Jennifer Vitti

Yesterday I started back to school! I am only taking two classes this semester (Acute Care and Psych), but I am in clinical THREE DAYS a week. I start with Acute Care clinical tomorrow and Friday…no orientation no nothing YIKES! I’m nervous as usual, but also really excited (haha as usual). I know what facility I am in, but I actually don’t even know what type of floor, so tomorrow will be a surprise! I assume it will be some sort of med/surg floor obviously, but for example last semester I was on a med/surg floor that was more specific to a mix of respiratory issues and gynecologic surgeries! So even though it might be a ” general med/surg floor” it still might mean there are certain patients that are placed there first! I’ll be sure to let you all know later what my floor ends up being!

Both my classes were a little boring yesterday–first day back is always a slow start. But I have no doubt that things will pick up VERY quickly especially with us starting clinical immediately. And of course I went to pencil in my quizzes, exams, and papers, and sure enough they come up pretty quickly. I have no doubt that next week will be very busy like I had never left.

Monday I’ve volunteered to help out with Accepted Students Day for individuals who were accepted into the class starting this fall (this won’t be everyone accepted since my school has rolling admissions, but it will be some–and it also will include people who may not choose to go here). I have already had more than one prospective student find me through allnurses.com and ask my opinion on the school since I’m pretty honest about my school, but I also don’t only bash it like many (you’ll find this at any school). Some of my friends are volunteering too, so hopefully we’ll have a good time and meet some people who will be following in our footsteps

In non-nursing news… it was snowing yesterday (yay MA in January) but just like flurrying all day. Unfortunately this made the roads A MESS. I drive this little Honda Civic, which I LOVE, but unfortunately it sucks in the snow. I consider myself a pretty good driver (never gotten a ticket, never gotten in an accident…knock on wood!). Anyway I live in a town that is mostly back roads. I’m driving home from school and I come up on this little hill that has a stop sign at the bottom because it leads into an intersection. I have to stop and cross this intersection to continue to my house. So as I’m going up the other side I prepare myself because I travel this hill frequently and I know that it’s pretty steep and I know how my car handles in the slush/snow. I get to the top and I start to head down it and I’m talking to myself “Okay, you’re fine. You’re going only a few miles/hour. You’re just going to tap on the brakes and gradually push it down so you don’t skid”.

So I do all this and I’m heading down the hill and… my car is not stopping. The brakes were fine, but it was just too much of a mess and too much of a hill. There was legit nothing I could do! And I was quickly coming toward the intersection, which was busy at this time of day, so I couldn’t just go through it. So I decided to veer off toward the stop sign. I knew it would do damage to my car if I hit it, but I figured it would be minimal since I was going slow enough and it was still better than going through the intersection. Lucky me I missed the stop sign and got stopped by a snow bank! Of course now I’m completely stuck. I put my emergency blinkers on and I get out the shovel I have in the back of my car and I start digging myself out. I was worried that someone was going to come down the hill and do the same thing that I did, but then they WOULD hit me. Lucky me again…someone (who I actually happened to know from highschool–haha kinda embarrasing) comes by with a truck and a chain and says “Can I pull you out?” Obviously I graciously said yes and thanked him a million times and he pulled me out and I got home safe and sound. I immediately started bawling when I walked through the door haha. AND there was ZERO damage to my car. Amazing.

My friends and family said I did everything I could and I made the right judgment calls, but I hate that I thought I was taking all the necessary precautions and if I did do everything right there was still NOTHING I could do about it. This then reminded me of nursing and is obviously something I’m going to have to deal with. Sometimes you can do all that you can…make all the right judgment calls…and still something bad might happen to your patient or the patient might even die. This is called life. And I apparently am still learning to deal with it.

~love always~

Jen