1. I finally caved in and took the Texas Nursing Jurisprudence Exam. It's a requirement for licensure in Texas. I could have taken it any time but I will not receive my license until I do. It seemed very intimidating because there was a "
study guide" page with lotsssss of information. You have 2 hours to take it, there are 50 questions, and you're allowed to have other windows open and use the BON to look up answers. If you fail, you can take it again but have to wait 7 days.
It was all about nursing law, the NPA, board rules, etc.
Some of it was blatantly obvious. Like for example:
As a nurse, which of the following should you NOT do?
A. feed your patient lunch
B. dispense medications
C. kill your patient.
...okay not QUITE but you get the idea. Others were tricky. It took me nearly 2 hours, but I passed! One more thing I can cross off the list. Now I just need to take and pass that damn NCLEX! :)
2. We had some crazy thunderstorms last night. I love storms, but not when they rob me of my sleep. I'm working 12 hours today, which I haven't done in awhile (11a-11p)...either it won't be too bad or it's going to suck. Either way, I'm really tired.
The past 2 times I worked wasn't bad at all. I got floated to the overflow med-surg unit (which is located on the ICU stepdown but of course the overflow and stepdown don't "mix" with each other...unless you walk by and see a patient climbing out of bed or something lol). The overflow has 8 beds and usually 2 licenses (at least one RN, obviously) and usually a support. A majority of the patients were ambulatory. By the end of the evening, we had 5 patients. There was only one patient who was kind of a problem (he was climbing out of bed *AND* at the very end of the hall...I suggested moving him closer to the makeshift "nurses station" that way they could keep a closer watch on him instead of making him a sitter. It was such a long walk down to that room lol). Overall, I did some vitals...helped someone to the bathroom...pulled out some heplocks...ran some 24hr pee to the lab...and that's it. Most of it was sitting and BS'ing with the nurses lol.
Saturday I only worked 4 hours and got floated to sit with a patient, who fell, broke her hip, had it repaired, and is confused. She was a handful. Her family was very nice. The last hour was the worst, though. Very confused. Kept saying she had to go home and tend to her kids and dogs and if I called her neighbors, they can bring her keys so that she could go home and drive, etc etc. Kept trying to get out of that chair to leave. I kept advising her not to bend over because of her hip (and she was very well approaching that over 90-degree mark!) but like that did anything. She is also borderline. I kept reorienting her and trying to empathize with her her frustration for wanting to go home but can't and at one point she said to me, "you can either do one of two things. you can either SHUT UP or help me get out of here." She then apologized, but still asked me to help her get home.
Finally she decided she wanted to go on the "couch" (her bed) so I had the RN and the aide who was replacing me help her back. It took us about 20 minutes (all she had to do was take a few steps) but we finally did it, and then she started to settle down...except for screaming at the other aide telling her to "stop making so much damn noise and turn those damn lights off because I'M TRYING TO SLEEP!" and then telling her she had a pretty outfit. lol. Never worked with a borderline patient before. They can be quite a challenge.
3. I'm almost hoping I can sit again with a patient (I don't care if I'm sitting for 12 hours!) so I can get some studying done. It's crunch time! I need to pass my NCLEX on the 1st try! Everyone else I talked to passed. And I keep reading about people on allnurses.com failing 2, 3, 4, 5 and even *6* times. That makes me nervous.
4. My enhancer for my engagement ring still hasn't come in yet. Jared's told me early February. I'm getting nervous that it won't be here on time for the formal wedding!
5. I finally decided to change my earrings yesterday. I bought some cute black/silver/grey dangly ones for $4.99 at Target lol...so I went home and wanted to try them on. The earrings I had on were very comfortable, but the back isn't like your standard earring back (with that funny looking stopper to go on the post). I was able to get the right one off pretty easily but the left one was jammed in there - I thought I was going to tear my ear lobe! I definitely hurt my ear a bit trying to get that one off. I decided to not put those back in for fear of having a hard time getting them back off so I just stick in some princess cut cubic zirconia posts instead :)
I found this website called Retail Me Not...tons of online coupon codes for websites! Hubs really wanted a Cleveland Browns Tervis tumbler (the BEST coffee tumblers, btw!) and I made the mistake of not grabbing it the first time at my local Bed Bath & Beyond. I decided to order one for him online (and I was better off because he liked this design better). I also decided to order another one for myself - "Nurse" with a stethoscope. I couldn't pass that up! Anyway, I decided to do a Google search for online coupon codes and this website was the first to pop up.
