I Did It: Semester One

I am SO relieved to have made it through this first semester. It has definitely been more than just a small struggle; there are so many things that have been going on, that it really feels great to be done.

All I'm waiting for is my final grade for Physiology, but I passed my other 3 courses, so hopefully I passed Physiology as well! Now, two weeks off of full relaxation and Christmas fuuuuun! :)

T-minus 7 days to survival of Semester 1!

Well, I'm still here. In 7 days I will be done with my first semester of PT school and it has been really wild. I still haven't decided where I want to go for my 1st clinical, and I really need to take advantage of being in the first spot for choosing... I don't really want to think that far in advance, honestly. I'm too busy worrying about my anatomy and physiology finals. I am doing well in both courses, but I am at a borderline A and so one slip up could potentially have me failing either. Although I have my struggles about being in school, I would prefer it to be my decision to quit, not that I failed a course and was unable to continue.

A question I find myself asking a lot is, how do you figure out if something/anything is "worth it"?

Sometimes when I get A's on my tests it doesn't even feel good. Only because I know how much farther I have to go in this journey to even get through school, and because usually it's immediately time to start preparing for the next batch of tests. But, it hit me for a second the other day... I got a 95% in my clinical skills class... That means that I know 95% of what I was supposed to know... That's huge. Why am I acting like it's not? I think that I get so overwhelmed with everything going on around me, that I don't even realize how far I've come in just this short amount of time.

In fact, I know for certain that I passed two of my four classes (clinical skills) and my principles of practice course, because the finals were this week, in what I like to call "Hell Week #2" Remember Hell Week the first time? Yeah, not fun.

However, this time I only cried twice, instead of every day, and I didn't have a complete mental breakdown leading to a horrible anatomy lab practical grade. So, I've improved.

I took yesterday off after my last test and came home and stayed in bed all day, and slept in today and did some Christmas shopping. Now I feel like I'm ready to do this and get it over with.

My anatomy final is cumulative, so it's going to be hard and I need to try to remember everything I've learned along the way, and that's a lot... Physiology is all about digestion which is not my favorite thing to study, so I've got to gear up and get in it.

Hopefully, soon, I'll be celebrating that I passed all my courses and can move onto semester #2.

How I won the lottery...

I know what you're thinking, and no I didn't actually win the real lottery... I can't even win on a scratch off lotto ticket... but I did take part in a lottery where most would say that I "won"... allow me to explain... From the beginning.

At my school we have 4 clinical experiences. When it comes to choosing where you'd like to do your clinical they have instilled a lottery mechanism to be "fair and just". Basically, it happens like this... Before any of your clinicals, at the beginning of your schooling, you get a number. Whatever that number is (let's just go with #20) means that's when you get to choose your clinical. So, at #20, 19 people would get the chance to choose a clinical before you. So, #1 gets to pick first and basically gets to go wherever he/she desires. Then, for the second clinical they flip it, so #1 becomes #38 (in my case because there are 38 students in our class) and #38 becomes #1 so that it's fair.

Now, on the first clinical experience everyone is placed on out-patient orthopedic because that is what we spend all of our time learning about the first year. So, really, there is no choice, because everyone goes to out-patient ortho and you only get a choice as to where you go. The second-forth clinicals are a little more exciting because you can choose in-patient, skilled nursing, pediatrics, cardiopulm, etc... So, I was really hoping I'd get a "late" number so that I'd be near the top for when the choosing actually begins.

Low and behold... I am #1. I get first choice on wherever I want to go for my first clinical. And, I'm probably the only person in the history of ever to be mad about it. I would've much rather have been further up on the list for round 2-4 where there ARE choices, especially since some of the places I want to go to are going to be high on lots of peoples' lists.

But, this must have happened for a reason and I'm not going to complain about it, I'm just going to REALLY research the clinical affiliations and choose the one that I feel will be best for me and keep my fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I'm still freaking out about school, but I'm just trying to push it aside for right now with the end of the semester fastly approaching.

I just keep telling myself, well, I made it through today and that's one less day I have to deal with...

42 more days until the end of the semester.

Oh hi. What's new and exciting?

Same old, same old here. I should really be studying physiology and anatomy instead of surfing the interwebz and writing in this thing, but as soon as I'm done here, I promise I'll get down and dirty with my books.

I went to counseling last week and it was weird; I guess it probably always is... nothing really got accomplished. My counselor told me that I need to not get stressed out about things that don't "matter". For example, my house is in a constant state of chaos because I never have time to clean it. Messes stress me out, thus when I am at home I am immediately stressed due to the dishes not being done, dishes all over the living room, dirt on the floor, clothes strewn about, etc.

Unfortunately, "breathing deeply" does not help me feel better about any of these things, so although I wanted to follow her advice, it's not really doing any good. The house is still a mess and thus I am still stressed.

She also told me I need to join the gym stat. No kidding. Once again, I told her I would do it, and yet I have had no time to go over to join (I suppose I could be doing THAT now instead of this, but oh well). I haven't worked out at all since August and it sucks. I went from working out 2 hours a day 4x a week to zero. I can tell I'm gaining weight and that makes me more stressed. I just don't know how to carve the time out to go when I feel stressed to the max about not having enough time. I mean, I can't even clean my house, let alone leave the house to go do something else. Ugh. I just need to do it and get over it, but I'm not done whining about it.

Anyway, we'll see what happens over the next few weeks when I go and if we can evaluate my study habits and figure out how I can be more effective then maybe that will help.

B.T.Dubs, I got a 98% on my anatomy test and a 98% on my clinical skills written exam. I'm sitting pretty; just unhappy.

So, anyway, I am looking forward to Thanksgiving week because J* and I are heading up to NYC to visit my HS girlfriend and stay for a few days. I cannot wait to get away from school and everything negative surrounding me right now; it is much, much, MUCH needed.

Besides that, only 42 days until the end of the semester. I just keep telling myself as each day passes, it's one less day I have to deal with; I got through it and I just need to push forward.

We'll see where I go from here...

Hell Week

Well, I just finished the week that everyone refers to as "Hell Week" and just barely survived. Hell Week consists of 5 tests in four days and is allegedly the roughest week of the entire semester.

On Monday I had my second anatomy lecture exam, which wasn't too terrible. Although, I felt like I threw up all the information I knew onto that test and felt nervous for the practical the following day. I also had my "standard patient interview" with a faculty member in which he pretended to be a patient coming to my clinic and I had to gain information about him and his injury, hitting a number of must-asks, in an appropriate manner. No problem. Passed with flying colors.

On Tuesday we had our first "check offs" in clinical skills. Check offs consist of palpations and then either gait training/transfers/etc depending on what we have learned. The first check off was palpations of the lower limb and the shoulder and then gait training. You are given 3 structures to find for the palpation part (at random; you choose when you arrive at your check off time) and then you're given a patient situation in which you need to demonstrate appropriate interactions and decision making on choosing the correct assistive device (walker, crutches, cane, etc) for the patient. My check-off was terrible; as I've been writing from time to time I'm having a rough adjustment into school and haven't been happy since I started (in fact, to be honest, I've been quite miserable 95% of the time), thus it was a train-wreck that resulted in me having to re-take the check-off on Thursday.

Also, on Tuesday I had my anatomy practical exam. After my terrible morning I was feeling even more distraught about school and honestly didn't even feel like taking the practical; I just wanted to quit school and go home. But, I'm not going to make a rash decision when emotions are high, so of course I stayed and took it. And it was hard. There were too many people in the room so I couldn't follow my thought process and when the professor called "5 minutes" I had about 10 blank answers. I didn't stay to watch him grade it and later got my grade off the internet... 74%. Ouch. :(

On Wednesday, I had a free day. Some people were still doing their patient interviews, but I had done that on Monday, so it was a quick breather for me.

On Thursday, I had my clinical skills written exam, which went pretty darn well. It's not that I don't know the information, or that it's too hard, it's just that it makes me severely unhappy and I need to decide if I'm unhappy because I am constantly stressed or I'm unhappy because this is not right for me. Also, after the written exam I had to redo my check-offs, and I, of course, passed with a 100% and celebrated with lunch with my one classmate.

So, I am now home and feeling much better because there is no stress on me, however, as soon as it is time for another round of tests I will be feeling the exact same way, so I've decided to go to counseling to see if they can help me sort through all of this so I can make an educated decision that I won't regret.

Until then, I guess I'll just try to deal with being miserable.

First Exams

So, I really don't have a ton of time to write in this thing now that school rules my life... plus, I have about 30 different personal things going on that really make me feel like I'm being pulled in 700 directions at all times. It's weird because school is really making a lot of things really difficult in the rest of my life and I don't know if I should be this angry about it.

I met with my advisor for the first time and she was very nice, but not really all that helpful. I just lied and told her I felt better because it seemed to make her feel better ;)

The big news is that I made it through my first 2 big tests alive and I got A's on both of them. I was so worried after my anatomy test because everyone I talked to had different answers than me and it ended up that all the answers I had were the correct ones; although I did make some stupid mistakes (as per usual). I got a lower score on my physiology test but had felt about 100x more confident about it after I took it, so I wasn't really phased by my grade. My previous high score on a physiology test was a mid-range C; so the mere fact that I got an A was amazing enough for me.

I do think I need to figure out how to study more effectively; after my two tests I have felt so completely burnt out; I'm having a really hard time buckling down to study (as I am writing this right now) and I need to get my act together soon so that I'm not freaking out in a couple weeks when the next round of testing hits.

Anyway, I don't really know what else to say, lots of things are going on and my head is constantly spinning and I'm not quite sure that I'm used to it yet. ;)

My first "real" grade...

Ok, I don't have a ton of free time to post, because our first huge exams are coming up next Monday and I definitely need to study as much as possible. I have a LOT of muscles to memorize and a lot of information to integrate into my brain in what seems like an impossibly short amount of time.

In any case, I wanted to write so that I could have a giggle at myself and also let everyone know that I did have my first "real assignment" and I got a 10/10 on my physiology quiz.

I was pretty excited because physiology doesn't come easy to me and I really didn't use my notes/book at all (only on one question) and I was able to get all the questions right. It gave me a little bit of confidence to just buckle down and get this stuff into my brain.

So, although at times I feel discouraged and unsure, I feel like so far this week, I feel a lot more confident. Plus, my horoscope ruled and I just want to share it with you because it's amazing advice:

"Some construction workers walk along steel girders hundreds of feet above ground with no worry whatsoever. They believe that, if you can walk along a girder on the ground without falling off, then you can do the same 200 feet higher. There's something you must do that you're more than capable of doing. You feel daunted though by the fact that you have to do it in a new way or environment. Just take it one step at a time. All will be fine."