Week 14: Urinary Elimination

This week, we learned the extremely fascinating concepts of urinary and bowel elimination. (Also known as peeing and pooping... Riveting, I know.) Since there was so much information in this topic, I decided to just share some of the fun highlights or weird tidbits we learned.

Did you know that if someone's having trouble urinating, you can pluck their pubic hair and that can stimulate them to go?

Did you know that old men frequently have problems urinating because their prostate enlarges and pinches their urethra?

Did you know that it is better anatomically for men to stand while urinating and women to sit?

Did you know UTIs (urinary tract infections) are the most common health care acquired infection?

Sometimes I'm shocked this dummy isn't blonde....

Did you know most people only urinate 5x per day (after waking, after each meal, and before bed)?

Did you know that your eyes turn red in a swimming pool from the combination of urine and chlorine in the water? (And did you subsequently know that most people urinate in the swimming pool?!)

Did you know certain medications can change the color of your urine? Depending on what medication you're taking, it could be perfectly acceptable to have blue, green, or orange urine!

Did you know some people believe that urine can heal diseases? If they're sick, they'll mix a drop of urine with water and drink it. Some people claim it really works! (Personally, I think "Eeeewwww!!!")

Next week, I just have a test and a nutrition project presentation and then I'm off for Thanksgiving so there'll be no post next week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 13: Stress!!!!!!!

This week, we learned about stress and coping. The joke at school was that we needed to learn about this topic 13 weeks ago....

There are two different types of stress - eustress (good stress) and distress (bad stress). Eustress causes someone to get the job done and work hard. It brings about positive results. Distress causes someone to freak out and overload and have a melt down. It brings about negative results and eventually causes the person to crash and burn.

...this is what my nursing class looks like half the time.

So the question was asked: Is nursing school a eustress or a distress?

There were multiple opinions expressed about the stress of nursing school. Some people said it was distress since it was just too much and there were too many assignments and they couldn't pass tests and they were starting to get ulcers from the constant stress and they were working part time and trying to raise their family and they don't know how they're going to make it. Other people said that nursing school was eustress since it was stressful enough that we are constantly studying making us better students and eventually better nurses.

When someone is under stress, there's three phases. The first phase is the alarm reaction phase, where their body responds to the stress and the fight or flight response occurs. If it lasts long enough, it moves to the second stage, the resistance stage. In this stage, the body stabilizes and tries to adjust to the stresser. The stress is still there but the body is no longer responding to it. After a while, it moves into the third phase - exhaustion. At this point, the body is so worn down that it gives up. It doesn't have any more energy and becomes ill.

Of course, this week we had a really big skills check off and 31 out of the 39 students failed. It wasn't exactly our fault since there's a ton of miscommunication between students and teachers. Thankfully, the problems are starting to be resolved and everyone passed the re-check off!

...Until next week!

Week 12: Family

This week, we learned about the concept of family. We also learned about tissue integrity and wound care, but it was boring and I decided family would be much more interesting. :)

There wasn't really anything earth shattering I learned so I'll just quickly post some fun facts:

The "typical" family (mom, dad, kids) is no longer the norm. There's now single parent families, blended families, alternative families, and extended family groupings.

26% of households are just one person living alone.

54% of marriages end in divorce... :(

41% of children live with single moms who've never married (I personally found this number shocking)

I couldn't find a good picture for this, so I just found a funny picture that has absolutely nothing to do with single moms.

24% of children have their fathers as their main caretaker (I find this number hard to believe...)

Being 65-years-old is no longer considered "old," but "middle aged."

party time!

...Well, that's the interesting facts from this week! Until next week!