Halfway there!

So I am sitting in my car outside of school SO grateful that it's Friday! My first week of putting in 70+ hours (not including any homework) is almost done! And just one more week of this craziness until I'm chillin' in the sun at the beach in NC!

SKIP TO SATURDAY: Ha- such is my schedule that I only had time to write 3 sentences before moving on!! Work and school this week were CRAZY...work b/c I have taken on WAY too much "extra" stuff (go figure!!) and school b/c they decided it would be a good idea to cram all 3 health fairs AND school days into 2 weeks this summer...apparently they assume we don't have jobs...or lives!!

So Wed. was a 12 hr health fair that I have to say went WAY better than I thought!! Reason for apprehension??? Testicular exams for back to school physicals...on teenagers!! Awkward!! Jon's request was that I wear no makeup, pull my hair into a messy ponytail and "not dress cute at all."

In all honesty, it was only as awkward for the boys as the nurse practitioner (me!) made it, so it went fine!! Only once did a mom laugh as the poor kid was pulling down his zipper (don't worry, we take him to the corner of the room and face the wall, so nothing is exposed). But, hello, what mom LAUGHS at that???...the poor kid got SO embarrassed!!

The one funny part about is though was we were given a "necklace" of balls...literally...to help us "stage" each of the kids (translation: feel the kids testicle, then find the bead/ball on the necklace to determine size...then look at a chart to make sure the testicle is not way too big or way to small for their age/maturity). And wouldn't you know, the ball necklace is blue!! Go figure!!
: ) Who comes up with these things...nice medical technology!

Other than that, it was looking into a TON of VERY waxy ears...and goobery noses! not too shabby! The cool thing was being able to work with normal, healthy kids...as opposed to super sick ones in the PICU.

And then the last 2 days I had my physical exam skills days...so a bunch of listening to lectures on examining a particular body system, then going to practice the exam on a peer. Then we'd get a scenario of a patient coming into your office (ie: Hi, I am a 10 year old boy and I have had a sore throat and runny nose for 10 days)... I have to take the appropriate health history and then perform the exam for a grade.

It was actually pretty cool b/c my partner (the pretend patient) had a sheet of answers, but she could only give me the information to things I asked for. So if I forgot to ask about earaches and there was a bunch of information on the sheet stating he also had bilateral ear pain, I could easily miss something, or misdiagnose!! It was a great practice to make sure we're really asking all the history questions that would go with scenarios because a lot of times, patients forget to tell you the whole picture!

I had a great small group to work with...and my Preceptor was awesome, so the 2 days went really well!

Tomorrow starts another exciting 50 hr work/school week (excluding my lovely 12 hours of driving...and bazillion hours of homework!!) Wish me luck b/c I am finishing a poster presentation for a work contest...if I win, I get $1000 (or however much out of that my unit decides to give me, b/c some does go back to them!)

This week will just be go, go, go...but such is the Adventure of this PICU nurse!!