I can't believe there's 4 days left!!!!!

Wow. wow. wow.

I am practically a third of the way done with this program. Where did the time go?!?! Oh, I know...countless, torturous hours at my desk, books and papers everywhere, my computer on 24/7, (by the way, I don't know what I did before I owned a Mac, the thing has literally saved my educational career) bags under my eyes, hair askew (unacceptable), actually wanting coffee...wait...now I'm just listing a litany of daily occurrences and not really trying to figure out where the time went.

Apologies.

But seriously, the time has both gone by fast and dragged. And even though it's been tough, I have LOVED every minute. I think the last time I wrote, I was just about to start clinicals and now I'm 5 weeks into them. I can't even begin to tell y'all how much I've learned. It's so funny how my view of human beings has changed, I find myself assessing people visually for abnormalities all the time and my medical vocabulary? It's grown exponentially. My classmates and I are always laughing when we discuss our patients because we use vocabulary that we had no idea about 3 months ago. The other day, someone said that they thought they were getting heartburn and without thinking I said, "Oh no. Are you going to need a proton-pump inhibitor?" There were other, non-nursing people there and they all looked at me like I was crazy. And it took me a second to realize why my question might be confusing. I rephrased. "Let's get you some antacids."
This is what has happened to me, folks. I've learned stuff!! And it's good, helpful stuff :)

Clinicals have been amazing. Coming here, I was 98% sure that nursing was what God had planned for me but especially after clinicals, I have become 150% sure. I can't begin to describe the amazing high that I get when I'm taking care of my patients. Don't get me wrong, nursing is hard, back-breaking work. So many times I've come home, out-of-my-mind exhausted and said, "Lemme just lay down for a lit..." and woken up 4 hours later, completely confused. BUT. I ADORE it. My nurturing side is having an absolute field day :)

I've also learned some other things. Nursing can also be very heart-breaking work. I have already experienced losing patients and I wasn't ready for how that would feel. It's absolutely devastating. But I decided that if I did anything at all to make them feel better, feel taken care of or feel loved, then I did something. And who knows how God used that. I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of that, though. It's rough stuff.

Going to Brooklyn on Friday :) :) I can't wait to breathe polluted air and eat real sushi. I will be doing a whole lot of nothing and eat myself into a coma. Maybe I'll even gain back some of the weight that I've lost...

SO. Next semester is going to be obstetrics, pediatrics and psychiatry. I'm especially excited about pediatrics because kids are so medically interesting. Oh, and I like them :) It's supposed to be a lighter semester than this one so maybe I won't lose quite as much hair lol. BUT spring semester is going to be BRUTAL because it's laden with medical/surgical courses. I'm going to ask y'all to start praying NOW. I would like to still have hair, teeth and some semblance of womanly fat when this is all said and done.

To my NYC peeps: see you soon!
To everybody else: ummm...bye?