The last day….

Today marks my last day of the first half of mentorship. Now is time for the second half and I will be going to….THE ED!!

Im so excited!! I was unsure of where I wanted to go and now that I know I am going to the ED, I am thrilled! So exciting!

But back to today….Im filled with emotion. I am happy, sad, excited and terrified. But mostly I am just in awe of the fact that I made it through and that I am absolutely amazed with my mentor!

13 hours…thats all that is left of this part. 13 hours…..

Lessons learned

I saw a man die recently. Watched him code, watched CPR, watched intubation, assisted with CPR, watched him regain life (according to the tele monitor)….and moments from that I watched him take his last breath.

I am always amazed at how quickly people run the codes on the floor. You hear a code “blue” and then staff drops everything and starts running with equipment. Its like watching a symphony. Everyone is perfectly in sync.

As my time with this mentor is coming to an end, I find that I have learned more about myself as a person and a Nurse while working with her than I have ever learned in my life. Ive learned about the practicle side of nursing, the side that involves more than starting IV’s and giving medications. I learned more about critical thinking in 80 hrs than I did in 20  months of school.

The powers that be matched me with the perfect mentor. She is patient, kind, assertive, and f*cking brilliant. Im amazed by her. And honored to have been told by her that I will be an excellent RN.

Now is the down slope of the hump. Time to move on to my last half of mentorship. A new mentor, new location, new everything. But it is my final countdown, never again will I be doing clinicals like this for the first time. The conclusion that is imminent is overwhelming. Its hard to imagine how close the finish line is. Soon the patients will be mine, the decisions will be mine, and I will be using my “nursing judgement”.

Im ready…..

Back to clinicals/mentorship

I have two more days left of mentorship on the Resp floor after today. Then I will be halfway done with mentorship!! I should find out sometime next week where I will be going for my second half. It is much less stressful than waiting to find out about the first half.

There are some options of where I could be put. The instructor asked me what my preference is and I explained that I still really want to go to L&D. Unfortunetly there are not enough mentors for L&D so I cannot go. Sad. Very sad. I told her that I would love to go to the ED, but I understand that there are some people who are using this as a working interview so if they need to go there, I would be happy to withdraw.

I am hoping for either the ED, or the ortho floor. Anything else would just be mentorship….and I know that there is nothing that I cannot achieve. I can do it. Im just ready to be done.

What made you do it?

“What made you decide on Nursing?”, this was a question that has been posed to me repeatedly over the last few years and although I have always wanted to be a Nurse, there was one major push in my life that made me actually decide to do it.

I can recall a conversation with my Grandpa, telling him what I was considering. I told him that I didnt think I could do it. I knew it was going to be hard, and I was sure it was going to be harder than I could manage. My Grandpa was a man of few words, when he spoke it was time to listen. So when he told me that I could do it, that I should do it, I listened. He funded my first quarter of prereqs. He listened as I worried about school and just told me to keep going. When he got sick with Mesothelioma, I was crushed. I was in the hospital sleeping next to him for many nights.

I would show up after everyone had left, stay in the uncomfortable “chair-bed” and I would hold his hand. If he needed something, I was there. I saw how the nurses treated him, saw how much they did for him. Saw the dignity that they restored him and I knew I had to be one of them. Even in his death he gave me inspiration to continue on with my goal.

Every time I have considered quitting, I have thought about him. It has made me keep going. I would never want to do anything to let him down. Never. And so, when it got harder I thought back to those times. I closed my eyes and remembered his voice. He gave me the strength to keep going.

He is what made this all possible. Without him I wouldnt be where Im at. Without him I never would have been able to realize my dream and make it happen.

So what made you do it?

Some things Ive learned in clinicals

There are many things that Ive learned in clinicals for my mentorship this term, but so far these are the ones that seem to stick out the most.

• No matter how old or how sick you are, your family is never ready to watch you die
• 60 year old men will still cry when their mothers are hurting
• Home ventilator care is tedious
• Multiple Sclerosis is a horrible awful slow miserable way to go
• A spouse who doubles as a care taker is Gods gift to the patient and the nurse
• A patient can go from fine to coding in a matter of a blink
• 150bpm does not always follow the text book and sometimes the patients are asymptomatic
• Sometimes output of 15ml/hr is an accomplishment
• Hydralazine is an amazing medication
• Some people NEED pain medications and wont take them
• People have the right to refuse care, even if you disagree
• When the day is done, its ok to come home and pray for your patients
• People die. No matter how hard you try to prevent it.

Ive done 40 hours of clinicals in 3 days. It was a busy, amazing, overwhelming, incredible, and terrifying 3 days. I learned more in 40 hours than I have in 20 months of nursing school.

Im having a hard time leaving the patients at home. I see some of them in my dreams, I pray for them at Mass. I worry for them. I search the newspaper for their faces in the obituary section. I cry when I find them.

I love it and yet it is exhausting.

Surviving shift one

Im not young anymore. Thats for sure. I can feel it in my back, my hips, my legs, and I feel it in my feet. 12 hours actually turned in to more than 13. I did manage to take two short breaks and I drank a full 40 oz of fluids. I peed more times than I could count, thats something that I dont get a choice about the baby makes it so.

Being pregnant doesnt actually make me slower, but it makes me more precise. I feel more compassionate to my patients and their different situations. I thought about the strangest thing today, each one of my patients were a little baby once. Totally random, but it made me feel closer and want to make them better even more than I could have imagined.

I was told years ago that I would never be a great nurse unless I had children. I can understand that now. There are alot of good nurses out there, but I think parents develop an understanding for their patients. At least that has been my experience.

The biggest “oops” moment of the day….I tagged my EMR charting as “Physical Ass”. Everyone laughed at that. Oops!

I survived shift number one. And now time to get the log finished, and rest up for tomorrow!

Wait…you mean Im in charge?

Mentorship starts in a matter of days. I called and left messages for
My mentoring Nurse but it is difficult to get in touch on the weekend. But still I am pretty sure my shifts will start next week.

It hit me hard the other day, in a few short weeks I will be the nurse. I will be in charge of my patient load. I will be the one who has to trust my gut to make decisions. I will have to recall the information that I learned.

Crap! Thats alot of stress. After two years of “playing” nurse during clinicals its a little scary to think about moving into the real world.

School isnt that hard once it is the only thing you have to do. The first year I worked nearly full time and went to school, it almost killed me. I still maintained good grades, kept on the deans list and even kept my attendance up. But this year my hubby and I decided I should focus on school, so I quit and have only had to work on my Nursing stuff. Goodness it is so much easier!

I can only imagine what it is gonna be like to join the work force again. This time as an RN and mother.

Its really hard to remember that soon Im gonna be in charge. Didnt Nursing school just start?

The results

After the anticipation nearly caused me to stroke out, I found that I didnt get what I wanted. On the other hand I didnt get the shaft either. I did wind up in Med/Surg, in the Respiratory step down unit. Its a tele unit, so not such a bad thing.

I think that in general the assignments were handed out fairly. It didnt seem like the “favorites” all got their first choices, in fact those one seemed to get the most disapointment. And there were people who got the creme de la creme who I dont think deserved it. But I guess the choices were made based on more than what I can see from observation.

At first I got the assignment and thought “it could be worse”. Im relatively happy with where I will be, but I wont lie and say that Im not incredibly disapointed. I busted my buns in L&D, my grades reflect it. My evals from the instructors reflect it. But alas, I didnt get it. It took about two hours and now Im crushed. I feel a little let down that I was so clear about my preference and didnt get anywhere near what I wanted.

Im taking tonight to have my pity party. Tomorrow I will wrap my brain around trying to focus on the assignment and the tasks ahead.

The anticipation is killing me

Tomorrow I find out about my mentorship location(s). It could be a large multitude of combinations. Basically we get 10 weeks of mentorship split into two five week terms. We were asked to pick our top three locations, and I picked L&D, ED, and Pediatrics. I would even be happy with ortho though. I love ortho!

The areas for them to sort us all include these: L&D, ED, ICU, PEDS, Many Med/surg floors, and Long term care.

There are about 62 students in our class that have to be divided into those locations. We are supposed to have two separate rotations, so we each need two locations. Understandably this is a huge task. I know that there are many factors that go into sorting the student nurses into the locations. They take into account our request, our ability, available mentors, and students per facility. This means that basically, not everyone is going to get what they requested.

Because I have been so verbal about my general dissapointment with the program, and have been very outspoken with the short comings of this school, I have a feeling that I will not get any of the locations that I requested. Its just a gut feeling. I dont mean to say that they would flat out be vendictive and punish me, but….we will see tomorrow. Perhaps I will have to eat my words then. Perhaps.

Until then, all I can do is pray. I want to be an L&D nurse so badly. I love the autonomy and real difference a good nurse can make in L&D. I know that this is my calling in life. I can feel it. And I know how disapointed I will be if I wind up getting the shaft and spending my 10 weeks of mentorship in Long Term Care and some sort of post of recovery rather than where my passion can further develop.

Just a few more hours and I will find out. My Nursing career is just starting….I cant believe that this part of my schooling is almost over. It seems like just yesterday I started this blog. And soon it will be time to graduate from it. Time flies.

Grades and such

So…grades posted and I rocked another quarter! Im super stoked at the results and really couldnt have asked for more!

I cant believe that the only things standing between me and my RN are 10 weeks of mentorship and the NCLEX.

I think back to 6 years ago when I first started the journey to nursing and I just am in awe that Ive come this far. It really seems like just yesterday I was taking the COMPASS test and enrolling in Calculus and English Comp.

In about 80 days I will be getting my pin and can be officially called a Nurse. My children will be born to a Nurse mama, my husband married to a Nurse. Its crazy.

They say “once a nurse, always a Nurse”. Im making the first level of my life plan complete. Now just to finish my BSN and decide if I want my Masters or PHD. The options are unlimited.

I think seeing my the grades from my last ever test in Nursing school has made it really sink in….Im gonna graduate!

Only the NCLEX is left

Wednesday I took the last ever exams for my Nursing Career. They were the hardest tests I have ever taken in my life. I walked in feeling prepared, and confident. I got the exam in my hands and became tachycardic and diaphoretic (heart racing and sweaty to my non-nursing folks). Suddenly all the med/surg material was written in German. All the professional role development exam was written in Chinese. I was lost. I took twice my normal amount of time to finish the exam, and still feel like I dont know what I answered or if it was correct.

I will find out the test results early next week. And I am sweating it. I really wish that there was a little more instant gratification in testing. More immediate results. But alas that is not the way it will be. I have to wait.

So now, assuming that everything went well in the exams, I have completed the last ever exams in my nursing school days. Only the NCLEX is left.

I will be spending the rest of the weekend praying that I am blessed with passing scores.