Month: October 2018

Week 2 done….mostly. Only 8 more weeks to go not including finals. It still amazes me how fast quarters fly by compared to semesters.

My psych class is more interesting than last quarters because it deals with a person from life to death and all that encompasses their life which is a little more geared to nursing than my last psych class was. Overall though it is still a little boring. This week we are learning about the period of conception to birth. Lots of talk about genes and chromosomes so far.

This is week 2 of muscles and we are getting more in depth. I would say i am comfortable with about 1/2-2/3rds of what is required for my practicum next week. I can find most of it on diagrams and spent 2 hours of lab getting comfortable with where things are on the models and how to differentiate because the models are not the clearest things. Then I spent 10-15 min in the cadaver lab making sure I could find most of the muscles on the cadavers with some degree of confidence.

Let me tell you 10-15 minutes in there is very different than 3 minutes of introduction. After about 10 minutes breathing in all those chemical fumes really got to me and i got lightheaded and felt that hot cold flush so I stepped out, the last thing I wanted to do was faint in there. I took a few deep breathes outside the lab then went back in to get a quick look at the body that was positioned on their posterior side as i had been working with the anterior model. Those are some really harsh chemical fumes with not much ventilation.

The cadaver lab is definitely invaluable as a learning tool but it is really hard to deal with all the emotions, they sneak up on me.

Here is a train of thought for most of the cadaver lad period, yes this is pretty accurate:  oh i am looking at the actual rectus femerous cool! and that is the vastus medialus and vastus lateralus, i got this, where is the adductor longus, oh its right there next to some pubic hair ohhhh hair, this was a person, who is dead…….and oh man the professor is now moving muscle around to try and show us the adductor magnus which is burried down in there oh man that is a little gross but cool but weird…….ahhhh too much to think about and oh man is that smell overwhelming…… oh lets try the other cadaver to see if you can see it better nope, not really, oh good so that definitely wont be asked on the practicum if even he cant find it, uh oh i feel a little light-headed and weird, get out now before you collapse. GO!!! Ok deep breathes, take a minute and get back in there! But pay attention to how you feel. OK i am ok, oh is that the trapezius and the gluteous maximus and the gluteous medius and the piriformus, look at me identifying these! OH that smell, so that is the rhomboid major, is that the levetae scapular? oh man, the smell, it is now so much worse, my nostrils are on fire, oh the tricep brachii ok i think i am done, need to get out. where does this instrament go? wash your hands, oh what is everyone looking at…….oh fetuses in jars in the cupboard, wow that is cool, oh man so sad……so so sad, dont want to think about it. time to leave.

I was definitely woozy, shakey and a little nauseous afterwards. I took it easy all night after lab. It is difficult to digest all the feelings that come with the cadaver lab but I am still so thankful that i get to experience it.

I feel like I am keeping up and on track but don’t feel like I’ve gotten ahead yet this quarter and with all the wedding things I might not get ahead, we will have to see.