God is Good!

So here's one way God has continued to show me just how much He cares... about the little things!

If there's one thing (haha) about nursing school that makes me nervous to... well, uhhh... be a nurse, it's the fact that one tiny mistake can cost someone their life. It's a fact that I have been really thinking about and a fact that I just need to put in God's hands, while taking measures to prevent something bad from happening. Here at Liberty we learn how to treat and care for patients in a way that would make giving someone the wrong treatment difficult: for example, checking THREE TIMES that medications are given in the right dose, at the right time, for the right patient, via the correct route, etc. etc. etc. But there are so many medications, and so many routes of administration, and so many side effects... how could I learn all of this????

Anyway, last weekend, at the Nursing Convention, I won a prize from a raffle. Out of a viariety of prizes, ranging from Starbucks gift certificates to personal review sessions with NCLEX tutors, this is what I got handed to me:

YAY! This little stack of note cards is amazing, and makes me feel a little more relaxed about the whole drug thing. And here's why: they're fun!

They give mnemonics and use other creative ways to help you remember everything about drugs.

Here's a drug that I am learning about now. And what's funny is that my teacher used this example as something you would not want to remember. Versed is best for causing amnesia during procedures. You won't remember or care about a thing while this drug is in your system.

One thing that I had trouble remembering was with which drugs you should avoid Grapefruit Juice. I randomly flipped to this card today...

...and it told me exactly which drugs to avoid drinking Grapefruit juice with, and there were less drugs to remember than I thought!

Besides fun pictures, the cards also have imortant information on the back... Here's an example: Lidocaine (front)
And Lidocaine (back) with important things highlighted in different colors, depending on what you need to be thinking about and looking for.

Wow. God is so good!

Nursing Convention

SWAAAGGG! Stuff We All Get! (Michael Scott)

Last weekent a few Virginia Nursing Schools gathered in Virginia Beach for a Nursing Student Conference at the Founder's Inn resort and Spa! A bunch of us from Liberty went along and had a great time!

We were able to meet representatives from different Virginia health systems. There were also different "Breakout Sessions" where we could learn about different fields of nursing. I went to the ER, Operating Room, and Pediatric Sessions, as well as a Fluid and Electrolyte review session - because fluids and electrolytes, apart from being hard to understand and remember, are very important for your NCLEX test. But what we all really enjoyed was getting FREE STUFF! Pens, highlighters, pen lights, frisbees, tee-shirts...

For lunch we enjoyed catered fish, salad, veggies, and iced tea. It was delicious. It looked like a wedding.

Liberty won a few prizes for our community work and our school spirit! These girls are our Liberty Student Nursing Association leaders.

Of corse, it seems that wherever we go, there is some sort of adventure in store. It never fails. This weekend we had a rough first night and ended up switching hotels. Let's start from the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with?

Okay, that was for Matt.

We arrived our first night (Friday) and checked into our beachside (across the street from the beach) hotel. Of corse, online, it looked decent enough. There were pictures of a chandelier (which was overtop the clerks desk), a grand staircase (which led to... the ceiling), and a nice, safe-looking parking lot (kind of an alley way). Our first room smelled like cigarettes, so we went back to the office and requested the room we ordered, a non-smoking room. We were "up-graded" to a room with a stove! Yay! The front desk guy told us we could invite him up for dinner. EEEK! So we ran away, back upstairs, and moved one room to the left. We were greeted by mold and bugs. We thought we'd just stick it out, "it's no worse that what I had to deal with in Guatemala".

We decided to go check out where the convention would be the following morning. MapQuest told me it was half a mile away, but 20 minutes later, we were still driving down the highway. After seeing the Convention's beautiful Resort and Spa location, we headed back to, what my friend Lindsay lovingly called, "the place that looks like a CSI investigation site". We were soon smashing more bugs that were crawling out of their cozy little home from inside our clock. "Okay, time to get out of here"

We got a refund and moved across the street to the Best Western, Oceanfront. Hotels.com is very sorry for any inconvienence.

Here's the view outside of our room.

We really had a great time the next day (Saturday) at the Conference. We learned a lot and enjoyed not doing any work. A few of us stayed an extra night to enjoy the beach even though it was 30-some degrees!

Next I'll show you something I won at the conference.... something that reminded me that day how awesome God is!

Tuesday Evening

I figured that I would start a blog because they are really a lot of fun! I spend most of my time on my computer making the rounds, jumping from one blog to another, to see if anything new has been posted. "Does Heather have a new pic up?" "Has Leah had a second attempt at rice cereal?". I must visit thedeterdingfamily 5 times a day. Then I go to The Pioneer Woman, Stacy Richardson, even Mandy's DR blog, though she's home now :)
I think it is an excuse not to study.

Anyway, I figured this blog could give me an outlet to all my family and friends back home. So here is my chance to try to keep you all up-to-date on what Liberty Life is like, and what Nursing School entails. I'll try to be a consistent blogger. I'm already having some fun!