Familiar

This blog is an outlet, a chance to complain to anyone who reads about my trials as a student and Mom and wife and all the other labels I carry. It's much easier for me to create a post that mentions only the stressful parts of school. I guess it's time that I take the chance to share some things about school that are not terrible.

It occured to me while scooting my way to school one morning that there are good--even GREAT, things about going back to school. Maybe during finals, when I want to jump off a high building, I can remember this post and the good parts about working to become a nurse. But right now I'm having a "big picture" moment and it's all adding up in nice little rows. I'm typing fast because this feeling probably won't last...

Something I have learned about myself is that I'm a good student. Shocker, right? My highest grade right now (98.4%) is in MATH class. I never thought that would ever happen in my whole life. I've always been a terrible math student. But it just seems to come more easily now that I want to be in class instead of the torture it seemed like when I took a math class in high school. It also doesn't hurt that I am fortunate enough to have a really great instructor that can actually make perfect sense out of something as complicated as Algebra.

I attend my Nursing Fundamentals class on Monday. This class is the shot of adrenaline I need to keep me going the rest of the week. My instructor is smart and insightful. I love discussing dosage calculations, medication dosing, MARs, doctors orders and all the bits and pieces that make up a lot of what working as a nurse entails. This is where I am in my element. It all clicks for me in this class. It's especially apparent that my years of working on a hospital unit as a CNA, drawing labs as a phlebotomist, scanning patients in a diagnostic radiology department, and working as a tech in an operating room is going to pay off big.

My eyes widen and I can feel my pulse race when the familiar words ring in my ears. I know this already; drug orders, wasting, proportions, syringes, injections, calculating I.V. infusions....this stuff is already in my blood, soldered to my bones. I already love it so I don't even have to think about it. The knowledge already lives in me. For me, this class is effortless and that is exactly the motivation I need to help me get through other classes that aren't as simple...mainly chemistry. Finding atomic weights and calculations made with Avagadro's Number are like poison under my skin. I can feel my brain start to fry as soon as I sit down in class. This makes the floating happiness I have while sitting in my nursing class that much more important. I know I have to pass the evil class to continue on to the fun ones.

Anatomy and Physiology is another class with a big "Oh, I get it now!" mantra. So many years spent being exposed to labs and tests and reading operating reports and patient charts has left me with lots of info saved up for future use. But it wasn't compete information, like swiss-cheese I had some good stuff, but there were lots of holes. This class is the filler I've needed to connect the dots. Like knocking over stacked dominoes, I understand how one relation to the body sets of a chain reaction to many others. It's so exciting to have all the puzzle pieces now!

It's nearly the end of the quarter which means finals (bleck) but time for new classes too (yay) and a chance for even more ah-ha! moments.