CNA School Thus Far...

This week has been oh so busy and very interesting. Last week the boys started back to school, and my baby boy started kindergarten! Boy how time really does fly! It seems like only yesterday that I had him. I had told myself that there was no need to be one of those silly, sentimental moms that cried when her child started school-after-all this is a good milestone, right? Yeah. I failed. I teared up seeing him in line, all excited for kindergarten, and again the next morning when he so proudly boarded the school bus with big brother. Guess I too am a sentimental fool.

I began school on Monday, and have now successfully made it through week one. This shouldn't be that much of an accomplishment, since the first week was only three days, but I will tell you what, three days of active listening and anxious learning (demonstrating brand new skills!) is exhausting! I am really enjoying it so far though. It seems I am learning so much in such a short amount of time. And I keep having to reign in my Hermione Grangeresque know-it-all-ness lest I be universally disliked by my classmates! It would seem that me having already taken my prerequisites for nursing like Anatomy and Medical Terminology means that I know a lot of the vocabulary and conditions!!! I keep trying to be somewhere in between answering all the questions during lecture and staying quiet and pretending I don't know some of them!

My instructors (we have two that team teach) have told us some amazing stories. I enjoy both for very different reasons. One is very strict and by-the-book, and one is much more calming and funny. Both seem like great nurses. The other day in lab (where we practice our new-found skills), our instructor (who is a bit rough around the edges) gives us this scenario: "Pretend your patient has MRSA and has had a blow-out. There's s*** everywhere. Now show me how you would gown and glove up and de-gown and de-glove without getting it on yourself!" In lecture the other day I realized I was absolutely fascinated by the mix of Anatomy and actual real-life scenarios and conditions. I had taken four full pages of notes in two hours. I'm not sure everyone else did, but I figure it can be what I take from it-so I'm taking all I can. We heard a sad, but also kind of funny story about a CNA student that absolutely flopped. During her clinicals she was given the task of caring for a women with a colostomy bag. She walked right out of the room, into the hospital, and said, "I picked the wrong major!!! I'm not doing this." Wow. Poor patient. From that story we were to take this lesson that I think is golden, "It's okay to get grossed out, even to go heave in the bathroom sometimes. It is okay to vent in the break room or at home, BUT you need to be very cognizant of where you are and what feelings you portray when you do vent. Always think, what if I were the patient?" Of course that thought is to govern all that we do and the manner in which we do it.