And so it begins...

Internship week one: completed.

So this passed week was the first week of my internship at Primary Children's. It was both long and great at the same time. I spent the last week enduring 10 hour days of seminars. Thursday and Friday I got a half of a day in the units I'll be working in (yay!) For the first half of the semester, I will be in Same-Day surgery and Outpatient Clinics/Medical Imaging. So excited and terrified at the same time! I also help teach (eventually I will teach all by myself) the pre-surgery or POP class for kids who are coming in to have surgery. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I've decided that if I have time during the weeks, I'm going to be using this blog as a coping release for myself during the next four months. You probably will not see any pictures or anything exciting. I don't expect anyone to want to read it because it will be for my benefit more than anything. But feel free to read if you wish! I probably will not have enough time to do so...they have a very full schedule for me (40 hours a week of clinicals) plus, assignments due three days a week/weekly meetings with my supervisors/set goals to accomplish throughout the semester/case studies to write/evaluations, etc. Oh boy.

I did learn some cool stuff in my seminars this week though that helps me to feel at least a little more confident in what I'm about to be doing. During my Psychological Prep seminar, they actually role-played with us and showed us how they would prep a child for an IV and PICC line. Super simple (they kept it basic for our mushed brain's sake), but it was great to see all of the different medical equipment and learn how to use it all. Having my dad as a doctor, I always felt like I already knew so much about the medical field. Yeah...I know nothing.

I'm extremely nervous about really beginning my rounds on Monday. It's amazing how you can feel so book-smart and then when you actually get into your field, applying that information to practice is a whole other story. Wow. I feel like I know NOTHING. I'm sure I will get more and more comfortable with everything as the time goes on, I just wish I was to that point already. I just worry so much about disappointing myself and my supervisors. It's intense work that I will be doing and I really, really want to be good at it. I am in theory...but in real life? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Starting Monday, that whole week will be purely observation, thank the heavens. I'm very grateful that they realize that we (I am one of two interns) are just people and I would have no clue what to do if they just threw me in and said GO! So I went and bought all kinds of supplies for myself today. I have my planner that I'm marking all the dates in of critical things that are due and meetings to plan. I have also organized all my articles and readings from previous classes into binders by topic as future resources for my assignments and work. I feel organized and that helps me to calm down somewhat. My supervisor also showed me a resource of where I can go and look up just about every procedure that is done in the hospital so that I can effectively prep any child for them, help them to cope, etc.

I'm about to step into an amazing experience and I'm more excited than anything about it. I'm going to be learning so much from several different specialists that have been doing this for years. (some of them over 20 years they've been doing this!) So they are pro and I get to learn from them. I am so lucky. This is an amazing opportunity. I just hope that I do well. I'm sure I'm going to be having a roller coaster of experiences that will be both positive and negative, but I will learn from them all. Child Life rocks!

For now I'm going to enjoy the rest of my very welcomed weekend and try not to think about work again until Monday. :)

Annual Girls Trip - St. George

Last weekend was our annual girls trip with my mom and sisters. The plan was to go to Seattle and Forks this year, but it didn't work out because Elise went on a trip to Belize for 3 weeks. Between that and school starting soon, we had to do just a short trip instead, somewhere semi-close by. Especially since Elise wasn't going to be with us, we didn't want her to miss out on Seattle! So that trip's been bumped to next year. (We can't wait to go! We've got so many things we want to do there.) Anyway, so we decided St. George would be a fun place for us to go for a weekend, especially since my grandparent's have a home there so we didn't have to pay for a hotel. We were there for 3 1/2 days and it was jammed packed with stuff to do!



Thursday, we left in the morning and got there around noon so we headed straight for the pool. Then we went shopping at the very sad mall down there, but actually found some fun stuff. We ended the night with Pizza Factory (yum!) and watching the movie Leap Year. (a cute romantic comedy, nothing special, but cute)



Friday we spent about 3 hours floating around in the pool chatting away. It was so nice and relaxing. It makes me really want a pool again. Too bad they are such a waste in most of Utah. Then we went straight to get pedi's and mani's. They were pretty terrible compared to some awesome ones I've gotten before, but it's ok, it was still fun to go with the girls!



Then it was back to the house to get ready for Tarzan at Tuachann Amphitheater! We have been looking forward to this show for months now! So we got all dressed up and headed to the show. It was the perfect night for it too. Not too hot and even had a little breeze as it got later. I just love how that theater is outdoors! It's so neat!











And Tarzan was awesome. The performances were great and the outdoor theater was awesome having the actors swing all around us. So fun!!

Saturday we of course spent a couple hours at the pool. We were at the pool every single morning. It was a great way to start the day. After lunch, we decided to go check out this Art Village my grandparent's recommended to us. We didn't expect much, and it wasn't all that great, but it was fun to see at least once. I really liked the pottery there that was hand made in front of you and the art around the grounds was fun too.





After the art village, we had to do more shopping of course. Who can get enough of that?? Not us! Plus, I had to go pick up this bonsai tree that I found for Jordan! We have been looking for one for him forever (he loves them) and he's really picky about what it looks like. So I found the perfect one for him while I was down there! He was very excited.







After shopping for a couple hours, we decided to hit a movie. Theaters down there are strange, at least from our experience. We couldn't find like a big megaplex or anything, they were just small dollar theaters almost. There were a bunch of them and each one only played like 3 or 4 movies. So you picked the movie you wanted to see and then found the theater it was playing at. Yeah weird. But it was hilarious really. We decided we wanted to see Knight and Day since our boys didn't want to. We found the theater and found out it was only $2 a ticket! Crazy cheap! Then we sat down in the theater (dollar theater quality) and before the show started, the manager of the whole place came in to do trivia questions before the movie started. We were laughing so hard, you probably had to be there. Anyway, he only asked two questions, and out of the whole theater, my mom got one right and I got the second one right. We won movie posters! haha! It was great. AND we LOVED Knight and Day!! It was cute, funny, exciting, and just a great light hearted movie! It was perfect!!



After the movie, we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant in St. George- The Anasazi. It's a little pricey and you have to make a reservation, but the food is delicious and it's just a fun experience. Me and Jordan went there on our anniversary so I told my mom and Brit that we HAD to go. The food was amazing again as usual. :)



Sunday we just spent some time at the pool in the morning before we packed up and headed back home. Even though we didn't go anywhere outside of Utah like we had planned and Elise wasn't able to go with us because of her trip, it was still an AMAZING girls trip. :) Can't wait to see what next year brings! Hopefully Seattle and Forks!