Finally a Break Through!

So as you probably already know I've really struggled throughout my nursing school career. These classes and exams are just not my strong point.

I've never been really good at taking exams. The only thing that really saved me throughout high school and college the first time was that there was always so many OTHER points. Unfortunately not so this time around. Many of the classes are just 4 exams! AHHH

This semester has been no exception. In fact I failed the first exam so bad that I felt like I was never going to be able to crawl myself out of the hole I'd dug. The next 2 exams I'd passed but not by a whole lot. It did help bring up my grade but even going into yesterdays exam I wasn't passing yet. I was still .4% below the passing grade.

Obviously with this fact I was under a lot of stress. I really had this gut feeling I was going to fail out of this class because the teacher is just so unforgiving. If you try to argue with her and tell her why you answered a question a certain way based off what was said in the book her answer is "facts are facts it may say that in the book but the answer is still correct". HOW IS THAT HELPFUL?!?!?! I mean her lectures are nothing but her saying "I'm going to refer you to your book" She must say that 12 times in a 20 minute lecture!

But enough complaining. So anyways in studying for this exam I was just all in knots. My stomach has been upset for the past few days and I've been exhausted because I haven't been sleeping because like I said I just had a gut feeling this class was going to be the end of my nursing school career. Now granted I tend to be a negative person and this was probably more just me preparing for the worst than anything else but the feeling was still there

Anywho we had our 4th exam yesterday and I'm happy to say I did WONDERFUL! I did so well it bumped me up half a letter grade! I couldn't be more pleased. We also had to take this Kaplan test which is a standardized test that is supposed to help prepare you for the NCLEX but unlike in other classes, this time it was for points of our total grade. I've never done too well on those either but I got the minimum required so I'm pretty happy with that as well.

Overall this week was stressful and hard but I got what I needed to have somewhat of a cushion for my final on Friday. Now I'm just going to study this weekend and hopefully do well next friday. So thank you all for all your prayers and support. I truly feel I wouldn't have made it without you. So we only hopefully have to pray for 1 more week! :) Come on March 4th you can't get here fast enough!!! :)

Hernia Repair

Last Friday I began to write this post but just lost track of time. But I wanted to get an update out there.

So last Friday Adam had his hernia repaired. Pretty minor surgery, it was outpatient and went smoothly.
This was Adam's second hernia, his first was 30 years ago(yes my husband is old!) when he was only about 10-11 months old.

In meeting with the surgeon he said that it's pretty common when babies have hernias that they come back when they are older. One reason being they don't repair them the same way as they do when someone is full grown and two 30 years ago the technology wasn't what it is today.

The way they repair it today is with mesh. They literally put a piece of mesh (looks kind of like the inside of a colander) over the repair and then your skin grows and attaches to it to hold it in place. They use dissolvable stitches and actually do it laparoscopically. This cuts down on recovery time and the risk of infection.

We had to be at the hospital at 6am!!! not to mention my test was the day before so this was 2 days in a row of up before 5 am! But we get there and he is taken back to a room where they do his vitals, start and IV and just kind of get his health history. He was wheeled back to surgery at about 745 and surgery began at about 8:15. Later the anesthesiologist told me it took a lot of drugs to put him under!!! who woulda though thought my 6' 4" husband required large amounts of drugs to go under...

The surgery took about 2 hours, and during this time I sat in the waiting room holding back tears. I was so nervous simply because there are a lot of risks involved with general anesthesia. I had the stupid irrational fears that he would die on the table and I would be left all alone with no way to pay my bills and frankly I'm scared of being a lone and loosing him. :(  But I put my big girl panties on and tried to stay distracted (hence the two posts in one day!)

2 hours later I am called back to the same room as before and he is doing fine. He gets 2 pain pills, some gram crackers and some diet Pepsi and we wait to see how he does with his pain. It took about 2.5 hours of sitting in the room before the nurse (who was wonderful) was able to come in and discharge us. So at about 1:30 we were out the door and headed home.

Adam pretty much slept most of the next days. I ended up working the following day and between my mom and Nikki they kept an eye on him for me. Just to make sure he was feeling OK and was eating something.

All in all it was a successful surgery.  He is still uncomfortable at times but that mainly has to do with his bruising in a not very pleasant area. He finally went back to work as a waiter on Thursday and he said things were fine but just uncomfortable at times.

I'm glad everything went well and he is almost back to normal. He has a check up with the doctor on Tuesday and hopefully all will go well!
Well until then...MUCH LOVE

1 year later!

A year ago this week ( I was busy studying and didn't get this up in time) we added another furry baby to our family, Luke.  He is an English Setter who is roughly 12-13 years old. Adam got him the summer before his senior year in high school (he was 17). According to his mother he had wanted a dog and wouldn't take no for an answer. We believe he was born in Aprilish.

While still living at home, Adam's parents were ok with him having a dog so long as he stayed out side. They have a fenced in yard and so thats where Luke hung out. The only bad part of this plan was that when adam finished college at 20 he moved to Indy in an apartment that wouldn't allow dogs. He knew he couldn't bring him with him so he asked his mom if he could find a new home for him and she said no. So in the back yard is where he stayed.

When Adam and I met I had heard about Luke and I always thought it was funny because at the time we had a Yellow Lab named Lucie that my sister and I named her that because my dad had always said he wanted a male dog and to name him Luke. Since we got a female Stace and I named her Lucie since it was close. Another twist of fate was that Adam had boughten his ex girlfriend a dog and she named it Lucy! Weird.

But anyways as Adam and my relationship progressed we sort of 'forgot' about Luke and he talked about always wanting a German Shepherd and I said that after we bought a house and got married we could do that. So 2 months after we got married I put a BIG down payment on Miss Sadie. 1 Month later my beloved Lucie was laid to rest due to her deteriorating health. 6 weeks after that I decided I wanted another Lab and we got miss Kacie.      Then Sadie joined the mix that December a measly 6 weeks later.

That Christmas Adam and I were down in Vincennes visiting his parents and we kept hearing Luke bark. It was breaking my heart that he was out in the cold and was for the most part neglected. His parents fed him and stuff but they didn't really spend any time with him because they had Izzie who occupied all of their time.

On our way home Adam and I talked and I told him that I wanted to bring Luke home. He agreed that it would be best. So we called his mom and set up that the following time we were to go down we would bring him home with us. Well as fate would have it the next day I got laid off my job and Adam and I became nervous about trying to add another mouth to feed so we put the addition on hold.

Well last January (a year later than originally planned) we finally felt financially stable enough to bring him home. We were in Vincennes for one of Adam's friends wedding and we just almost on the spot decided to bring him home.

Car Ride Home

So sweet sleeping on the 3 hr ride home

So this year has been a challenging one for us. While he has been a great addition to the family its been an adjustement. First off all he had whip worms which caused him to have diarrhea until it was resolved. But once we got rid of that we were almost in the clear. 

We have had our challenges. Including him darting out the front door without a collar on in which I figured out that he didn't like to be held by the scruff of his neck because he about bit my hand off and nipped at my face and arms. ( looked like i'd been to war). And him teaching the girls to eat poop...GROSS

But most off all he challenges me daily. I've had to learn patience and understanding.  With his hearing and eye sight almost gone he barks at everything and I swear Sadie just barks at times to just get a rise out of him. He is constantly moving and every time you get up or adjust your position on the couch he is up and trots around for 10 minutes  doing circles around  him before laying down once again. He often overstimulates me. 

But overall he has been a pleasure to have around. He really is sweet and always wants to be pet and loved on. Just don't sneek up on him due to his blindness and let him come to you if he doesn't know your scent. (he will snap!) Most of all I worry about him daily. His hips are going out and it's harder for him to get up and down the stairs(he stumbles a lot) and his hips go out from under him 2-3x a week. Plus he got this nasty infection on his back last week. But it's almost gone now. 

Icky Infection

So overall Luke you've been a challenge to me and tried my patience daily. But you've been sweet and loving and I'm truly glad we brought you home. I hope more than anything we've made these last few years of your life enjoyable and bright. Welcome to the family love!

ICY STORM

for those living under a rock. Indiana got a wonderful Ice storm this week! Apparently Indiana had an ice storm back in the early 80's but that was before I was born. According to some this ice storm left people without power for over a week! I have to say the treat of no power was the most scary part of the whole thing.

It all started monday. We'd been hearing about "the storm of the century" for a few days but none of us really took it too seriously. They are always calling for feet of snow and we only get a dusting. Well I was at clinical and Adam was texting me all worried about when I was going to be home because when we were getting off happened to be when the worst part of the storm was to happen. I once again wasn't too worried plus what was I going to do leave???

Well when we were done with clinical we all go out to our cars and EVERYTHING was a SHEET of ice! For real! I mean I almost slipped on the rocks that were ice! Luckily I have the greatest group of friends in my nursing class and we all were out in the "raining ice" scraping off each others cars.  It luckily didn't take too long to get home either, only about 3x as long as usual(about 1 hr and 15 minutes...it's usually 25-30). I69 was of course CLOSED so I went up Keystone since it no longer has stop lights. I was very thankful that everyone was ok with going only 30mph and no one really tried to be a race car driver (even myself!) . Because all I wanted was to get home safely. That night I let the dogs out to go to the bathroom before bed and it was the WEIRDEST thing I'd ever seen Sadie my 65lb Shepherd was running on the icyness and wasn't even making foot prints. Now she loves the cold and running around and eating the snow but the ice she was a little confused about. It was rather entertaining to watch. Adam and I stood outside playing with her for about 15 minutes!

All night it 'rained' the icy maddness and by morning there was about 2 inches on the ground. Pretty much everything was closed, schools, malls, and Adam was of course off of work. Well I had to venture out in the mess to go meet up with some friends to study for our upcoming exam. Even though our University was closed we still had an exam to study for. After 5 hours of good studying I wanted to head home because ANOTHER big ice storm was coming in. However Adam wanted me to stop for "milk and BEER" REALLY???? but we were also going to be watching a friend of mine's little girl so my friend could stay at the hospital the night before since she worked the next day and didn't want to worry about trying to drive in the maddness to get to work on time. While I was getting his beer I also got some things to be able to feed miss Claire :)

It once again 'rained' more of this icy maddness and we woke up Wednesday to another 2-3 inches of ice. We had so much ice that I have to 'gun it' to get out of my garage because there is such a build up of ice it's like going over a hump! The ice has been bad for the dogs too. They slide everywhere and the girls really hate going outside. We've had to pick up more and more poop accidents in the house lately! But it's worst for Luke. He has had some bad luck and with his hips slowly going out its not been good for him.

Adam loves claire and both of them took a little nap

But wednesday while I once again headed out to study with my friends Adam and Nikki stayed home (she had her second snow day in a row) and took care of little miss claire. We got some good studying in and the roads weren't too awful bad so I knew we would probably have our exams on Thursday since we weren't due for any more precipitation, though I did pray for a delay.  So Wednesday night I stayed at a friends house so we could first of all study but also so I would only be 15 minutes from our exam instead of 30ish depending on traffic. I really dislike having exams at 9 bc I69 is a disaster in the morning especially with snowy conditions! But I took some pictures that I've yet to download so I'll do that when I get home.

So needless to say this Ice Storm has been interesting. Luckily though it seems to have been a pretty safe one. The one thing that needs to be stressed is people need to SLOW down. On Thursday morning alone 2 officers were hit and injured by drivers going TOO fast and sliding into them while they were trying to help others. So I hope all of you are safe and sound and take it slow on these slippery conditions.

Prayers PLEASE

hello blogging friends.  I have one small request for you.
I have an exam tomorrow in my Med/Surg III class. Hard to believe that I'm already in the 3 semester of school but it's true. The problem is that our first exam almost 2 weeks ago was not a good one. I did pretty much horribly. The 'teacher' if you can even call her that tested us over material that wasn't even covered in her lectures or readings. The whole class did poorly with a 79% average.

Our second exam is tomorrow and all that I ask is a simple prayer that things go better this time. I'm quite honestly at the verge of tears and terrified for tomorrow to come. My face is broken out with acne and my cycle is ALL messed up. I've been stressed about this exam all week! (the ice storm didn't help!)

So any extra prayers you would be willing to send my way would be GREATLY appreciated! I'll let you know how things go tomorrow.

I'm trying my best to offer up my sufferings, but I can't help but want to wallow in self pity. I want to curl up in a ball and cry. But i'm trying to stay strong and keep my head up. I know this is possible and I can totally overcome all of this but it's hard to be reassured of that. I also am trying to take the approach that whatever is meant to happen will happen. If I fail then I will just need to regroup and figure something else out.  Hopefully it won't come to that though.