Textbooks ordered

...and I'm $400 poorer from it.  *sigh*

But...I ordered books!  New books are heading my way!  I can stalk the mailman!  *squee*  As much as I begin to loathe my textbooks as the semester progresses, I do love getting new books.  Skimming through them the first time, seeing what all I'm going to learn about, smelling that new book smell.  Yep, I'm a nerd.

I also bought a couple bundles of spiral ringed index cards so I'm ready to start going reviewing last semester in preparation for this semester.  I've got so much to re-learn, y'all, it's not funny!  It's actually a little scary how much I really don't remember.  Normal lab values, normal vitals, ABG's, drugs, skills, conversions for drug dosage calcs...yikes.  I'm hoping it all comes back fairly easily...I mean, if I think real hard, I can remember some things right now, without looking them up.  And looking back, as much as it was a PITA at the time, the video assessment final for Health Assessment...that really cemented some assessment procedures into my brain.  I really should practice those as well...recruit my friends to be patients.

And that reminds me...like every other female nursing student, I get my fair share of reactions to people finding out I'm a nursing student.  You know what I'm referring to...usually coming from guys, comments like "Hurr, you can practice skills on me" and "Where do I sign up to volunteer for a bedbath?" and "I need someone to take care of me".  Yeah, I've heard them, am used to them.  BUT, I will admit I did come across a new one recently....  So I was being introduced to some people that I didn't know, but knew the people I was with.  Polite conversation followed, blah blah blah, normal stuff.  Something came up about someone's gall bladder issues and nerd that I can be, I harkened back to my Patho class and rattled off the typical gall bladder symptoms and the whole "fair fat female and forty" thing.  Blank incredulous stare followed, then I mentioned I was a nursing student and all was OK again.  Another person in the group (a guy) said "Oh you're a nursing student?" with a bit too much interest, the proceeded to pull out his cell phone and take a picture of me before I really could register what was going on.  He said he had a friend who loved red-headed nursing students and wanted to send him my picture.  Ummm...what?  He then said I might want to take off my shoes so he could take a picture of my feet because apparently this friend also loves women's feet.  Oh hell no.  At this point, I was starting to back away slowly and wanting to get the heck out of there.  Creeper's vibe was *just* a little bit too creepy for me.  So yes...being a nursing student got my picture taken and sent to someone, and it got a shoe removal request.  Click, check, click.

And finally, from the comments on my last post, Nighthawke mentioned if it would be a good idea to look into what all vaccinations are required by respective schools...YES, very good idea.  It might take awhile to find your childhood vax records, either from your parents, your school system, or your pediatrician's office -- in my case, the hospital that my pediatrician was affiliated with doesn't exist anymore, so I had to submit a request to the hospital that kind of absorbed them and hope and pray they had my records from 30+ years ago...and they did.  Depending on what you had or didn't have, you may have to get some vaccinations, some titers run, TB skin tests, etc.  Titers can't be run until a certain time after vaxes are given, and some vaxes, like the HepB, are in a series with several months from start to finish.  I would assume most schools offer temporary vaccination compliance verification...like if you're working on your HepB series, for example, they'll say that it's in progress so you'll be considered compliant for clinicals.  They'll work with you, but I know it would have been so much easier to walk in with all the vaxes and titers completed...instead of still wrestling with HepB almost a year later.

Alrighty...on that note, and judging by the fact that it's 0200 local time, I think I need to wrap this up and think about getting some sleep.  Keep cool...it's still icky hot out there.

Later