verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (headstones)
Well, today is my mom's first chemo of the second round of chemo. We'll see how that goes.

We've received confirmation (yesterday) that the pathology report of her original surgery was amended. That's fine; I know that initial reports are usually hand written and then "signed off" on by everyone -- nurses, MDs, other specialists.

But what pisses me off is that, while she was under the knife last year, the surgeon sent the section of her lung down to the lab to get a frozen section, to see if there were cancer cells in the margin. It came back from the pathology lab saying that there were no cancer cells in the margin. If there had been, the surgeon would have gone back in and removed more tissue, until the margins were clear. But since the lab came back and said the margins were clear, he closed my mom up and finished the surgery.

Then the lab report was amended a couple days later to report that there were, indeed, cancer cells in the margin.

And that is exactly where the cancer has come back. In that exact spot.

So I'm pretty pissed. I think I will write a letter of complaint to the hospital (where we'll NEVER send my mother again, the nursing care was so shitty after she came out of the ICU), to the pathologist, and to the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation about this pathologist.

I'm too exhausted by everything I've been through in the last few years to fight through a malpractice lawsuit. (I get the feeling, however, that one of my older sisters will be pursuing that.) Besides, all the money in the world can't change the past. What's done is done. I'm just pissed off that this stupid pathologist may have shortened my mother's life expectancy by not identifying the cancer cells in the tissue margins WHEN THE SURGEON NEEDED TO KNOW -- WHEN MY MOM WAS STILL ON THE OPERATING TABLE. As my mom once said, "Someone has to graduate at the bottom of the class."

At any rate, I am going to work on my resume tomorrow. Tonight after we get back from chemo I plan to go over my Joe Dick/Jerry Bines story, and try to make headway on finishing it. I do so need the escapism and to get that feeling of "flow" from writing. Sigh.

In the world of finishing nursing school, however, I was cheered to read that this HESI exit exam I took (on which I scored in the 96th percentile) is predictive of passing the NCLEX-RN exam on the first try -- AND the higher the HESI score, the more predictive of passing the NCLEX-RN. (Other things have also been associated with passing NCLEX-RN on the first attempt -- number of Cs received (in my case, only 1; all the rest were Bs); ACT score (yay! mine was 29! But that was 23 years ago! Egad!), GPA (in my case, 3.25, a solid B average), etc. So it would appear that my passing the NCLEX-RN is a likelihood. That's a relief! Nevertheless, my friends and I are going to take this week off from studying (a WELL-DESERVED REST!) but then start a study schedule for the NCLEX-RN next week. Whew.
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (CKRInvisible)
I passed the HESI exam! I didn't just pass it (850 is passing), I aced it (1078). My report says that's the 96th percentile. YES!! Something to feel good about, for once! I PASSED I PASSED I PASSED I PASSED I PASSED I PASSED !!! I get to graduate! Also, this is supposedly predictive of my chances of passing the NCLEX-RN on the first try. Apparently (so HESI people say) those who pass the HESI on the 1st try have a 75% chance of passing the NCLEX-RN licensing exam on their 1st try. So, although I will still hit the books like a crazy person (especially in the areas HESI scoring told me I need work on), at least some of the pressure is off now. I feel more confident than I did two days ago, that's for sure.

I was amused to read the comparisons between average HESI scores from diploma nursing schools, ADN nursing programs, and BSN nursing programs.

The average HESI score for diploma school nursing students, in the past year, has been 838 (which is below passing, 850).

The average HESI score for ADN (assoc. degree/2 yr program) nursing students the past year is 837.

The average HESI score for BSN (4 yr degree program) nursing students the past year was 838.

All that extra money and two extra years of school... to only do 1 point better (and with an average that is still below the passing score).

Far be it from me to dissuade people from 4 yr degrees -- I already have one, from '92. But these alleged 2 yr associate degree (ADN) programs -- the kind I'm about to finish -- require a HELL of a lot more work than most 4 yr college liberal arts degrees. I have a friend with a BA in German and another with a BA in Fiction Writing. They would EASILY fail out of this "2 year" ADN program.
Read more... )
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (HughDillon DTTB)
My spring break is ruined. RU-INed. I signed up for this exam review (frakkin' mistake, I think), which took up Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week from 8am to 1 or 2pm (depending on the day).

I have a paper due Tuesday, which I had to write. APA style, muliple sources, citations, yadda yadda. It ended up being 9 pages.

I have another paper due, a care plan actually, next Thursday. Starting work on that, since I finished the paper yesterday.

I have an exam next Tuesday, for which I've barely studied.

Was supposed to go visit my sister in Madison (WI) this weekend, but that's not happening because I have all this shit to do.

Yesterday was the last day of my spring break. It's over now, and I didn't go anywhere or do anything.

Oh, I take that back. My bf and I drove up and down Lake Shore Drive in the fog last night. We stopped at Montrose harbor. In the dark and the fog, you couldn't tell the difference between the water, the fog, and the sky. That was the ONLY cool thing about my spring break. I'm so stressed out I think I'm getting my period again (and I just had it a couple weeks ago, not my usual cycle) and my skin's breaking out. I hate that I'm pushing 40 and my skin's like a frakkin' teenager. Wtf? I have to contend with the advance of crows feet AND pimples?

And why the frak did they take Veronica Mars away for weeks and replace it with this Pussycat Dolls crap? If it was replacing any other show, I might even watch the Pussycat bullshit, but since it was VM, I'm pissed, and I refuse to watch it.

Pissed off. Can't wait 'til this shit is all over and I either pass that frakkin' HESI exit exam April 20th... or I don't. That's what I'm taking the review course for... the review course that's ruined my spring break.

OTOH, before the break, I had gotten pretty far into a HCL/FTWHTWD Joe Dick/Jerry Bines xover story. It's loaded with despondent explicit sex so far.
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (Default)
I keep telling myself... it's almost over, it's almost over, it's almost over... I passed pediatric nursing. I failed the final with a 70%, but I paC)ssed the class with a 77%. I have never worked so frakkin' hard for such a shitty grade: my one and only C in nursing school. boring crap about everyone getting Cs and us losing 2 more people )

I survived peds by (1) insane textbook reading, studying, review books, and practice questions and quizzes, and (B) watching about 4 hours of TV per week. Those 4 hours are inviolate. I don't talk on the phone, I don't try to read or study, I just watch my shows. The shows are BSG on Sunday night, Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights, Dirt after Veronica Mars, and CSI (LV) on Thursday nights. Oh, and I watched a bootleg DVD of Last King of Scotland Saturday night with my bf. I can see why Forest Whitaker (sp?) won the Oscar. I didn't watch any part of the Oscars. I read about them the next day in someone's newspaper.
complaints and praise about my shows this week so far )
And Veronica Mars. wtf, Logan!?! What happened to all that "lives ruined, blood shed" epic story stuff with Veronica? Now you're just whizz-bang done with Veronica, and already after Parker? Not even trying with Veronica? I admit, Veronica thinks she knows everything -- and she doesn't -- and her brittleness is starting to grate (has been). But you already know she's a hard sell and a tough cookie -- she always was! That's why you love her. Don't go for Parker. God. I mean, Parker's all right, but... eh, never mind.

I have no control over any of this... except in fanfic, of course. Of which I've written... almost none! Just about 2/3 of a HCL/FTWHTWD Joe Dick/Jerry Bines xover story, that I had to put away at the beginning of February. And I surprised myself: it's got pegging! I don't even know how that happened... it just took on a life of it's own, so I let it go where it wanted to go. I have to finish it; I dropped it at the beginning of February because, honestly, I couldn't do that and study peds too. Fortunately I'm told that psych nursing isn't too hard. So I feel the need to immediately slack and work on my story. Ironically, in our management class this afternoon, they lectured on time management and tools for overcoming procrastination and time-wasting: prioritize, set goals, break big jobs into smaller tasks, develop the habit of finishing things you start. Well. As soon as I heard that in the lecture, I immediately thought of all my WIPs and unfinished series and stories and whatnot. So it looks like I'll be applying time management to... the area of my life that least needs it.

Yay. Much rejoicing. :P
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (magcover)
I have missed so much porn it nearly makes me weep. There was superpornsunday, and also challenges on ds_snippets, not to mention more BBM and VfV fic (as well as others) ...and, damnit all I do is read my pediatric nursing text, study lecture notes, meet with my study-buddy. ::sniff:: I read a little bit of the porn, but I just don't have time to read it all -- we're being slammed so hard at school by a self-proclaimed "old battleaxe." BUT... I got an 85% on my peds exam today! So, with first an 83, then a 71, and now an 85, so far my exam average is 79.6 (rounds up to 80!). This is the worst I've ever done in nursing school. ::hangs head:: All my previous averages were high 80s, often 90 or 91 -- just one or two points shy of the coveted 92% (and an A). But, since I failed the last exam, and I got an 85 on this (an actual B), I guess all the studying, reading and porn-deprivation worked.

(then she said "booooooo...")

So as my reward to myself, I am going to continue my WIP porn stories this afternoon...! On with the Joe/Jerry HCL/FTWHTWD xover! And perhaps/hopefully more bits 'n pieces of the next story in my DS Fraser/RayK bdsm series (I have vague plans: a happy, kinky, super-smutty ending.) And, I tell myself: no asking for betas until the story/stories is/are done!

(then she said "Yayyyyyyyy...!")

I just wish I had more time to read other people's porn! ::frets:: Someday, someday...
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (pegfic)
Christ. As if it wasn't bad enough that I had an adorable 2 and 1/2 year old terminally ill kid as a patient a week and a half ago, which made me cry when I got home (to my mother, to my boyfriend, to my friends) -- yesterday I went to my student nurse rotation at a local grammar school and the nurse had called in sick! So I had to have my school nurse day rescheduled. Dammit! I just want this stuff to be OVER. I was having nightmares the first few weeks -- toddler serial killers (not killers of toddlers, but where the killer was a toddler!), pediatric hospitals crossed with concentration camps, saving a baby from a tornado by going through a "water lock" (like an air lock, but with water!) into an underground bomb shelter... This class has me shook up. And if I pass this, psychiatric nursing is next!

And on top of all of that, I just failed today's pediatrics exam. I got an 83% on the first exam (which would be a B in any other class, but in nursing, it's a C). On this morning's exam, I got a 71%. In any other class, 71% would be passing... but we must get 76%. I know, I know, higher standards for nurses, we don't want them killing the patients. And I'm not saying I want to be an "average nurse" -- of course not; I want to be a good nurse. But the questions are such trick questions on these exams! And there is so much they teach us in school that is USELESS out on the floor in the hospital. I'm not just talking out my ass -- I've had RNs that I've worked with in the hospitals TELL ME that once I get into the "real world," I'll find out all this school stuff means nothing and I'll never use it again!

So, of course, what have I done? I started my Joe Dick/Jerry Bines HCL/FTWHTWD xover story. It's set after Billy's left for LA, and Joe is hobo!Joe, unplugged!Joe, hitch-hiking!Joe mixed with on-the-road-bisexual-promiscuous!Joe... all to culminate in him meeting the spittin' image of Billy (Jerry) and doing things with Jerry he couldn't or wouldn't do with Billy or c/wouldn't let Billy do to him. In other words... it's porn.

Yay.
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (absinthe)
I am getting to hate Wednesday and Friday nights. I have to go to bed by 9:30/10 (21:30/22:00) so I can get up when it's still fucking dark at 4AM-ish in order to be at the hospital by 6AM for my pediatric nursing clinicals on Thursday and Saturday mornings. rant about early AM clinicals )
/squee/ Egad, I genfic-ed! I wrote VfV V/Evey fic! Not too explicit, but I hope to more explicitly plumb the depths of their dysfunctional relationship in future stories. But first... I feel a HCL/FTWHTWD Joe Dick/Jerry Bines crossover coming on.

Shit. Is it bad that I squee myself?

/sigh/ if I ever thought I'd outgrow this, well, I've been disabused of that notion. All I want to do is finish school, get a job, and work 3 days a week 12 hours per shift so I can write and squee myself more, maybe even four days a week. Right now, school is a most irritating interruption of my fic plans.

wondering if everything I write is porn? )

I had a strange thought earlier today (while I was writing up my pediatric clinical journal for yesterday's clinical, and should not have been thinking about fanfic of any kind) --

A V for Vendetta/The Prisoner crossover where the Rover makes an appearance would be fascinating. That damned Rover scared the shit out of me when I was a kid; it's still creepy to me now! And the mini-fascism of The Village where Number 6 was confined would've been a great V-liberation target. A showdown between V and The Rover would be really surreal, creepy and... weird enough for me to half-seriously consider writing.

Then I thought, Hey, a VfV/Interview With The Vampire crossover would solve the "[sob]why does V have to die!?" problem. As we saw in Interview w/the Vampire with little Claudia (movieverse but I think also in Anne Rice's novels), all one's imperfections are erased and one is not only restored but beautified by becoming a vampire. When you consider the way in which Lestat just wouldn't die despite Claudia's efforts to kill him, in such a crossoververse it would go without saying that V would survive if he just got some vampire blood in him. Then he could be reborn physically: Lestat-ified into Hugo Weaving-ishness. That could be ...pretty fucking cool! Or so I thought to myself.

Hmmmm.

The Rover...

/shudders/

btw: Pan's Labyrinth and Little Children -- very, very good films. Nothing like each other, but both very good.

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