Last night

My first shift at the burn unit went really well. My preceptor is really nice and actually lives really close to me in Santa Cruz. The most exciting thing that happened last night was that I did my first blood draw! It's a pretty routine and mundane thing, but for me it was really exciting and felt very "nursy". My patient's veins were "highways to success" so I wasn't even nervous. Unfortunately, he was quite the joker and delighted in yelling in pain when I stuck that needle in him. Thanks, dude.

I think I have the next couple days off so I can actually do some laundry and cook dinner! Exciting stuff.

Now we can all relax

I passed my final exam - 0.10% away from an A, by the way! My final grade has been bumped up to a B so I'm just thrilled.

I'm exhausted and looking forward to a stress free weekend. I start my preceptorship Monday evening and I'm really excited. I will be studying my chapter on burns tomorrow, but I'm not going to worry too much about trying to know everything my first day.

Off to the farmer's market on this gorgeous Saturday morning!

I love my garden.

Jake and I baby it everyday! I took a break from studying to take a few update pictures. They probably aren't interesting to anyone but me, but these are my little babies right now!

These little cluster of rogue tomato seeds are from the golden cherry tomatoes from last season. They grow in these cute little papery skins!

Little lettuces.
Swiss chard grows really fast.

I took a test yesterday

which predicted that I have a 99% chance of passing my boards (NCLEX)! That felt good.

If you noticed

I put 'tags' on all my posts so if you're looking for something like, well, dog pictures, you can go to the list on the right and choose 'dog' and see all the posts that have something to do with Turnip.

Oh, and I'm almost at 1000 views on the blog. There's a little counter at the bottom that tells me how many times the page has been brought up. I think everyone can see it, or maybe it's just me. I don't know these things. However, it's a little misleading since I added like 100 counts whilst putting tags on everything....

Where I'll be starting April 28th....

The burn unit! I got my internship there on the evening shift and I'm really excited. I want to start studying for it (reading my chapters on burn physiology and burn care) but I really need to study for my final exam which is next Friday. I didn't do so well on the other two exams and now I just want to pass. I'll be grateful for a C.

And we got strawberries at the farmer's market today! Organic and delicious.

Pictures have been requested

A certain faithful reader of Falling of the Turnip Cart has requested pictures of the garden. And I'm throwing in some pictures of Turnip for good measure, of course.

Front yard. The two new plants are the bushy purple thing in the middle and the gold irises in the front right.

New adorable flower planted in window box:

Baby veggies! Soon I will eat you.


Baby swiss chard. (and a cherry tomato skin from last year)

Such a goober:
But she has a very nice forehead.

Garden Planted!

We took some time today to go to our favorite nursery and buy new plants for the new season. We got some flowering plants for the front yard (going with the purple, yellow and white theme) and some veggies for the back garden. We have peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatillos, basil, swiss chard, eggplant and mixed lettuce. The lettuce is from seed and I'm really inexperienced with that. We'll see what pops up!

During the growing season, I love going outside every morning with my coffee and checking on the progress of my little babies. I'm such a goon.

Semester Countdown

1. 3 clinicals left
2. one paper (geriatric project)
3. 4 exams (2 final exams)
4. one day of phlebotomy instruction
5. 4 days of lecture

This is all in the next 3 weeks, then I start my internship from April 28th to graduation. I don't know where I'll be yet, but I put in a request to work in the Burn unit at Valley Med. I never wrote about my experience in the burn unit, but it was an amazing experience that I would like more of. One of my favorite patients there was a little boy named Julian. I was there the day the reporters were doing a follow up story on him. There is a slideshow link in this article with audio that's pretty interesting. But for those who are a little squeamish, you might just want to listen. I think my forehead is in one of the pictures! (And here is a recent news clip from ABC that is really good.) Even though his situation is incredible depressing and horrific, I was inspired by him and the other patients there who are going through life altering experiences. If I do get my request to work here for the next month, I'm hoping I'll be able to handle it and not run away screaming every day. Another reason why I choose the burn unit was because I'll get to practice all the things I need: starting IVs, IV therapy with PICC lines, changing dressings, wound care, care of naso-gastric tubes, caring for both adults and children, end of life care and family support. I'm also drawn to this unit because a lot of the patients stay there for long periods of time and I'd get to know them and their families well. My second choice for my internship was medical-surgical (what I've been doing for the past two semesters) and my third choice was pediatrics. I'll keep you updated - I should find out in the next couple weeks.