Mid week update

Sunday

Just after I left the festival on Sunday afternoon was when the “40 year storm” or whatever the media is calling it hit. It was so windy, branches flying everywhere and really heavy rain and hail, things kept hitting the car with a loud ‘BANG!’ Then I drove through a puddle and got bogged on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. My phone didn’t work either, no reception. Luckily within 15 minutes a local man with a 4WD and a rope appeared and proceeded to rescue me. I wasn’t even driving in the right direction, I had missed the turn off back to the main highway. He said something like “What are you doing out here?? This is where elephants come to die.” LOL. Also very lucky was that my car was not damaged in any way. The devastation to the environment out in the country was pretty bad, a lot of trees were uprooted, signs blown over etc. The drive back ended up taking more than 5 hours instead of 3.

Monday

Had a lot of organisational type stuff to do, like laundry, food shopping, clean house and car, tidy yoga studio (should have been done Sunday night). Didn’t end up going to uni (watch lecture online later in the week). Can’t go to uni if you don’t have any clean jeans!

Tuesday

Still feeling pretty tired . . . and COLD! Would have liked to spend the whole day like this.


Lectures:
• Intravenous Therapy (uni)

Reading:
• Alcohol problems in surgical settings

If you would like to know whether you are an alcoholic or not you can take this test:
http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/addiction-self-test.htm

There is also a lot of interesting information about addiction, withdrawal and recovering from addiction to other drugs as well as mental disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Wednesday

Lectures:
• Drug Calculations – Dosages (online)
• Assessing Musculoskeletal & Integumentary Systems (online lecture that I missed on Monday)
• Emotional and Mental Health Assessment (online lecture that I missed on Monday)

Videos:
• Types of IV Therapy
• Patient Assessment before IV Therapy
• Changing an IV Flask

Good nursing website I found:
• Assessing a Patient for Alcohol Withdrawal using the CIWA (Clinical Institute Withdrawal of Alcohol scale)
• http://www.chce.research.va.gov/apps/PAWS/content/2.htm - Mr Green’s initial assessment to find out if he’s a drinker
• http://www.chce.research.va.gov/apps/PAWS/content/4.htm - Mr Green’s assessment using the Alcohol Withdrawal Scale
• http://www.chce.research.va.gov/apps/PAWS/content/6.htm - Mr Krindel’s assessment using the Alcohol Withdrawal Scale

Have a go! These are kind of funny...:-)