My day

In college we never take tests. We take midterms or exams. I don't understand why they call them midterms, they aren't in the middle and we have like 3 or 4 of them...oh well.

Today I had my first midterm of the semester. It went surprisingly well. It was my test for Med/Surg, my 8 credit class, so if I don't get at least a B+ I lose my scholarship. It was easy, which makes me nervous and makes me happy. Nervous because things can only get harder, happy because I did well.

I also picked out a new blog layout. Janelle, my sister, picked a new one out this week too so being the annoying little sister that I am I copied :). But it was time for a change anyways.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO MY PARENTS!!!!! They have been married 30 years today!

My Politics

Here are a few political issues and where I stand, some things I've thought about more than others, and some things I don't know as much about as others...

War in Iraq: No one cares at this point if you originally voted that we should enter the war or not. That's ancient history, the question now is what are you going to do about it? And my view on the war: a timetable is a bad idea. A goal would be good but locking ourselves into a date is dangerous. We need to finish what we started.

Universal Health Care: absolutely not. You think there's a nursing shortage now...

Abortion: This one's tricky. I think that it should be legal and here's why: if it were illegal, women would still find a way or a quack doctor to have it done and end up screwing up their bodies and potentially causing great harm to themselves. I don't agree with the decision to get an abortion, but I think it needs to be legal.

Energy: people need to get over their fear of the word "nuclear." Let the scientists do their research so that they can find ways around oil. I want to preserve as much of the beautiful lands in America (which are probably full of oil) as we can, but I also want to drive my car. It's a catch-22.

Stem-cell Research: again people need to get over their fear of the term and learn what it actually is. Scientists aren't killing babies. This research needs more funding so that we can find the cure for cancer and other deadly diseases which is killing more people the war in Iraq.

My dilemma with this election: I was truly gung-ho for McCain from the beginning, even while Romney was running, but then he picked Sarah Palin as his VP. If McCain were to win, I would feel really good but if he were to die in office, we'd be screwed. Palin is not even close to being ready to be our Commander in Chief. Russia's in my backyard...give me a break. On the other hand, Obama scares the crap out of me. I think the terrorists would love having him voted into office because he's a softy. Also I hate hate hate the idea of universal health care. I also feel like he talks and talks and talks and that's it. Not visiting the middle east at all until a few weeks ago also troubles me.

A week in the life of...

So it's been a few days since I last posted anything, and the it was just pictures. I am starting to finally settle into the semester, as much as I would like to still be on vacation. My typical week this semester goes like this:

Monday: I wake up at about 7 and am to class by 8. At 9 I head to the library to do my Church History reading, but usually end up falling asleep. I go to church history from 11-12 and then I'll eat lunch and settle in for a long night. I do my nursing reading until about 7 when I break for dinner and Family Home Evening. Then it's back to the library until I finish my homework for nursing the next day, which is usually midnight.

Tuesday: I have med/surg from 8-11, devotional from 11-12, hurry and study for pharm from 12-1 and Pharmacology from 1-4. By the end of Tuesday's I am ready to run 17 miles because I have literally been on my butt ALL DAY! Last week I played tennis with a friend after class, the week before I cleaned the kitchen.

Wednesday: Again the Doctrine and Covenants and then Church History routine, at noon when I get out of class I speed walk back to my apartment and scarf down lunch. At about 12:20 two fellow nursing students and I head to the hospital, about a 40 minute drive. I go to the floor that I will be working on the next day and look through all the patient charts and pick a good one (meaning lots of tubes, and pathologically interesting diseases, someone I can learn a lot while taking care of them). We usually get back to Prove at about 3 and I start the pre-assessment. What this means is I research the diagnoses of the patient I just picked, look up all their meds and write out important things about them, plan what I'm going to do for them, and review the labs and interpret high/low values. This usually takes me till about 7-8pm. At 7 I try to go to 80's movie night and just sit in the back and finish homework if I'm not done. I crash as soon as I can.

Thursdays: Wake up at 5:30 and head up to the hospital. Work with my patient, follow my nurse, learn lots of stuff till about 4pm and head home. I usually am so exhausted that I sit around for a while and procrastinate doing my homework for the next day. Maybe around 8pm I'll start it and then get to bed by 11 or 12.

Friday: I have nursing lab from 8-10 and we learn valuable nursing skills like how to put patients through pain. Just kidding, but seriously it is good to be able to learn skills and practice on each other or the mannequins before we do it on real people. Friday I usually study for a test, do reading for next week, or work on a paper. A group of us get together on Friday afternoons to work out case studies for the following week's nursing classes. I usually veg out with the roommates on Friday nights, which includes going groceries.

So a day in the life of Candice Rountree is always different depending on which day you chose to spend in my life. Thursday's tend to be the best but the most overwhelming also. Friday's are the most relaxing. Tuesday's are the hardest to get through. But I have learned that Sunday's are the days that I look forward to the most for lots of reasons: feeling the Spirit at church, I can think about something other than nursing, I spend time with my roommates, I have large chunks of time that I can talk to family, I can write in my journal, update you on my blog, I have time to cook, and I can take naps.

Other happenings: BYU(#8) has passed USC(#9) in the rankings this week (just had to mention it, sorry Clayton and Grandpa Rountree) and we didn't even play--we're just that good, my mom had a big birthday this week, my parent's 30th wedding anniversary is tomorrow, and I got tickets to go to General Confernce next weekend, and I watched the debate on Friday night and am scared out of my mind for this country! But I don't feel like discussing politics right now...

Nursing kills, I mean Skills

Here are some pictures that we took the day we learned to give IV's and scrub down for surgery. Like almost all our other skills, we practiced IV's on each other.

I don't know why I'm so excited here, but it's a pretty crazy picture :)




Prepping for IV's, Megan's scared



I hadn't actually poked her yet.

Trying to smile through the pain. My first IV try was unsuccessful. When I poked Megan, I missed the vein so I had to go fishing for it, Debbie (right behind me) basically guided it into the vein for me. Poor Megan was shaking it hurt so bad. I practiced again on Saturday and got it in right away.

I had never gotten an IV before that I can remember. They hurt!

BYU rocks

Um, BYU just beat UCLA 59-0. Nuff said.

My September 11th

There are very few days in a person's life that they will remember absolutely every detail of. Baptisms, weddings, births of children/grandchildren, and tragedies. I think (and hope) the September 11, 2001 is a day that we never forget. Here's my story of this day 7 years ago:

I was 13 years old and had been living in Connecticut for a grand total of 15 days. I knew nothing about the east coast except that New York and Washington DC were both located on it. I was in Mrs. Keeler's science class when the first plane hit. We however didn't have the TV on so we didn't know anything was happening until the bell rang about 15 minutes later and the buzz through the hallway spread like wildfire. I remember being so confused. People were telling me the Pentagon had been hit. I remember asking someone what the Pentagon was, I didn't know. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was or had even ever heard of it. Five minutes of passing time goes by and I'm sitting in Miss Tozzo's drama class. We are all gathered around the TV watching the news coverage. They are showing a live feed of the burning WTC, then all of a sudden...a plane comes in from the side of the screen and crashes into eh building. The reactions in the room from a bunch of 8th graders were mixed as you can imagine. Some laughed because that's what people sometimes do when they don't know how to react. Some people weren't paying any attention because the were too busy messing around doing whatever 8th graders do. I was awestruck and dumbfounded. I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what was going on and what people were talking about, and I remember being absolutely mortified by the people laughing. People were saying that the terrorists could be headed for Haddam (the town of my high school) because of the nuclear plant there. I realized after a few minutes that my dad was supposed to be flying out that morning on a business trip. I called from school (I can't remember if I talked to my mom or dad) and found out that he hadn't left and obviously wasn't going anywhere for a while. Miss Tozzo turned the TV off a little while after and then the loudspeaker came on instructing us that we were to resume with the normal day's activities. I can't remember the rest of the day until I was out of school. We were still living in a hotel at the time and so I wasn't taking the bus home from school yet, my mom was picking me up. Waiting at the door, my mom was a few minutes late, I talked with a high schooler. He told me that all their classes for the day were cancelled and they sat and watched the reports. I remember being jealous because our teachers had kept us out of the loop so much for the whole day. Mom showed up and jumped out of car. As we embraced it was the first time that I cried the whole day. I was scared. It was hard being the new kid, new to the east coast, new to everything, and feeling like we just moved into a war zone (I didn't know the distance to NY). Back at the hotel room that afternoon I remember doing homework and laying the bed with my mom watching the TV screen, watching the replay of the plane hit the building again and again. Saying out loud, "what have moved to? What did we get ourselves into?"

It was an impressionable day and will be with me always. I am so grateful for the men and women that are protecting the country. Thousands have given their lives to fight against the injustice that was done here, one of which attended my high school. Remember them in your prayers, and please don't forget what happened 7 years ago.

Nursing, football, nursing, tennis, nursing, church, nursing, nursing....

This first week of school has been the most ridiculous few days. I use that word ridiculous because there has just been so many words to describe everything, I can't possibly pick one! Let's go day by day since my last post.

September 2nd: The first day of school. I was talking to my roommate, Cha who is just starting the accounting program here at BYU. She described it well. It feels like we are starting freshman year all over again in a way. Completely new classes and new people that we HAVE to get to know because they are going to be with us for the rest of our college career. Granted I do have a semester of nursing school under my belt it certainly didn't feel like it on this day! I kind of feel like summer was a complete joke, not really but definitely not serious nursing stuff. But now, it feels more real than ever! I have six hours of lecture on Tuesdays, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. It is so draining.

September 3rd: I had my Doctrine and Covenants class. I'm going to love it! The guy teaching it isn't a religion professor. He's the head of the Biology Dept at BYU and teaches the evolutionary biology classes on campus. He said that sometime during the semester he would give a lecture on evolution and the gospel and I'm really excited. Sometimes BYU students annoy the crap out of me with how close minded they are about things mostly because they don't know what they're talking about so hopefully he'll be able to instill in the minds of some students that God and science can and DO coexist.
I also had my church history class. Susan Easton Black is my professor. I am so lucky to have gotten into her class. She is one of the greatest church historians there is. She's written over 150 books or something. She's hilarious too!
Wednesday afternoon I had a front load lab for nursing. What that means is in these first two weeks of school as nursing students we have 4 hours of lab each week to learn the skills absolutely vital for us to know before we hit the ground running in clinicals. Wednesday we leanred how to scrub down from surgery and prepare a sterile field. We also gave each other IV's. They HURT!!! I had never gotten one before and those are definitely no fun! My friend Megan took pictures of the IV's but I haven't gotten them from her yet. Here's a picture of me all sterile ready for surgery :)



September 4th: PHEW!!!! WHAT-A-DAY!!! This was my first day at the hospital. I started at 5:00am. We got the hospital at 6:45am. The days events: we sat and talked about the semester and assignments for about an hour half (which just confused me more from Tuesday's full day of nursing stuff). We then proceeded to take and 3 hour tour of the floor we would be working on. OR (Operating Room) was by far the coolest! We went into the locker room and had to put on the hospital issued scrubs, booties, and hair covers to go through this part of the hospital. We stopped at one OR and the nurse came out and explained what the surgeon was doing. We cold see the incision up on the screen from outside the room and were watching him open the patient. Unfortunately we had to keep moving but we almost got to see the heart! We continued our tour with the Medical/Telemetry floor, Oncology, Transplant, Trauma, Cardiovascular, and Cath/Endoscopy labs. Then we learned how to chart on the computers. Can I just say I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!!!! Charting by hand on paper over the summer in the nursing homes was just a pain in the behind. I will definitely get used to this whole computer thing :). After that our instructor split us up all over the hospital to shadow a nurse for a couple hours. I was on the Trauma floor. That was interesting. Nothing too thrilling happened, actually it was kind of boring. Hopefully I'll get to see some more action this week!!!

September 5th: Okay, I can breath. I had the day off. And I definitely took it! I did get some new scrubs because my old ones are baggy and boring and I didn't like them. The ones are got are much comfier and more fitting so I don't look like a potato sack.

September 6th: FOOTBALL!!!! My friend Chris has access to a projector through his major and he basically just has it all the time. He came over and we set up the game in my apartment so it was really big up on the wall. My apartment is bigger than his and figured a lot of people would come so we had it in my apartment. It was awesome! Talk about a way close game, TOO close. You've probably heard about the call at the end that Washington was called out for "unsportsmanlike conduct." I thought that was stupid, but whatever. Even if they hadn't been called and we didn't block the kick, Washington only would have tied us, not won like everyone said they were going to. The game would have gone into OT and we would have had possession. So pretty much BYU would have won anyways, and we did. :)
The US Open was this weekend too, although there was some bad weather interruptions that went on. Saturday Federer beat some guy (can't remember the name) to advance to the finals. And Serena Williams also advanced to the finals. Andy Murray and Nadal played the first half of the match before they got rained out on Saturday too.

September 7th: Stake/Regional Conference in the Marriott Center. President Uchtdorf (spelling?) and President Packer both spoke. Sister Dibb who in the general young women's presidency and daughter of President Monson also spoke. It was a great meeting! US Open: Serena won and became #1 in the world again. Murray beat Nadal in the semifinals to play Federer in the finals.

September 8th: Class again :P. This was the first Monday of classes. I finally got myself together and did my homework for all the nursing classes tomorrow. Although today after going through everything is when I realized that I need a secretary to organize my life. I still don't know what I'm doing. On the up side, I got home in time to see the final point of the game in the men's final. I literally turned the TV on as he was serving the last point. Federer won!

I guess after all this what I have to say that I maybe didn't clarify too well is that I'm ok but under a lot of stress and pressure right now. I am having windows of fun but they are short. I am generally a low stress person and can handle things well but right now I am kind of freaking out inside, so keep me in your prayers please. LOVE YOU ALL!!!