Friday Five late entry

1. Do you suffer from Spring Fever?

I certainly have in the past. I'm pretty excited for spring this year. Unlike past years, I don't have any particular REASON to be so excited; I just am. In 2009, for example, we had the worst ice storm this area has seen in YEARS and we lived in a trailer in the country. We had to have our house hooked up to a gas powered generator to have any power at all for 3 weeks. I was also in the middle of the accelerated nursing program. That year you better believe I was excited for spring!

2. Have you ever been twitterpated (infatuated or obsessed. In a state of nervous excitement)?

I've definitely been twitterpated, and it was actually during the spring!

3. What does Spring taste like to you?

My immediate reaction to this is that it tastes like raspberry sherbet.

4. When was the last time you visited an ice cream truck?

I want to say it was a couple of years ago during the 4th of July festivities in Frisco, TX. Everyone hangs out in all the business parking lots near the downtown area to wait for the evening fireworks show (which is a very good one) and some enterprising ice cream truckers roll around from parking lot to parking lot, doing fine business.


5. Do you know what song your ice cream truck plays?
We don't have one in our neighborhood. Having listened to a podcast not long ago about the incredibly racist origins of the classic ice cream truck tune I knew as "Turkey in the Straw," I should hope it wouldn't be that one if we DID have an ice cream truck.

Stretching again...

So here I am, with a doctorate...and I've decided I need a LITTLE more school! I have been accepted to the UAMS (University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) College of Nursing as a non-degree seeking student in the acute pediatric program!

What this does is offer me exactly enough classes & clinical hours to make me eligible to take the exam for acute pediatric nurse practitioners so that I can take care of high acuity patients younger than 13. Right now I'm limited to people 13 & older and while that wouldn't have been a hindrance in a hospitalist or intensivist group, it gets weird in emergency. The rotation (the order in which providers take patients) gets weird when you have people like me who aren't qualified to take care of kids. There's also my own feelings on the subject. As I did when I was an RN, once I got comfortable with myself in this role as nurse practitioner, I began to want to expand. Emergency is CLEARLY where I belong. I love it and I appear to be suited for it. Jody, one of the ER charge RNs, was in ACLS renewal class with me today. I had mentioned once working on the floor, and she shook her head & said "I know you did, but I just can't picture you ANYWHERE except emergency no matter how hard I try." It works with my strengths, and my weaknesses are not such a liability in this particular environment. The higher the stress, the better I focus. When I'm in charge of something like a code, the world seems to slow down while I make decisions. BUT--I can't do that with every patient that comes in, & that bothers me. In some cases it's the frustration of not being able to use information I already know simply because the patient is 8 years old. I know how to treat an acute asthma attack in a kid, I just am not allowed to by my scope of practice limitations. In other cases, it's a legitimate gap in knowledge; there are some laboratory tests with different ranges of normal in a child, and some that aren't useful at all. The differential diagnosis for children is different in some chief complaints; the workup for a child vs. an adult for "chest pain," for example, diverges WILDLY.  I want to be the woman who's name gets yelled out of rooms when someone needs help. I want to be known as the woman who steps into the room and gives everyone more confidence because "Creech knows what to do." I'm getting closer to that every day I work, but this program will get me one more big step.

I have that restless feeling I always get just before I start a program. I've been admitted, I've accepted admission, I've even got network access & have set up my school email. But I don't have classes yet, or even know who my advisor is. I'm standing on the starting line, waiting for the word go! It doesn't help my restlessness that my admission letter implied that there's some flexibility in a non-degree seeking program, and that maybe I can make it go faster. Being an older version of Hermione Granger, that idea appeals to me greatly.