medications and something for this infection.
I honestly could care less whether I finish the program or not. And at this point I don't know if I will be going to class on monday.......or at all. Three wks to graduation seems to be the magic number for me I guess. At this point graduation means nothing. I'm sick of spending hours trying to teach myself what I'm paying thousands of dollars to an instructor to teach me. Sick of being thrown to the wolves and expected to know things off the top of my head because we saw it in class once and tested on it months before.
This may have been my last straw. Even someone starting out at a new job doesn't get 6 patients they know nothing about except for a 3 mins report of dxes and left to just get the job done without having an orientation period. Completely unreasonable. None of the other students faced that. Not one of them. They have all had patient care before at this facility with her being nice and answering questions and showing them where things were and how to do the treatments. But because I was 1st medication pass.........I got nothing, then treated like **** because I couldn't pull it out my fanny and just step up and DO IT.
Normally I'd have went off on the instructor....tactfully, but I'd have put her in her place and told her to back off. But today the brain was so shut down I couldn't even do that......couldn't even show emotion until I was a far distance away from the situation.
Vented to my mother.........all she did was remind me of 30 yrs ago when I also walked out 3 wks before graduating. Yep, but 30 yrs ago I didn't have health issues and a family crisis each week......and a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to contend with either. So yeah, thanks Mom that makes me feel so much better.
husband is avoiding me cuz he basically said the same and I ripped his head off.
easy child gets it. She totally does. She's shared my frustration throughout the entire program.
So now I feel like I wasted the last 4 yrs in school. I don't mind the thought of going back to class so much.......not that it's great but I can deal anyway. Just do not........NOT.......want to do 1 more day of clinical with that woman. There was no reason for her to put that entire load on me today. Completely unreasonable.........then with the whole nurses notes nitemare....yeah. Which was done in the middle of the nurses station with all of them listening....I mean heck you couldn't miss it. Other students didn't dare speak to me when she was around.
Yeah. It's been such a wonderful year..........
It has been a very long year. School is bad enough with the workload and the stress and demands it makes. But coupled with that I've had crisis after crisis, poor health (to put it mildly) and had my bff die. This quarter has been no different. Had that whole WW III break out between sister in law and Nichole that carried over to easy child....... And although I refused to get in it.......still felt stuck in the middle. Mom keeps having psychotic breaks. Now I'm dealing with a severely infected tooth that I think the infection has spread to the sinuses. And we get a call today mother in law's health is failing pretty bad. So sister in law and husband's bro are mad cuz holy cow couldn't just drop everything and run to nursing home and talk 96 yr old mother in law into going to the hospital. (been in clincal all day) Not that I'd have tried to talk her into it anyway. The woman is 96, suffering.....how about they just live her alone and let her pass in peace....omg.
1st week of medication passes were a nitemare with instructor breathing down my neck making me feel like a complete idiot. Survived that, had 2 good weeks passing medications with preceptors......and feeling like maybe was not so stupid........
Only to have the most nitemarish hellish day today. I will be honest. If it hadn't been for my classmates......I'd have quit today. Yes. It was unbelievable. I'm still rolling the whole quitting thing around in my mind.......
So, been passing medications this whole quarter, no patient care at all. This is a new facility to us. I had no patient care. All I saw for those weeks were medication books and medication. Period. Today was to be my 1st day of patient care, was to share 6 pts (we've only ever had 1-2 max before) with another student who has had patient care before so she could help orientate me into where things where and how to do treatments ect. This suited me just fine as the entire course all of my patients have been super easy with most of them being discharged by noon. And the patients where we are now require much complicated care. So I was nervous.
The infected tooth thing started last weekend. Missed a day of school trying to get in to a dentist, not happening without insurance.......all booked. Finally found 1 who will see me and they're supposed to call when they get a cancellation....they are packed solid cuz they do welfare patients. So am in horrendous pain without pain medications, sick....... Still I go in because I don't want to leave the other student hanging with all those patients by herself.
Other student no called/no showed on me. Instructor was livid. Evidently decided to take it out on me. Sooooo I go to do vitals and assessments on my 6 patients I now have all by myself in a facility I've not been oriented to. I stumble through that half way decent. Time to do the 8am charting. Ok, not like I haven't done that before. So we have to write them on another sheet before entering it into the patient chart.
And the day went straight to hades. Suddenly nothing I wrote was good enough, worded correctly, not in the right order. She'd check them find something wrong......not always really wrong, she just didn't like how it was done.....and make me rewrite the whole thing again. She'd pull one away in the middle of me writing it then gripe at me that it was incomplete. Got to the point where I couldn't write a sentence to please her.
Now honestly I don't know if it's because I'm sick or because of the brain injury. But my brain just completely shut down. In a scarey sort of way. I couldn't make sense of what I was writing, couldn't make sense of what she wanted me to write, couldn't remember what order she wanted things in.........And I got slower and slower about rewriting them. Because it got worse and worse.
My brain will go into shut down mode under extreme stress. There isn't much I can do about it. Usually can cope by stepping back taking a few mins to regroup/rethink. But she would not let up and leave me alone long enough. Finally at almost 1pm she let me take a break.......my 1st break, not lunch, a break.
So for 4 hrs I'd been re-writing 8am nurses notes. I did get to quickly see the trach suctioned on one patient and 2 dressing changes. But seriously by then my mind was just gone and it didn't register at all. Barely have any memory of it.
So I'm walking to the breakroom which thankfully is far from the unit. I am so livid/frustrated I'm fighting back tears, clear signal I've reached my breaking point. I passed the student working that unit.....she recognized the look, cuz she'd had it the week before when instructor did similar to her and I'd talked her out of quitting. She stopped me and helped calm me, went to break with me and talked to me letting me vent some.
Even then it took everything I had to walk back to the unit and deal with her again. now she's even more mad cuz it's after 1pm and of course I'm still working on those 8am nursing notes she won't approve to save my life. So out of desperation I grab a chart of one of the patients and looked to see how another student had charted the day before......basically copied it word for word except put in my own findings and vital signs ect. She had approved that student's entry and even praised to to me. So I show it to her and she went ballistic again. omg
Let's just say those notes weren't finished until 1:30pm. Then she was mad because she'd made me work on them all day so she had to give report to the nurses because the other student passing medications had done my treatments ect. Then told me to stay after the students left she wanted to talk to me.
Sooooo. Yeah. That wasn't much better. She told me I had acted totally incompetent, then asked what the hades was wrong with ME. So I did explain that I was sick ect and taking over the counter medications in attempt to deal with the pain. She just basically told me not to show up tomorrow if I didn't feel better.
Then told me if it happened again......even remotely close to what happened today she'd flunk me out of clinicals.
Ok. I can take criticism with the best of them. I wasn't working up to par. I know that, I'm not stupid. I probably should've just stayed home. But then she'd have been furious with me for missing a clinical day. So no win there. I don't know what made my brain shut down so completely....I mean seriously...I was there....but I was NOT there if you know what I mean. Really hard to describe. And scary once I was out of there and to my car and it began to subside. Still had to sit there a while and let my brain sort of regroup.
This was a much more severe version of what happened the 1st wk of medication pass.
They don't know about my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and I won't tell them. Instinct tells me I'd never make it through the program if I did/do.......and I trust my gut. So I explained my reaction as over the counter medications. But I only took extra strength tylenol this morning. So I'm pretty sure it was the stress/being overwhelmed thing that caused the shut down. Just never had it happen to that extreme before.
I feel like I've wasted both my time and money on this program. Instructors that don't teach. Lessons ect that come out of books other than the ones we're told to buy. Clinicals that are basically a joke because for 3 quarters you're not allowed to do anything hardly at all, then in the 4th you're expected to step up to the plate and act as if you've been a nurse for 10 yrs.
It's a shame, but other than pharm......I'm not leaving this program with any information that I hadn't already known going in that I learned 30 yrs ago. If I hadn't had that knowledge base I doubt I'd have made it this far. There is a reason we've lost more than half the class. (a 1st in this program)
Obviously since I'm up at 2am I'm not getting up at 4am to go to clinicals. I'm headed to the ER in hopes of pain medications and something for this infection.
I honestly could care less whether I finish the program or not. And at this point I don't know if I will be going to class on monday.......or at all. Three wks to graduation seems to be the magic number for me I guess. At this point graduation means nothing. I'm sick of spending hours trying to teach myself what I'm paying thousands of dollars to an instructor to teach me. Sick of being thrown to the wolves and expected to know things off the top of my head because we saw it in class once and tested on it months before.
This may have been my last straw. Even someone starting out at a new job doesn't get 6 patients they know nothing about except for a 3 mins report of dxes and left to just get the job done without having an orientation period. Completely unreasonable. None of the other students faced that. Not one of them. They have all had patient care before at this facility with her being nice and answering questions and showing them where things were and how to do the treatments. But because I was 1st medication pass.........I got nothing, then treated like **** because I couldn't pull it out my fanny and just step up and DO IT.
Normally I'd have went off on the instructor....tactfully, but I'd have put her in her place and told her to back off. But today the brain was so shut down I couldn't even do that......couldn't even show emotion until I was a far distance away from the situation.
Vented to my mother.........all she did was remind me of 30 yrs ago when I also walked out 3 wks before graduating. Yep, but 30 yrs ago I didn't have health issues and a family crisis each week......and a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to contend with either. So yeah, thanks Mom that makes me feel so much better.
husband is avoiding me cuz he basically said the same and I ripped his head off.
easy child gets it. She totally does. She's shared my frustration throughout the entire program.
So now I feel like I wasted the last 4 yrs in school. I don't mind the thought of going back to class so much.......not that it's great but I can deal anyway. Just do not........NOT.......want to do 1 more day of clinical with that woman. There was no reason for her to put that entire load on me today. Completely unreasonable.........then with the whole nurses notes nitemare....yeah. Which was done in the middle of the nurses station with all of them listening....I mean heck you couldn't miss it. Other students didn't dare speak to me when she was around.
Yeah. It's been such a wonderful year..........
