My favorite things--Day 3

Today, I love Christmas hymns! We started singing Christmas hymns today at church. They always bring a smile to my face, for multiple reasons. People always sing Christmas hymns louder than they do regular hymns, maybe because we know them so well, maybe because we are excited for the season, maybe because what they are about. Christmas hymns are a favorite part of the season!

My favorite things--Day 2

The Reason for the Season, Greg Olsen


This is a painting that I absolutely LOVE. All the commercial Christmas surrounds the children but they look into the snow globe that shows the real reason for this season. My family has a copy of the painting that we put up in the family room every year, I just love it.

My favorite things--Day 1

During the month of November, my sister Janelle did a "things I am thankful for" each day leading up to Thanksgiving. During the days leading up to Christmas I am going to do "My Favorite Things." These will be all-things-Christmas. The song from The Sound of Music, My Favorite Things has some how found it's way into the Christmas world, which is okay I guess seeing as it is giving me a good title for posts for the next month.

My favorite things today are REAL Christmas trees! I'm sorry if anyone feels differently but it is against my religion to have a fake tree. I need the adventure of going out and finding one, arguing over if it's straight or not and what angle the big ugly hole should be at, smelling pine all season and then burning the crackly pine needles sometime during New Year's. I love CHRISTMAS TREES!!! Today, Breanne and I got a REAL one for the apartment. Tomorrow we will work on decorating and I'll put pictures up.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Playing hookie

Let's just pretend like last week didn't happen. It was one of the hardest weeks I've had since being in college, so let's just ignore it and put it behind us.

Thanksgiving week is going to be pretty awesome though! I have decided to start it early: today. I slept in and didn't go to my class. Probably not a smart idea, but it sure feels good. :) And I have to say, in three years of school this is the first time that I have ever skipped classes just because I felt like it. There have been other times when I forgot to set my alarm, or I HAD to finish a project or a paper, or I was at the hospital doing nursing things. But today I am for real playing hookie for the first time, in three years.

Last night I was over at a friends house and there were a bunch of people there. They had white paper and scissors out and people were cutting out snowflakes. Let me tell you, I have never for the life of me figured out how to do this. My snowflakes always come out terrible! Or in eight pieces, or looking like a hot dog or something. I cannot cut out snowflakes. But I can make the 3D snowflakes, the ones that look like this:
And everyone kept staring at me so I taught people how to make them. It really easy. This is what I tend to do with my time when I want to procrastinate. It is therapeutic too, just doing something with your hands. Here's how you make them. I like to make red and white ones too because it looks like a peppermint. But mostly I'll make white ones, or baby blue. It would probably be cool if you had sparkly scrapbook paper or something then they would glitter. HAVE FUN MAKING THEM!!!

17 pages later

I just finished writing the longest paper of my whole time in college, it's 17 pages and all about one patient that I took care of this semester. Pretty crazy, huh? But it's a pretty good paper if I do say so myself, I spent a lot of time on it and I think that my patient, if she knew I was doing this, should feel pretty special right now.

I had my interview for Ecuador yesterday. It was pretty hilarious. I haven't spoken Spanish in so long, add that to being nervous, and you get the worst Spanish ever. When they asked me what I ate yesterday (testing my vocab, which is totally gone!) all I could think of was leche y cereal, un sandwich, y helado (milk and cereal, a sandwitch, and ice cream). I was so annoyed with myself too because I came out of it and I rehearsed in my mind everything that I said in English that I couldn't think of in Spanish at the time, and of course I remembered how to say everything after the fact. Oh well, come what may. They said I'd find out before Thanksgiving...cross your fingers!

Hold that thought....

I know I've been excited for Christmas and had the blog all decked out, but Christmas is now on a week and half hiatus. Thanksgiving is next week, and I am looking forward to it for sure!!!! Christmas will be back after Thanksgiving is over.

Translation to my previous post of "test your nursing knowledge"
The LOL in the ER had the following s/s: SOB, \/ CO, EJ of 15%, O2 of 85% on RA, and chest pain. The MD ordered a EKG, MONA tx, a CXR and recommended the pt for a CABG and a LVAD in the OR.

The little old lady in the emergency room had the following signs and symptoms: shortness of breath, decreased cardiac output, ejection fraction of 15%, Oxygen saturation of 85% on room air, and chest pain. The doctor ordered an electrocardiogram, morphine, oxygen, nitroglycerin, aspirin treatment, a chest x-ray and recommended the patient for a coronary artery bypass graft and a left ventricular assistive device in the operating room.

I am grateful for abbreviations, otherwise our charting would be 300 miles long.

CABGs and LVADs

In nursing we use all sorts of abbreviations. It's a whole 'nother language. Just for fun, let's see if anyone can translate this hypothetical situation, test your nursing knowledge:

The LOL in the ER had the following s/s: SOB, \/ CO, EJ of 15%, O2 of 85% on RA, and chest pain. The MD ordered a EKG, MONA tx, a CXR and recommended the pt for a CABG and a LVAD in the OR.

I bring this up because this week I watched a CABGx5: coronary artery bypass graft x5, in English: a quintuple bypass surgery! I requested to watch an open heart surgery on my OR day because I just really wanted to! I have taken care of lots of post-op patients that have had bypass surgery and now I can REALLY understand why they are in so much pain after. I won't share all the details, because you don't want to know but it was so amazing to watch. I saw a LIVE BEATING HUMAN HEART!!!! I felt this rush of adrenaline hit me as soon as he cut the pericardium (the sac around the heart). I have really loved working the heart this semester, seeing it in surgery, working with the patients that are post-op from heart surgeries, and I even loved watching the angiogram (they squirt dye into the heart to see the path and size and shape if the coronary arteries) I saw earlier in the semester. I know I still have two more semesters of new materials (Pediatrics/Labor and Delivery and ICU/ER) but specializing in cardiology is a definite possibility for me. :)

This is a diagram of a CABG x3

In clinical this week we also had a nurse specialist come in and talk to us about about LVADs, Left ventricular assistive devices. These are for patients that are in left heart failure and are basically bad enough to be on the transplant list. It is a titanium pump that is implanted just below the heart. One end of the tube is inserted to the left ventricle (the last place in the heart that pumps the blood to the body) and so the blood fills the machine instead of the left ventricle and then it is pumped through the machine out into the exiting tube which is sewn into the aorta, the main vessel exiting the heart into the body. Patients receive these devices because the left side of their heart can't pump the blood by itself.

AMAZING!!!!!