Post #1

How to survive nursing school? I don't know if I will actually succeed in this endeavor, so if you're really looking for advice on how to survive it perhaps you should look elsewhere. This is more for my own personal benefit, to remind myself to keep a sense of humor when all else fails, and to chronicle my journey through the system.

Now, if you're looking to get kicked out of nursing school - I can help! I almost succeeded in that just this quarter, and might still if I play my cards just right. You don't need bad grades, I have a 3.5 or so GPA and do quite well in clinicals too! I love my clinical instructors, understand most of the concepts (so far), and am quite proficient (mostly) at critical thinking. Why, then, was I almost excused from school? Well, I'm sick. At the end of last quarter, I caught something from somewhere (probably my last clinical if you ask my opinion) and was hospitalized with pneumonia. And if I can't breathe then I can't make clinicals. And if I can't make clinicals then I can't be a nurse. So I almost got kicked out, and am holding on by the skin of my teeth right now while I sit in the hospital again trying to breathe.

At first, it didn't seem that abnormal or atypical and the doctors weren't that concerned. But then I kept getting worse instead of better! I was here the first time for three days, and improved greatly. They assumed bacterial or viral pneumonia, assaulted me with antibiotics, sent me home, and wished me well. I took a turn for the worse a few days later and came back in with o2 sats of 77%. This time they did a bronchoscopy and biopsied some lung tissue. The only thing that came back + was mycoplasma, so they treated me with zythromax and crossed their fingers. I got better, slowly, and went home after another 9 days as an inpatient. Took up my whole spring break (oh joy).

This time they sent me home on prednisone, to be tapered off, and I did fine for a week or two. Then this past week I started feeling that elephant on my chest again, and in clinicals on Wed. my o2 sat was back to 84%. Reluctantly, I went back to the family dr, who sent me back to the hospital, where I'm now an inpatient again for the past 3 days. My kidney function was all whacky when I got here and they thought I was going into renal failure, but after one day they are normal again. The good news is that I've tested negative for everything that they tested for. Or maybe that's the bad news... It's good news, because they tested for a lot of serious things and I'm glad that it wasn't lupus, RA, HIV, hepatitis, or a big long list of other things. They're saying my kidneys were probably off because of a new bp med that I started last week, and my lungs are messed up because they took me off the prednisone too quickly.

SO, this time, I'm going home tomorrow on a high dose of prednisone again, to be tapered off more slowly than before. I'm also on a new bp med which hopefully will not mess with my kidneys. And I'll be patched up enough to make psych clinicals on Tuesday, woohoo! If I should happen to get worse again (although they swear I won't) then I'll have to go to the university hospital 2 hours away and be a guinea pig for a while. I really don't want to do that, and prefer to stay here in my small town hospital where I do my clinicals, know everyone, can read my chart when I get bored (very informative and educational by the way), and can have my hubby bring over the baby so I can breastfeed.

Well, that's about enough for an introductory post, and I hope I can find this again tomorrow so I can post some more!