On the other hand, I'm overwhelmed. We spent the last month and a half on cardiology and I still get confused and have to stop to think about what protocol to follow for any given situation. I passed my cardiology final with an 86.5%. It's a B, that's not bad, but somewhere in there I missed 13.5% of the information that I might need to know to be able to save someone's life! Granted, I took the test on a double dose of Vicodin because I was in excruciating pain from a broken ankle, problematic Achilles tendon, and a DVT... So maybe it's not so bad, but I digress.
This week we began the "Ologies". That is to say, over the next month we will be covering pulmonology, neurology, endocrinology, urology, immunology, nephrology, toxicology, gastroenterology, and hematology. It's sounds like a song from Mary Poppins. Let me say it again... We are covering all of this in a month. On top of clinicals. My brain! It hurts so bad!
Yesterday, I got mad at my boyfriend. The poor man has suffered through paramedic school with me so far without too many stress-induced fights... but yesterday it all came to a rolling boil about twenty minutes after I looked at my April schedule and then got a text from him saying he unexpectedly might be leaving for Maryland next week. I live in Alaska. To me, Maryland is a foreign country. Oh, and he'd be missing my birthday. Did I mention I was sitting in class getting a four hour lecture on pulmonology when all this happened? (You might ask me why I wasn't paying attention instead of answering texts from my boyfriend and looking at my schedule... I might reply to you, hush.) After about six hours of extremely uncharacteristic frustration from the two of us, we snuggled up in bed, reminded each other that we love one another, and decided the prognosis for the whole situation might look a little better with a good night's sleep.
Sure enough, when I woke up this morning, April still looked like crap. However, sleep aided in taking away the anguish of the situation and gave me some good ideas.
1. I've decided I'm not going to look at my schedule a month at a time again until paramedic school is over. Every time I do it causes a panic attack. I've made it this far, I can get through another 14 weeks.
2. I have a little message screen on my phone, every time I open it up it says "Be Thankful". That's what I set when I wanted to remind myself to appreciate what I had. I'm going to change it to "Be Caring". Hopefully that will help me remember to not take my stress out on other people.
3. I'm going to do a meal plan every week. It's common knowledge that hunger makes stress worse. With me, you can multiply that by about 10,000 and conclude that hunger makes me evil.
4. Pretty soon, my ankle will be all healed up and I will have to go back to work. I have so far made it through the entire year without working or having clinicals on Sunday. I take one day a week to stay in my pajamas all day, eat whatever I want, get caught up on homework, and enjoy being home with my man. In order to maintain my sanity, I have to keep doing that.
5. Stay the course. Keep the faith. Keep on keeping on. Do what I have to do to finish this journey I have begun.
That's it. End of paramedic school rant for the day. I have grilled asparagus and chicken bacon sandwiches to finish making for dinner.
-Jess
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