Due to the lovely position I hold as a nursing student, I get the honorary privilege of getting up before the BCD (butt-crack of dawn) every Wednesday. After doing this for a month, you would think it gets easier--unfortunately, it does not. Waking up at 4 am is a whole new experience for this weathered night owl. Anyways...I get up at 4 to be to the clinical site by 5:30am with all the other more than jovial nursing students (slight sarcasm on the jovial). While talking to our clinical instructor, we all struggle to stay awake. Then we are shipped to do whatever the day holds for us.
Today, however, had a fun little twist--I had my first experience with Isolation Precautions. Whenever a client has contracted a highly infectious agent, you are required to suit up in "Personal Protective Equipment." I have to admit, I have never felt more legitimate than when I suited up with all the jazzy looking precautionary gear. Oh how wonderful it is to be a student nurse!
After spending a good hour and a half taking the vital signs of the residents, I helped one resident eat. The client was full of good humor--I think my favorite joke they told was about a mouse. Here's how the joke went:
Client: "I saw a mouse in my room the other day. I'm pretty sure it was gay."
Me: "How'd you know the mouse was gay?"
Client: "Because it came out of the closet."
Oh how I love their humor! They make early mornings seem not-so-bad.
After being at the clinical site until 11, I was back on campus to work. Now here's the kicker--I'm a Chemistry TA for students in pre-nursing, pre-diatetics, and various other majors. What do you think of when you think of those majors? Yes. A class full of girls...plus 5 boys. You can imagine the amount of hormones surging from the girls along with the competition oozing from ALL of these students to do better than one another so that they can get into their prospective programs. It is hard to handle so many people's emotions after being awake for so long.
Needless to say, Wednesday is perhaps the longest day of my weeks. You would think that I would enjoy learning all of the wonderful nursing things...but it is rather difficult when you are aroused before reasonable people wake up. I sure hope that this whole early thing will get easier when I get into the more active parts of nursing...MedSurg!
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