Busy, Busy, Busy

My, how time flies when you get busy.  And this semester of Respiratory school has been BUSY!

On Mondays and Fridays, we go to clinical rotations.  We go to several different local hospitals where we work and learn in Pediatric Intensive Care Units, Neonatal Intensive Care Units, Adult Intensive Care Units, Cardiac Catheter Labs, Pulmonary Function Testing Clinics, Hyperbaric Units and much more.

Most clinical rotations are two days at the same location. Usually a Friday then the following Monday, beginning about 6:45AM and running through 2:45PM.

this picture is one I found online but shows some of what we do

We are doing in-depth studies, called SOAPs (Subjective Objective Assessment and Plan), on a patient almost every clinical day. Those studies include lab tests, physical examinations, x-ray interpretation interpretation, medication studies, name every part of the care provided to the patient and find and name anything that indicates a need for a change in plan and state why.  It takes hours and hours sometimes to complete (oh and it must be typed up and emailed in, so much of the work is done after we get home from clinicals).  It is intense but certainly educational. It's like doing a major research paper two times per week.

This summer, those clinical rotations will be 3 days a week, so we'll be doing even more of those big reports.

St Philips College

 
Tuesdays and Wednesdays we are on campus for respiratory classes that include computer simulations and working on a mannikin as our patient with ventilators, and various other respiratory devices.

Thursdays, most of us second year respiratory program students are taking Microbiology lecture and lab - pretty much an all day thing.  We are going over all sorts of microbes - those that are helpful and those that can kill you if given the opportunity.

It's April now, and my last day of respiratory school is August 1st!!!!  Then, I study to take 3 big exams to receive my certification and registration (licenses).  Then, I should be ready to get to work and make some money!!!  finally!!!


Luckily, Josh's health has been pretty stable.  But he's been busy, too.  He is in high school now.

And he is staying pretty active with church.  He goes to the weekly church youth group  get-togethers where they do things like go bowling, skating, mini-golfing and much more.

 

Josh on youth outing to the bowling center

youth group with Easter eggs at church

Josh on skates at youth group outing

  They also do several fundraisers to raise money for camp. Josh has helped put on a Valentine's banquet and has helped with yard work to raise money.

Josh does yard work 

church youth group car wash fundraiser for camp

Josh drying vehicles at the youth car wash fundraiser

Josh with his Nurse Brad on a youth group outing

Josh with his Nurse Nancy at church Valentine banquet

He usually has a nurse who goes with him to these outings.

But one weekend (Easter weekend) I was the acting nurse on duty and the youth was planning to attend a big Christian concert at the AT&T Center.  So, I ended up going with him and hanging all day and into the night to enjoy the concert.





We stood outside, waiting for the doors to open, for several hours.  Josh got pretty tired.  He did find a chance or two to sit down and rest his feet.

We were hot, tired and crammed like sardines with all those people around us ... especially behind us!











  but we ended up with seats down on the floor pretty near a back stage where a couple of bands played for us and a speaker came back there to talk to the crowd.

 It was a sold out concert... look at all those people!
The bands included New Song, Matthew West, Jamie Grace and Toby Mac.

 

We had a good time but our ears took awhile to adjust again once we left - and we left early, before the last band, Toby Mac, had really gotten started good.


James took some time off around Good Friday and Easter weekend, so we all enjoyed some time fishing that weekend, too. We thought of trying our luck at Canyon Lake, North of San Antonio, but the water level was extremely low, and there was really no place to fish from the shore (which is what we planned to do).  So, we headed up to Blanco to the State Park there and found some nice places to enjoy some fishing.
 

OK, we didn't catch any huge fish, but we did enjoy the beautiful weather and had a pretty good time.
 
Oh, we even took my mom along for that trip.  She loves to fish and to spend time with us.


And Josh found some swings to try out at the park, too.