Jennifer Vitti

At least I have been enjoying my vacation. The last break we had (one week in may in between spring and summer semester) everything went wrong. This break instead has been awesome. I haven’t really done too too much, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to relax. Period. I’ve worked a bit to make money, but other than that I’ve just been spending time with my family and my boyfriend (who is home now!!). I get to bring home my new kitten in a week and tomorrow my family and I are picking up our puppy! Life is good.

I start school on Tuesday next week. I’m kind of nervous. I always get the jitteries before I go back though. I have all day classes Tuesday…WELCOME BACK! I received my books last week and I’ve started to read through the assignments for week 1 (I HATE being behind…especially right away, so I better keep on that) I’m taking Complex Care, Community Health, and Advanced Pathophysiology. We’ll see how it goes.

I finally heard about my preceptorship…and I got the one I wanted *all smiles* So I will be in the PACU of one of my favorite hospitals and it’s good location-wise too. I’m so excited! I think I will be having a somewhat unique experience from my classmates who are on med-surg floors and also different from people in ICU and ED environments.

Not too much to talk about today since I’m not in school and my life has been peaceful (unheard of!). Maybe I’ll post pics of the new puppy later this week and will def update after school starts next week!

~love always~

Jen

Hey all!

So I had a very nice VERY RELAXING vacation with my family last week. It was exactly what I needed and I am feeling very much refreshed and have even been productive this week (it feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way). So hopefully I am officially out of my blog funk.

Since I’m on vacation there isn’t too much nursing stuff going on… I did end up getting two B+’s in my classes. SO CLOSE to two A-’s (not even a full point away in both classes), but what are you gonna do. Definitely not the end of the world. I’m also STILL waiting for my preceptorship assignment, which now I’m getting antsy. I would say at least half of the class has heard, but I have not. And I made it easy for my school, by setting the preceptorship up myself! I hope nothing went wrong in getting all the details sorted out. Or is it just because my name is at the end of the alphabet? Ha! Already there are only 2 1/2 weeks until classes start up again. My last semester until I take the NCLEX…this experience is flying by I can’t even believe it.

Non nursing school related I have some very exciting weeks ahead of me Next week my boyfriend moves home. He and I have been together for 5 1/2 years (since the end of high school) and have been long distance the whole time basically. So this will be a very fun and interesting time for us. I cannot wait. The past 2 1/2 weeks he has been in Ecuador on his last boys hurrah trip, so contact has been minimal therefore I’m even MORE jittery than I usually would be for him to move back home.

In two weeks (on 9/2) my family is getting our new puppy. We’re still deciding on names I like Scarlet and Misty (they both have meaning to the puppy and our family) and some of the other ones in the running are Amber, Tao, and Mila (after Mila Kunis…my 21 year old brother’s pick haha). I got to meet the puppy over vacation. She’s so cute and has quite the attitude!

That’s her biting her brother’s behind haha

Isn’t she a cutie?!?!

So that’s really fun for my family and me. We’re curious as to how my sister’s cat will react… should be interesting!

Then in 3 weeks (probably around 9/9) my boyfriend and I are adopting a new kitten (which will be living at his house). A one day old calico/tiger kitten was brought into the vet. My sister works for the vet and since she knew that my boyfriend and I were planning on adopting a kitten anyway when he got home she recommended us to adopt it! The person who found it couldn’t keep it and neither could any of the employees, so we definitely get to keep her–I found out officially two days ago! This kitten, who we have named Daphne, has done really well too despite being left outside (with placenta still attached and everything!) at such a young age. I’ve gone to visit her a couple times (she will be 3 weeks old tomorrow) and she is sooo cute. I don’t have any pics yet, but I’ll be sure to get some soon.

So lots of fun stuff going on! I’m feeling much more energized and happy now that I have had a small break from school and still with over 2 weeks of break left I think I will be ready to tackle school again starting 9/7. It’s a good feeling to be back on my game!

~love always~

Jen

I am finally finished with all my classes, finals, and clinicals for this semester. Going from Acute Care with no break to a full summer semester has been EXHAUSTING! The semester has been good though. Official grades aren’t up but I did fair. My unofficial grades in BOTH classes are that I have an “eighty-nine point such and such” so I have no idea if they round at all and if they do what the school’s rounding policy is, so we’ll see. Either way, B+ or A-, I’ll be fine though.

Thoughts on the second half of the semester? I think 12 hour days are too long. Haha. I can do them, but I am SO tired when I get home (especially because 12 hour days really are closer to 16 hour days with waking up early and the commute and public transportation). And when you have a 12 hour day with only one fairly stable patient (and in this case pediatrics where more often than not the parents are there) it can seem like a lot longer too. Overall though I enjoyed it. I loved pediatrics Definitely just confirmed to me that it is where I belong! This last week I was in the Pediatric ED. I was strictly observing, but I found it really interesting. The emergency department is not for me, but it was a great experience!

Still awaiting to find out my preceptor placement for the fall. A lot of people have found out already, so I’m anxiously awaiting my turn!  I’ll keep you posted!

 I now have a full month off (back to school September 7th). Although my month is jam packed. I go on a week’s vacation with the family to NH starting on Sunday which I’m looking forward to. It should be very relaxing. Unfortunately though I just paid my tuition bill, so won’t have much spending money, so I’ll focus instead on laying out on the dock with a good book and cool drink Then I’m working for the dog walking company full time until school starts up again. And the best part of all Sam (my boyfriend of 5 1/2 years) comes home August 25th (he is a year younger than me and has been away at college in NY…6 hours away) and he is staying for good! We have basically been long distance for our whole relationship, so this will be a very new and exciting time for us!

I feel the need to apologize for my boring blog this summer. I thought I got out my funk but I guess not. With the lack of a break in between the intense spring semester and the busy summer semester I was feeling too exhausted even to let my fingers do the talking (and even though I really did enjoy this semester taking maternity and pediatrics). I hope to post a few times this summer as I get back my energy and get back into the groove of blogging, but I really do hope that my fall semester will be a very fun time to blog (it is a very important semester with a lot of new experiences and the start of true NCLEX studying).

I hope everyone enjoys their summer (now that it has officially started!)

~love always~

Jen

This is going to be a quick post…

Finals are this week (Pedi on Monday, Maternity on Tuesday, and then I have my last clinical on Thursday <-the way the weeks worked out this summer was weird apparently so we still have to go to one more clinical after we’re all done with classes). Anyway after finals are over I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I’ll let you know how finals were and about how some of my last clinical experiences in pedi went. I’ll also let you know about my reflections for this semester and what is in store for me during my month off and next semester!!

Good luck to anyone else taking finals right now…we’re almost done!

~love always~

Jen

I should learn to be more motivated to write more often, so then I don’t have to write these super long catch-up posts and let you all know everything that I’ve been wanting to share!!

So as mentioned in my previous post I did finally get to see a vaginal delivery on my VERY LAST DAY of maternity clinical. Close call! It was AMAZING. This was the parent’s first child, so it was extra special too. The mom didn’t want a lot of people in, but she did allow me to be present for the labor and birth, so I felt very honored and that made it a more intimate setting, so I really got to get to know the parents and the main nurse. For the first pregnancy/birth this mother had a very easy labor and delivery. She only pushed for twenty minutes! I was able to participate by helping the mother to hold a leg. The father was very nervous/excited, but such a sweet guy! He had to sit down at first, but toward the end of the pushing he was able to stand and see the birth of his first child! I think I mentioned before, but new dads were probably one of my favorite parts of this experience! When the baby was delivered (good sized healthy baby) the parents both cried (and so did I haha…I’m an emotional girl). I know not all labor and deliveries go that smooth or quickly, but it definitely made me want to have kids (don’t worry–this won’t be for a while) even more than I already did. I was not “disturbed” by the birthing experience at all as some people had warned me I might be. So it was a good end to a good rotation. I was very pleased.

Now I’m onto a different hospital for pediatrics. I’ve done three weeks at this clinical site so far. I have done two weeks on the pediatric floor and one week in the PICU. I’m loving this experience. I knew I would though haha. Pediatrics is definitely what I want to do when I get my licensures (long term I’m looking into Pediatric Primary Care NP), so it’s nice that I’ve been having good experiences here as well. Definitely seeing a lot of different things both acute and chronic. I gave 9 medications last week and I was very proud of myself because  that is the most medication I’ve ever had to give and it was the first time I had to really do any med calculations (usually with adults–which is what it has been in all my previous rotations–it’s all 1/2, 1, or 2 pills basically or IV meds that are pre-made) here I had to calculate oral preparations. And it all went very smoothly, so I gave myself a little pat on the back for that. I really enjoy working with the parents too. Two of my patients have had really great moms involved with their care who I got to know well during my shift (it’s another 12 hour 7 AM-7PM shift, so we’re there with the kids for a long time!). Having a child hospitalized and/or with a chronic condition can not be easy to handle and I definitely give major props to these two women (and all the family members out there) who gave such great care and support to their children. Looking forward to my next 3 clinical days here–two more of which I’ll be on the floor and another of which I’ll be in the emergency department. Should be an interesting 3 weeks!

In the midst of the clinical fun I also had round 2 of both maternity and pediatric exams. They went pretty well. I seem to be staying pretty consistent-B’s in Maternity, A’s in pediatrics. I’m hoping to boost my maternity grade with Round 3 of exams coming up this week (and pediatric exam the following week) and then with finals. There are only 2 more maternity classes and 2 more pedi classes, one more exam in both, two days of finals, and three days of clinical left before I’m out for a month for summer vacation!

My last news is that my family will be getting a puppy in the beginning of September. After Shadow, our much beloved 12 1/2 year old flat-coated retriever, passed away in mid-May our house has NOT been the same. With my mom and I being very much involved in the dog world through the dog walking business, and my sister being pre-vet and my dad and brother also loving animals our house has been very empty with only my sister’s crazy cat. So after much deliberation and discussion we decided to get another dog. We decided to go with a different breed, however, because although we LOVED the flat-coat breed and temperament, their incidence of cancer death (as young as age 3!! and with an average life-span of only 7-8 years old) is just too much for us to handle. We apparently were very lucky with Shadow living as long as she did, but we are not prepared to take that chance again at least not right now (I think especially me and my mom will always have a special place in our hearts for flat-coats and may go back to that breed later on in our lives, but right now we need a change). So after doing some research and talking to breeders we are getting a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriver puppy. And just this past week we officially got the word that one of the breeders who had a litter born two weeks ago has a girl puppy for us to take home second-week in September! We are so happy and can’t wait to welcome ______ into our home (we are not in agreement in what to name her yet haha, so I’ll have to fill you all in on that later!)

~love always~

Jen

The baby dance worked!!! Thanks to everyone. It was beautiful!! Longer story later!

~love always~

Jen

Tomorrow is my last maternity clinical and so far I still have not seen any vaginal births. Please everyone do the baby dance for me tonight, so that I get to see one tomorrow!!

Hopefully I’ll have a good update for you tomorrow night!

~love always~

Jen

Hello hello hello!

Similar to Emergiblog I have had a blog crisis and despite the huge amounts of stuff I want to tell you all, and yes even some downtime moments where I could have blogged, I just couldn’t bring myself to write. But here I am! I’m back again after a few weeks of rest!

So what’s new with me? I’m still in my maternity rotation (only 2 more weeks though! then I switch to pedi ) I have not seen a vaginal birth yet! One week I was in labor and delivery and the other two weeks I was on postpartum/nursery. The week I was in labor and delivery I was SUPPOSED to see a vaginal birth, but that did not happen. The woman was being electively induced, this was her fourth child, all previous had been easy vaginal births. I made nice with the family–great family!! It was basically my first day in maternity (orientation was not very helpful except in terms of learning where everything is on the floor, but not learning much about actual maternity aspects), so the nurse at one point in the beginning sat down and taught me A LOT about maternity including how to read the fetal heart monitor, which was great! My patient received an epidural, and the nurse helped me put in my first Foley into a REAL PATIENT! This was VERY EXCITING because I had not had an opportunity to do so yet AND the patient had the epidural, so she couldn’t feel what I was doing down there, so that calmed me down. My patient was great and she was very supportive that I was a student, so she didn’t mind that the nurse walked me through things either. I know feel like I have a better sense of what I’m looking at “down there”. Hopefully next time, epidural or not, I’ll be able to do one as well! Later in the labor things were still moving slowly (she was GBS positive, so they wanted to make sure they got their two doses of Penicillin in before they sped it up with the Pitocin) and I was getting very comfortable with the family and vice versa, so I hung out in the room with them while the nurse worked at the nurse’s station. There was a change of shift at 3:00 PM and the new nurse arrived. All of a sudden like literally 8 people come rushing into this poor patient’s room looking at the fetal monitor and talking about the mom and the baby (in front of the mom no less). Then they are unlocking the wheels of the bed and saying “You’re going to have an emergency C-section”. The poor woman bursts into tears because she had NO idea what was wrong with the baby, she had never had a C-section before, and this was all sudden. Apparently the baby was having variable decelerations (which he had been having for a while, but he was having good accelerations, so they were just monitoring), and then his heart rate started not coming back up. They were worried the baby was not getting enough oxygen because the cord had prolapsed when the doctor broke her water. So I saw an emergency C-section instead. Apparently one of the nurse’s afterward told me that an “emergency C-section” and a “non-emergency C-section” are very different (basically acknowledging that the poor mom got taken by COMPLETE surprise and that they aren’t always super polite in emergency situations–I have “eh” feelings about this, but I won’t get into it). Most importantly!! Mom and baby did fine! Apparently there was no obvious signs of any cord prolapse and baby came out with a great set of lungs The nurses referred to him as a “tricky baby” I believe. So that was fun.

Postpartum has been a good experience too. I love seeing moms and their new babies, but what I’ve realized is that I also love seeing new DADS…they are soooo sweet and just genuinely happy! I’ll save some of my postpartum stories for a later blog entry. In general though, I’m very much enjoying my maternity rotation. I don’t think I’d want to be an OB/L&D Nurse, but it’s fun for these 6 weeks.

I also just finished my short, but SO FUN, School Health Nursing rotation. I was in an elementary school. The nurse was FANTASTIC. She really let me “take the bull by the horns” and be school nurse for two of the three days I was there! I really strengthened my assessment skills, learned a lot about this age group (ice packs = magic), and also got to see a lot of “cover your butt” health care- so important especially in pedi. I loved it though. Even though I was only there for 3 weeks, 1 day a week, I still saw some kids all three times, and on the last day I got happy squeals of “Nurse Jen…you’re back!” Melts my heart <3 I could definitely see myself doing School Health Nursing down the road when I’m sort of ready for a change of pace, but want to continue working in the pedi age group. I didn’t have very high expectations (I’m ashamed to say) of this experience and I was blown out of the water by how much I enjoyed it! Not all programs get to do a rotation in School Health so I feel very privleged.

Last topic before I call it a night–we took our first exams in both Maternity and Pedi. Maternity was okay (passed!). My boyfriend was home for 1 week (the only week of the whole summer that I’m going to see him before he finally moves home at the end of August) and I will be the first to admit that I did not study as much as I should. However, I thought the test was very fair, so I’m glad I passed this one, but I know I can do even better next time. Pedi exam went very well! I was nervous because pediatrics is supposed to be “my thing”, so I put a lot of pressure on myself. Luckily, I did great and can relax now!

Onto another full week! I’ll write again soon!

~love always~

Jen

Back from a whirlwind weekend in Rochester for my boyfriend’s college graduation (Congratulations baby!). It was a lot of fun and a good break.

I’m in the beginning of my second week of Summer Semester. This summer I’m taking Maternity and Pediatrics. The first half of the summer I’m doing Maternity clinical then the second half of the summer I’ll switch to do Pediatrics. Also for the first three weeks I’m doing School Health clinical in an elementary school.

First impressions? Surprisingly so far I’m not enjoying class that much I’m very suprised by this since pediatrics is what I want to do. Our classes are three hours each, peds on Monday and maternity on Tuesday. We sit in uncomfortable seats and the material is sort of jumbled up on pre-made powerpoints from the textbooks for one of them. I really hope that this is just because it’s the beginning and you have to get through the fluffy stuff first. It’s not deterring me from peds though because it’s not the material itself that’s boring it’s just how it’s being presented. Again hopefully it’s just first week or so disorganization.

Clinicals on the other hand I LOVE as usual We’re doing our first 12 hour shifts for maternity. Last week we got to give a baby a bath and learned how to take vitals (speedy little heartbeats!!) and then do lots of orientation stuff. I also got to feel a few uteruses (uteri?) one post-c-section and one post-vaginal delivery. Very interesting. I loved it. I loved being around the new parents and the babies!

And this week I’m heading to the labor and delivery room!!! CANNOT WAIT!

School Health clinical was awesome too. We’re all sent to different local schools. I’m at an elementary school and it’s so much fun. The nurse I work with is FANTASTIC. She’s awesome at interacting with the children, parents, and staff as well as teaching me tons. The kids are all really sweet. My favorite observation is that at this age (1st grade-5th grade) especially with the younger kids, they are SO honest. If you ask them if they think they’ll be okay to go back to class they’ll tell you the truth and all the kids I saw last week said “yes I’m ready to go back to class” no one was trying to get out of anything. It was so refreshing haha. The nurse said that this week she’s going to sit back and let me be the school nurse (except I can’t give meds since my instructor is not there with me), meaning I’ll triage, treat, and document (she’ll be right there though and help me if needed, and then go over all my documentation afterward since it will be under her name). I’m very very nervous about this, but very very excited! I think this will be a great experience. Talking to some of my peers (everyone at different schools) no one else is getting quite the experience I’m getting–it seems everyone else is assisting in minor ways or more observing. Hopefully next weekend I’ll have a great report about that experience!

~love always~

Jen

First I just wanted to again say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart to everyone who sent their thoughts to me during my difficult time (see previous post). I so so so appreciate it. We’re all still sad (I guess we’ll always be sad in some ways), but my family and I are starting to feel better and despite the void in the house things are getting back to normal.

I wanted to dedicate a post to reflections of last semester. I took Acute Care (aka MedSurg) and Psych/Mental Health Nursing in the Spring 2010 semester. I felt like I really got put to the test both in clinical and in class.

Psych Class: Not the most difficult class (that’s okay by me), but still an important one. Psych is present in every aspect of nursing. I felt we did a very generic overview of most of it, however and didn’t focus on very many of the specific diseases (went in depth on Schizophrenia and Depression mostly and then only touched on some of the other ones). Needing Psych 101 as a pre-req we’ve all had the general overview of Psych, so I wish we had gone more into the nurse’s role with the treatment of each disease. I did get to read Just Checking: Scenes from the Life of an Obsessive Compulsive by Emily Colas and then write a nursing focused paper on the book. Great book that is humorous, easy/quick read, and really captures the picture of someone suffering from OCD. We did study heavily in class the psych medications, which (as I saw in clinical) does seem to be a huge part of the psych nurse’s job.

Psych Clinical: I do not recommend any school/program allowing students to do psych clinical rotations during the evening shift. I am considered a “day student”, but since there are not that many hospitals near me they put me on a night clinical that was closer to my home. Which at the time I VERY MUCH appreciated. I still appreciate it, but I would’ve so much rather have done a day clinical. You don’t see anything at night at least not in respect to nurses. (there were a couple admissions while we were there and only a couple of people in the group got to go to one and they came back and said that it was amazing and they really saw a side to psych nurses that we hadn’t seen all semester, but they had to beg our instructor to let them go and she wouldn’t let anyone else, so I wish she had taken things like that more into consideration, but oh well). And the patients are tired. They didn’t want us there. I felt like in that clinical more than in any other clinical I was a waste of space. I did get some good conversations with patients though and I feel definitely more confident in my “therapeutic communications” skills, so I guess all was not lost!

Acute Care Class: What a pain. I learned SO MUCH. But almost too much. I feel like I didn’t get a chance to wrap my head around anything enough to fully grasp it. I was always behind in the readings (not because of lack of reading either…it was just legit almost impossible) and I was always stressed. I believe this is somewhat of a universal feeling among nursing students though. Some people may like/enjoy the class more than others (I would put myself somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between love and hate), but everyone agrees with how difficult it is just because of the sheer amount of material thrown at you with so little nursing/nursing student experience (I find that if I have an experience with a certain disease, patient, nursing intervention, etc. I of course remember it so much better). So that was that. Glad I took the class. Even more glad it’s over.

Acute Care Clinical: This is what I’ve been waiting to talk about. This was such an amazing experience. FANTASTIC clinical group. Really strong instructor.  She admitted on the last day of clinical that she gave me a lot of tough patients (not on purpose). Some people in my group seemed to get a similar experience every week. Mine changed DRASTICALLY from week to week. I had a lot of emotional patients (dealing with death, illness, etc.), some controversial issues, and some very rewarding moments where I made the right call and really felt I helped my patients. Even the days when I left and wanted to cry I found them in retrospect to be GREAT learning experiences and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I had patients cry to me, talk to me, yell at me, and hug and thank me. I loved it loved it loved it! I am so excited about this career. I can’t wait to continue with more clinicals and become a nurse!!!

So I actually ended up with 2 B+ (as opposed to what I originally thought one B and one B+) officially. Glad it’s over. Glad to start fresh with pediatrics and maternity! I’ll post on Sunday with thoughts about my first week!!

I’m off to Rochester for the weekend to the RIT graduation to see my boyfriend graduate! Congrats Sam!!! I love you!

~love always~

Jen