Spring Break '09 - MY LAST SPRING BREAK!

Last week was my spring break. It went by so fast! I thought I was going to get so much done, but in the end it just flew right by. 

The first weekend of my break, Shaun and I went on Vacation. We went on a 4 day adventure with the Palmer Family to San Diego. We stayed at one of their favorite resorts, Paradise Point (which was also our honeymoon location). We left on Thursday and met up with the family.  We all stayed in beautiful rooms with a beach front view! We spent the weekend going shopping, enjoying the weather, walking on the beach, riding bikes and going out to restaurants.

My favorite part was waking up in the morning to see the gorgeous view out our window and then taking a morning walk with my hubby around the island! 

It was such a relaxing weekend. Shaun and I have been extremely busy with our school this past semester. It was nice to get away from our busy lives of work and school. 

We also enjoyed being back at the same place where we had our honeymoon. It brought back all of the memories of that exciting time! We can not believe that it has almost been 2 years since we were married! Time sure does fly when you are having fun...

We got back from San Diego and my boss at Fox Sports Grill needed me to work because it was the first week of March Madness and we were short staffed. I spent the rest of my week off working at the Grill. It wasn't my favorite way to spend the rest of week off, but I didn't mind. 

Well I am back in class. This morning I started a new semester. This next 16 weeks I will be in a Labor & Delivery and Pediatrics Rotation. I get to spend Mondays in a peds clinical and Wednesdays delivering babies. I am so excited for this semester!  I think this is going to be my favorite semester!

Oh and I just realized that this past spring break was my last college spring break EVER! In just less than a year I will officially be Natalie Palmer - Graduate Nurse and if all goes well and I pass the NCLEX exam (my licensure exam) I will be Natalie Palmer RN! Woohoo!

Babysitting

Shaun and I got the chance to babysit our little nephew this past friday night while his parents went to a Chris Tomlin concert. We played with him for a while, fed him, and put him to bed. It was fun.  We pretty much think we have the cutest nephew! He is such a good baby. He also has some wonderful parents. We love them a lot! 

Here are some pictures of our night...

His smile is so cute!

 

A Day in the Operating Room

 This week in clinicals I got the chance to spend the day following a nurse in the operating room. I arrived at 7am, changed into the OR scrubs and met up with the nurse that I was going to follow.

She was already in the middle of asking our first patient questions and getting her prepped for her surgery. I really loved seeing everything that goes into completing a surgery. It was interesting to see what the Nurse does and how she manages everything that she is in charge of. I got the chance to see 3 surgeries. All of them were done laparoscopically. I was kind of hoping to see them crack open a chest...but no such luck. It was still really neat to see the inside of the abdomen on the screens and to watch them operate with out even cutting them fully open. 

I really think that I could enjoy being an OR Nurse. I found it exciting. I did not think that I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. I am definitely keeping it on the list of possible areas that I could enjoy working in. 

The end of my semester is wrapping up and it is cool to think of how much I have learned already and all of the neat things that I have had the chance to see. 

ps: no laughing at how ridiculous I look in the cap and surgical mask  :)

Puppy Love

It is no secret that Shaun and I want a Dog! We desperately want a puppy, but don't have the time to give it all of the attention that it needs. We are both gone during the day at school and when we come home at nights, we are busy writing papers or studying. Our weekends are busy at work and church, and on top of all that we don't have a backyard to let it play in. We just don't think that now is the right time to get a dog. 

We have decided that in a year or so we are going to first get a little dog (my dog) and then a few years later we are going to get Shaun's puppy (a Siberian Husky). We can not wait! We are always looking at dogs and trying to decide which one we want. 

Well, this weekend Shaun and I went out on a day date. We went to breakfast and then went to walk around the mall. Every time that we go to the mall we can't resist going to the puppy store to admire all of the cute dogs! This week we did something that we should have never done...we asked if we could get one of them out! It was a 9 week old female Siberian Husky. Oh we fell in LOVE with her! She was so adorable! We wish that we could have gotten her! Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

 

Giving Medications at Clinicals

It has been three weeks now that I have been able to give medications at clinicals. The first week, I was super nervous so I picked a patient that only needed oral meds given. He needed 10 medications given at his morning dose! The second week I was eager to give a shot, so I picked a patient that would need a 9am shot. I was a little nervous about it, but had mentally prepared for it all morning. I got to the hospital,  looked at the Doctors orders and found out that he had discontinued it!  All of the work for nothing! 

Finally, after all of that, my patient this last wednesday had an order for a shot! I was so excited. My professor and I went to the medication machine, got out all of her medication (the shot included), and proceeded to the room. My professor wanted me to give my patient her oral meds first, so I was at the computer opening her meds and placing them in the cup. I got to the last med and as I was pulling it open, it flew our of the plastic container all the way across the room! I was mortified! I looked at my professor with wide eyes, and we both started scrambling to find this little white pill. After about 5 minutes, it was finally found! We threw it away and got her a new one. After all of that, I still had to give her the shot. I was so nervous, but in the end it went smoothly! I am so glad that I finally got to give a shot! :) 

Spending the day in Wound Care

It has been a few weeks now that I have been on the Medical/Surgical floor every Wednesday. I have had some good experiences up there and have learned a lot.  A few weeks ago, I was able to stray away from the normal floor and spend a day down in wound care! ! I saw about 10 different patients that day, but I will only bore you with the ones that I enjoyed...

 

The first patient that I saw had a gaping wound on his elbow. They were having a hard time with the patient not reopening the wound, since it was on a part of the body that could easily be reopened. They decided that they would put this person in a full arm in a cast to prevent him from moving it and opening it back up farther. I had never seen a cast be put on before, so this was interesting to me.  I was able to stand next to the Doctor and hold the bucket of water for him to dip the dressings into. 

The Nurse then asked me to get the vitals for the patient next door. This patient had a quarter size ulcer on their sacrum and 4 small ulcers on the back heels. The Doctor came in and told me that the Nurse was going to prep to give this patient a skin graft. She opened a large package packed with dry ice and pulled out this tiny Ziploc bag. She then proceeded to defrost the dermagraft. After the graft was ready and everything was set up, the Doctor started covering the ulcers with the graft. He told me that this graft cost $1200 just for a small piece that was smaller than a 3x5 card.  Because they could not use the graft again on another patient and he had finished with this patient, he let me look and touch the graft. It was really neat! 

The last patient that I saw that afternoon had necrotizing fasciitis on their right leg. It is a flesh eating bacteria, so this patient basically had no skin on the bottom of his right leg! It was covering everywhere from below the knee, to above the ankle.  This was by far the most interesting thing that I had seen that day! I had never seen anything like it before. The Doctor came in and told me about it. The patient’s wound was healing, but not very fast. The Doctor left and the Nurse started to dress the leg up. He was placing a wound vacuum on the leg, so I stayed to watch. It was really neat to see how this was done.

Although seeing all of these patients was fun, I don't think that being a wound care Nurse is the job for me. I am looking forward to my Operating Room rotation in a few weeks!

Holidays

Okay...so I know that I am totally behind in blogging! So, I thought that I would first start off by telling everyone how our holidays were. 

Shaun and I spent Chirstmas Eve at my family's house. We decorated sugar cookies, ate a wonderful dinner, played a really fun board game, went to a service at church, and did last minute gift wrapping! We ended up just staying the night there and opening gifts the next morning. We really enjoyed spending time with them! 

At about lunch time on Christmas Day we made our way to the other side of Phoenix to Shaun's parent's house. At their house we spent the afternoon and evening opening gifts, playing reindeer games, eating delicious food, and playing with our nephew! It was a lot of fun hanging out with the Palmer family and the new little one! 

Our New Years Eve was nothing really exciting. I definitely watched the ball drop in New York on TV and I was asleep before midnight our time! Shaun had to work and I did not do much. I did receive a wonderful phone call to find out that one of my dear friends was engaged! I am so excited for Kayla and Jared, and I look forward to their wedding next winter! That was the highlight of my New Years Eve.

A few days later was my 22nd birthday! Shaun and I spent the day together. We woke up and went to breakfast in downtown Scottsdale at the Breakfast Club. We had never been there before, but had heard that it was delicious. I enjoyed my chocolate chip pancakes and raspberry cafe moca! :-) After breakfast, Shaun took me shopping at Fashion Square. He bought me some shoes, makeup, clothes and some on-sale chirstmas decorations! I really enjoyed being able to wonder the mall and shop! Later that evening we went out to dinner with my family and then Shaun took me out to get gelato! (It is my new favorite desert!) We have a little gelato shop less than a mile from our house.

As I was taking down the Christmas decorations the other day, I could help but think of how blessed we are! We have 2 sets of wonderful families, a beautiful house and everything that we could possibly need. God has blessed our marriage tremendously. I am so thankful!