Brain Stretch

     So that small pile of three books there - a text, a workbook, and a little review "bible" =  $126.00   Thank goodness the fire department pays for them, in return for being a volunteer EMT for them when you finish. I also had to have a physical, which was fine, except for the update needed to the tetanus shot (ugh), the first of three Hep B shots (THAT stuff burns like crazy going in, making the tetanus the LESS painful of the two shots, oddly enough) , and needing to go "give" some blood for the MMR titer, and if that is not current, then I need more of those as well. THAT sucks. (My 17 year old son, who I am taking the class with, sat in the doctors office worrying himself to death about maybe having to get a shot himself, and then finally announced to me that if he had to get one, he thought maybe he just would drop the class. I thought that rather ironic, that he would be willing to work to save someone's life, but NOT willing to get a tetanus shot??? Luckily for both of us, he didn't need any updates, and we're both still in the class.)
     First module test is tomorrow night, the first 5 chapters of that NYC phonebook-sized text on Emergency Care. It is not nearly as overwhelming at the moment as it seemed it would be the first night. I am "getting it," mostly, except for Chapter 4, The Human Body.  Holy cow. What IS it about bone names: femur, tibia, fibula, radius, ulna that makes me unable to remember where they go in my body? Not only that, that's not the hard part. The thing I am TOTALLY not hanging onto yet, and need to by tomorrow night, is trying to use the terms to describe where an injury on a patient's body:  midline, medial, lateral, bilateral mid-axillary, anterior, posterior, ventral, dorsal, superior, inferior, proximal, distal etc., etc.
      I think it is because it requires putting several pieces together at once: I have to remember if it is the front or back, upper or lower, and the name of it - and if I could just say it is on the inside of his upper left arm, that would be ok, but I have to take THAT knowledge, and then, mentally transfer it to it's proper names, and put them all together, like "it's a broken tibia on the anterior dorsal side, medial to the whatchamacallit."  And for someone with ADD, that's a lot of steps to think out, and say, quickly and calmly. Hopefully, with practice, that will come. Either that, or I'm simply praying no one in my town EVER suffers a broken bone - only heart attacks and stomach pains.
Just kidding. Maybe. I'll see if I'm kidding AFTER tomorrow night's test!!