and so it begins again

A period of frenetic busyness (the lead-up to exams and exams themselves) followed by a one of relative boredom (holidays – where I just worked every day) meant no blog posts.  And now we’re two weeks into the Spring semester and I find myself wanting to write again. This urge may or may not be related to the fact that it’s a Saturday morning and I have been at university since 8am.   I often compose blog posts in my head while I’m walking to places or on the train.  I imagine that in future, the technology to transcribe thoughts onto paper (or a computer screen) will exist, but for now I need to remember to put them down on here. 

Exams – horrid things.  The lead-up to exams was equally horrid.  I’d just come off a month of combining 40-hour clinical placement weeks with part-time work and trying to study. Hah!  Impossible.  3 exams went quite well, the 4^th was the type where in between wracking my brains for obscure facts that I’ll never need to know again in my life (to what class of genetic mutations does delta F508, the most common gene mutation leading to cystic fibrosis, belong?  WHO NEEDS TO KNOW THAT? Nurses, I am sure, do not!) I considered crying, and walking out.  That’s how bad it was.  And yet, I ended up two points away from a High Distinction.  Go figure.  Overall, I did not reach my goal of an average of 85%+, but that was always going to be tough.  

This semester I’ve got Evidence-Based Practice for Nursing, a dry subject if ever there was.  Easy marks, hopefully.  Then there’s Family & Children’s Nursing, Medical-Surgical Nursing, and the follow-up to PP1: Pathophysiology and Pharmacology 2.   I am bracing myself for a hellish semester.  With clinical placement smack-bang in the middle of the semeseter again, we only have ten teaching weeks.   Two subjects don't have exams (hooray), but this means many assignments and in-semester quizzes (boo.)  

 I am surprised how much I love the science: our bodies are amazing, and learning about how drugs work to manage symptoms and fight off disease is so interesting.  That brings me to my newest favourite sciencey word/medical condition: ankylosing spondylitis, or Anky Spond, as my lecturer likes to call it.  I just like saying it over and over  again.  And then I remember that my colleague’s 15-year old son has just been diagnosed with it, and I feel sad.  

Oh, and we did subcut injections last week – EXCITING!  Subcuts are used for things like insulin injections for Type 1 Diabetic, or anti-coagulation injections for post-surgical patients.  Of course, I’ve had lots of practice looking after Zac the diabetic cat, so injections don’t faze me at all.  And sub-cut injections aren’t really that much different to intra-muscular injections which I got to learn at work earlier this year.  Flu-shot, anyone?