Yippee!!!!!

I'm done with the semester! I passed! I'm halfway through! Yoohoo!

Gosh, it feels good to say those things. I've actually been done since Monday but I waited to blog until my "official" final grades were posted. My final Theory grade was a B and my final Clinical grade was an A...so I earned a 3.5 GPA for the semester. I can hear my Dad now, "Where were those grades when I was paying for school?!" haha! :) Just think of all the "life experience" I had during that time, Dad! :) It's just the power of my new last name...Remmengas are just plain smart!

In my last few weeks of Clinical, I spent most of my time on the Orthopedics floor. Surprisingly I really enjoyed that specialty. Perhaps it's all the insight I've gotten this year watching my mom hop along on a bad knee! I was able to squeeze in another first as far as skills go and do some sterile dressing changes on post-op knee and hip replacement patients. I even got to pull a hemovac drain out of a patient's knee! (Not really all that exciting, but everything is exciting to me right now!). We finished up Clinical at the hospital the week of Thanksgiving and then came back nice and full of turkey for a very informal IV skills checkoff. I remember back in August when I was so worried about IV meds and tubes and pumps...now it's a piece of cake! Maybe I did actually learn something! :)

In Theory, my last unit was Neuro and Ortho. We mainly talked about comatose patients, strokes, headaches, Bell's Palsy, arthritis, joint replacements, etc. The neuro was okay but like I said earlier, the ortho stuff was very interesting to me. I made a 90 on my last unit test...probably because I really did enjoy reading the material!

We had a final exam this Monday that was comprehensive...which meant lots of information to review. Fortunately, I had done well enough on the previous exams that I only needed a 4 (yes, a 4!!) to pass the class and a 54 to make a B. I wound up earning enough points for my B...it felt good to not be too nervous about my grade (have to enjoy it any chance ya can!). Because it was a comprehensive final and everybody was studying the same material, I also got to get together and study with some of my friends from last semester. (See pic above...lots of books!)

Now I am off until January 20th. That's worth another Yippee!!! I plan on enjoying the holidays, doing lots of shopping, working a little bit, and catching up with friends. Once the holidays are over and it's just plain 'ol boring January, I will start cracking the books for next semester...the first 8 weeks are Pediatrics and the last 8 weeks are OB/GYN. Rumor has it that it's the hardest semester of school...

Anyways, I am waiting on some more pics to share with you. Once I get them from my classmate, I'll post them on here for you to see so check back soon!

Enjoy the Holidays...Stay safe and warm!!!