 Hi everyone and welcome back. This is my second week of third year kicking it off with a bang. So today we had our module launch for our next assignment which is policy and politics. 3,000 words. I think I mentioned this last week. I wasn't looking forward to this one. However looking at the assignment brief and having the lecture today I thought you know what actually this is gonna be okay to write I think. Hope I'm not jinxing myself here but in my head I'm thinking actually yeah okay this sounds easy. I think I can do this which I don't know whether it will be easy or not. I don't know but I've started to make some notes. I've started planning the assignment and to be honest I don't usually plan assignments. I literally start writing. That's the way I've always done my assignments. It's just the way I work. I've never made a plan or anything like that but this time because there's a lot of things that I want to include in this one because I already know what topic I want to discuss within this assignment. I just want to make sure I cover everything that I need to. So I'm just making some bullet points rather than an actual plan. I'm making some bullet points of things that I want to include my assignment. Make sure they get in there. Make sure I hit the marks, hit the marking criteria, hit the assignment brief and pass. So basically this assignment is all about firstly we have to write a bit of a reflection to start with about something that we've experienced out in practice and then we're gonna look at the policies, procedures, guidelines, the laws, the rules, the regulations, what the government says about that, what's been happening out there in practice, what could be happening in the future in practice. So I think it's gonna be okay. I've got a situation in mind that happened when I was out on my last placement on my very last day. I had a really tough day. Something happened and I'm gonna write about that as my reflection and there's gonna be a lot of statistics and policies and procedures and guidelines and laws and things like that to back it up and there's also a few things that I can critically analyse as well. So fingers crossed, I think I've got it but we'll see as the week goes on. Tomorrow I'm back in uni for a nine to five all day and it's gonna be the physiology so at the minute we're learning about the liver. This was last week so last week and this week we are learning about the liver and to be honest we haven't done anything. We've briefly spoke about the liver but we haven't gone in depth with the liver before so this is brand new information to me. I think it's just gonna be that little bit harder to get my head around because it's something brand spanking new thrown at us. Right now I'm actually on the Khan Academy. Let me just show you. So yeah so this is the video I'm currently watching on the Khan Academy. I really highly recommend the Khan Academy for revising physiology. It's something that I find amazing and it's just really really helped me with my physiology and my exams. So that's it for day one. I shall see you all tomorrow. I have just left for uni. It's freezing cold and it snowed. Yes the only thing is I live at the top of the hill so I have to try and get down that hill without sliding and breaking my leg. Fingers crossed I make it into uni today and yeah hopefully I've got a great day ahead and I shall see you later. So that's me. I'm back. I'm home. It's about nine o'clock at night now because I've had a non-stop evening since I got back. I actually ended up making some really nice vegetable lasagna. Then I had a Skype call with my fellow GPN student ambassadors which was amazing. Just having a little bit of an update between everybody and what's been going on. Oh and then I had to do my basic life support, mandatory, online training thing before our skills session tomorrow which I'm really excited for. So today. So today as I said we had a full day of physiology. It's all about liver cirrhosis, this case study and I'm not gonna lie you might be able to tell by the look on my face. I'm really struggling. Last night I showed you I was on Karn Academy. I was on Karn Academy. I was looking at the liver cirrhosis video and it was amazing. I've made a little playlist actually so have a look at the playlist. It's in there. It's such a good video. I fully understood it. I was like yes I get this. This is amazing and then today I've gone in and it's all I can understand that video and cirrhosis and how it affects the body and all of that but the things that we did today was just so in-depth that it's just gone way over my head. So I fully plan on finding more Karn Academy videos and just going over and over and over until it's drilled into my brain and I understand it because right now I'm thinking oh my god how am I gonna pass this exam because some of the things that was taught today were so in depth and I was just thinking wow do we need to know this in-depth. I mean I fully understand as nurses you know we need the physiology we need the theory and I am one person that absolutely loves it when you're out in practice a patient's sick and you can start to think and apply that physiology to that patient and it's just it is like magic fireworks in your mind go whoa I understand this it's the best moment you'll ever have but today I felt like it was a little bit too in-depth like I felt like I should be trained to be a doctor it was that much in-depth and I was thinking how am I gonna remember this how am I gonna learn this what am I going to do with my life but that was only the second and third sessions we had today it was four hours of physiology and I think as time goes on with the other case studies because we've still got three case studies to go through this is only the first case study so it's going to be the same thing repeated just different scenarios different diseases different conditions things like that and I think as time goes along and fingers crossed by the end of it I'm going to be like I get it I know it I'm ready for this exam fingers crossed because right now you don't see me panic much but I'm panicking I'm panicking I'm thinking oh my god I'm gonna pass this exam and that's the first time I think I've really doubted myself and my abilities like really really doubted I know before I've stressed and things about revision and things like that this is the first time that I'm actually thinking wow this is one that I could actually fail so I need to make sure I don't fail I need to make sure I'm revising between now and the exam in May I need to be revising from now to stay on top of it every single week get it into my brain every single week and hopefully by the time the exam comes I'm gonna remember it and I'm gonna be there I'm gonna be hitting the high marks and hopefully so I have got some positivity I have got faith I just I know where my weak areas are I know that I need to focus on those revise put a plan into place to make sure I don't fail this exam and I think that's something really important you have to do as a student nurse you need to recognise those weaknesses and you need to develop and grow as a student nurse because when you qualify and you're out there it's going to be tough so it's really important even as a qualified nurse that you recognise those weaknesses and you develop and you grow not only that is it's when you're a qualified nurse that's what teamwork's all about your weakness is somebody else's strength and we bond and we gel and we collaborate together provide the best care possible for our patient so yeah so sorry I've gone on a little bit of a tangent there so tomorrow is our last day of the week we have our skills sessions which is going to be basic life support so I'm gonna get some videos I'm gonna show you what we do in basic life support hopefully not make a fool of myself doing basic life sport and I'll show you how it goes so I'll see you all tomorrow I'm gonna stop panicking I'm shutting down I'm Sharon and get into bed I'll see you all tomorrow ready for an amazing session so that's me back I had my very last life support session at university today it's really sad it's really upsetting that actually everything we're doing now is like for the last time at university because it's the final year it's really emotional guys it's just like I'm gonna try not to get emotional shake it off so yeah so our last very last life support session went really really well it was fantastic and to be honest I really worry about my own chest compressions because I always get the technique wrong if you do life support out there if you know what I'm talking about you'll know what I'm talking about but for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about when you're doing chest compressions during CPR you have to position your body right to get the amount of weight to actually get the depth that you need you need to get five to six centimetres I don't know that's not even five or six centimetres but you need to get five or six centimetres depth on that chest and it's actually harder than you think so for me the mistake I make is when I'm kneeling down on the floor I put my knees together and also my body's not far enough over the body over the chest when I'm doing the chest compressions so I learned today if I put my knees as close to the body as possible I just separate them so their shoulders shoulder whiffs apart and put my body all the way over keep a completely straight arm don't bend your arms at all and just rock as hard as you can onto the chest put all of that weight and you will do it because I really struggled and my very first attempt today I got 66% which is embarrassing nobody wants to do almost half of a chest compression no that's not okay so it was the first attempt I haven't done CPR for a long long long time I haven't practiced it since last year so I was really out of touch and that was because all because my body posture and everything was completely wrong and I was going a little bit too quick so those were the reasons why I got 66% so the second attempt I corrected my body positioning I went for it again but I was just going that little bit too quick again so I got 84% but all my body position was right but technique was okay it was just I was going that little bit too fast so then I did it again and I did I did again and again and again until I perfected it still got 94% I got the 94% because as I was doing it my hand just altered I wasn't concentrating on my hand positioning and my hand kept altering so going too high up on the chest so that was just knocking off some points for me so just to warn you out there when you're doing your life support just make sure your body position is right and your chest compressions are deep enough make sure you're in the right place and make sure your breaths are good my breaths I'm fine with them good with breaths I can get enough ventilation into the body it's just the chest compression bit which is the most important bit at doing CPR on an adult is the chest compressions because usually with adults it's because of a cardiovascular problem don't need as many breaths as you do with a child because in children the more likely cause of them in unresponsive is due to a respiratory problem so those are the difference between adult and child so with a child you would give five rescue breaths first and then you would go on to the chest compressions and you would do 15 to 2 for a child but on an adult you straight to chest compression 30 to 2 30 to 2 and keep going until you get a response or you get the D-Fib or you get some help so yeah so for me it just it it was just just to start off with and seeing that 66% as I need to do better because if this is a life a real-life situation out there I want to give that patient the best chance possible of survival I don't want to be a 50% student I don't want to be a 60% student I don't even want to be an 80% student with chest compressions I want to be a hundred percent I'm still gutted that I've got 94 and I just made those slight mistakes but as long as I remember those techniques in the moment if it ever ever happens I'm sure it's gonna happen at some point in my life as long as I remember those techniques and what to do then I'm gonna be just fine but practice makes perfect is the top tip for CPR practice practice practice and to be honest I think I'm gonna go and make use of our skill sessions and keep practicing because I want to perfect this