Phew! What a Day!

Today was my first campus lab day for Ortho/Neuro. Cranial nerves, musculoskeletal issues, bursitis, arthritis, fractures, blah, blah, blah. While a very important aspect of our health, I tend to find some subject matter quite boring.

Anyway, my day didn't start off on the best foot. For this class, I have to be at my campus labs by 8am, which proves to be a little tricky when I have to take the kids to school and they can't arrive any earlier than 7:30am. I have to walk each one to class, say goodbye, get back to my car, drive to my school, park (and the parking lot is CRAZY), walk to class, and be in class by 8am. Well, my plan was to leave my house by 7am and no later in order to complete this task. At 7:15am, Grace walks into my room and tells me that it is 7:15am.

I immediately jump up out of bed. Then I put my head in my hands and say, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?" My awesomely helpful, and SMART, husband said he would take my car and take the kids to school for me so I can get dressed and get going. I don't know how long it would have taken me to think of that, but I'm so glad he did. So I was hoping this wasn't going to set the stage for the day to come.

Anyway, as normal on the first day of clinical/campus labs with every rotation, there is a math test. Ten questions. You have to score 90% or higher to pass, which means you can only miss 1 question. We get these practice questions for every course, with problems that are similar to how the test will be. Every step, they get a little trickier. I have to say, this was by far the worst math test ever. There were multiple steps to almost every problem. Each step needed some sort of rounding to be done. I dividing numbers like 0.133 by numbers like 0.167. Not that it's super difficult, but it's easy to make a mistake with so many numbers and decimals.

I was more nervous after this exam than any other I had been in the past. If you fail the first one, you can take a make-up exam next week, but really, who wants the pressure. I was so stressed over this exam, to have to make it up would honestly drive me beyond crazy. If you fail the make-up exam, then you have to withdraw from clinical and you have to wait until the next class, which wouldn't be until March.

Well, I passed. Deep breath. Sigh of relief. I was literally so stressed yesterday that I had a little breakdown and cried. It wasn't a long cry. It was just a put-my-head-in-my-hands-and-tear-up-a-little cry. However, it was pretty sad that Grace was trying to console me. She said that I was crying, and Nate said that I was not. Then Grace explained to him that I made a crying noise and my head was in my hands. Then Grace tried to console me by saying that it would be OK and that sometimes, when she has a test and she thinks she didn't do well, she gets 100%. She's so cute. The math exam is one exam where I don't care how well I do, I just want to pass. Unfortunately, passing means a normally "good" grade. But at any rate, it's over, it's done and I have 2 math exams left before I graduate.

Deep breath. Exhale.