Waiting to exhale

It's funny. This thing called life. The last three years have led up to this moment. About threeish (maybe three and a half) years ago. I decided that I was serious about trying to get into nursing school. I decided that I was going to take a math class, the last semester of my senior year, 2011.

Then I graduated with my BA. Took three weeks off and started a human growth and development class online, the next class in the coming year and half of prerequisites. I worked through anatomy (twice), chemistry, microbiology, stats, and physiology. Well I was in the middle of physiology when I found out I'd been conditionally accepted to a 16 month BSN program. I finished that up. Took about a week off and then started my first semester of nursing school.

They tell you it all goes by so fast. And it does. Especially in a 16 month program. It's so fast and yet achingly slow. Every 8 hour day spent studying. Every 6, 8 and 12 hour clinical day. All of the paper writing, care plan writing, studying for tests. It all seems to take so long and yet it flew by. First I was celebrating the first hellish semester being over. Then being halfway through. Then done with the summer, one semester left. Then done. Racing towards finals and pinning.

I learned so much. And yet, I feel like I barely scraped the surface and there is so much more out there for me to learn. I shoved lab values and disease processes into my head, learned therapeutic communication techniques, all of the book smart things you have to have to pass tests and graduate. But very little prepares you to take care of patients. To talk to them and know how to answer them when they ask you questions. Nothing prepares you for the combative patient who had been perfectly fine all morning but now, wants to leave the hospital THIS VERY SECOND.

No one tells you how to interact with the mother on the postpartum unit who was told she could never have a baby, but here she was with a little boy only a few hours old. Struggling to breastfeed because she didn't think she could. Didn't seem to think she deserved all this happiness after a self professed "wild life" until she gave her life to God. Then she was pregnant. And after an hour of being in her sweltering room with her and her baby and the lactation consultant, she expresses some breast milk. She cries over the fact that SHE HAS MILK. And you almost cry from the fact that she's so happy and you're so sweaty.  So you learn as you go.

No one tells you how to care for the 30 something man in the ICU who had a long history of alcohol abuse and ended up with a Mallory Weiss tear and almost bled to death in the ER. No one tells you how to hold his hand and calm him down and tell him it will be alright as the RN does an arterial blood draw. He's supposedly sedated, but you know that he's in there, aware of what's going on. Because he's opening his eyes and struggling against the restraints and squeezing your hand.

No one tells you how to deal with the confused man that tells you there is woman sitting on his bed, and that he's seen big foot. The guy who tells you to enjoy giving him his perineal care (bathe his penis, for the uninitiated). Or the textbook Bipolar patient you talk to in the throes of mania who waxes poetic on a machine that lifts your head up, to lengthen your spine and take the pressure off your bones. Who if, you weren't both standing in a psych ward, you would think he had a PhD in some science you've never even heard of.

No one tells you how to react when you take care of a woman all day, a day when nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens and she tells you that you are going to make a wonderful nurse. How to react when the daughter of a different patient wants to speak to you on the phone because she's heard that you took amazing care of her mother. How do you tell them that you're only a student. That this is your only assignment. That you get to stand around all day and talk to this patient because they're the only one you have.

No one tells you about the smells, and the curses, and the attitude. From patients and other staff members, from the doctors to the nurses to the housekeeping staff. People want to show you things, to teach you because you are student but they also don't trust you. They probably shouldn't trust you. Because God knows you don't know what you're doing.

But then its all over. You're not a student nurse. You can't tell people that you are student because you've graduated. So you say "I just graduated nursing school". Because its a safe place. Everyone congratulates you on finishing! And you thank them and tell them it was hard. Because it was. The hardest thing you've ever done. Then they ask where you're going to get a job and you tell them you don't know that, that you're applying lots of places.

And then suddenly after one interview, you have a job. And still you don't dare to hope that this will actually happen. Because what if they don't wait, what if they don't really want you. What if you fail boards.

So you keep studying. Because you only have to pass a test that encompasses everything you learned in 16 months. All the diseases and meds and therapies and nursing processes. And you barely let yourself get your hopes up because IF you don't pass, then what was the use of dreaming about your new job and your new city and your new life?

But then, the day is here. You've stopped studying because if you don't know it now, you won't learn it in a day. And you try to calm down and remember everything you ever learned. You sit down at the computer. And take your time. And try to think through each question logically. And you still feel like you're getting every other question wrong. And maybe you are. But it shuts off at 75 questions, the lowest amount possible. So you think you either passed or failed spectacularly. But you're done. So you don't care. And you read the newspaper. Something you haven't done in two years.

Then you watch tv and read books and sleep. And when you wake up the next morning, your results are on the state board website and you somehow managed to pass. As if you slipped through the cracks unnoticed. As if by some accident of fate you made it through.

Your family tells you they had no doubt. You're friends say, well we knew you were brilliant. But there was always that niggling fear. That this would be the time your luck fails. That this would be an immensely embarrassing time to be exposed for the fraud that you are.

And you finally exhale. Because you've done it. You are an RN, a nurse. You passed all the tests and did all the paperwork and prayed or sacrificed or whatever it was that enabled you to succeed.

So, you drop an email to HR of the hospital that has hired you. A "Hey by the way, I actually passed boards. So you guys still want me, right?" type of email.

And you exhale again. Because it's kind of nice, after all this time.

A Five Year Plan?

So.. for whatever reason I wrote a five year plan 2 years ago (well 2 1/2 years ago if you want to be specific. February of 2011).

No specific reason why other than I wanted to have some idea of where I was going and where I wanted to be in five years. Is every 2 years... err... 2 1/2 years a good time to update the 5 year plan?? I mean that is halfway to five years.. Maybe that 's a great time to reevaluate.

Some background info to set the scene. In February 2011 I was 20 years old, finishing up my last semester of my undergrad degree. I was trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do with my life after graduating, including where I was going to live as my mom was most likely moving back to Indiana. I was intensely torn between staying in Florida, moving to Indiana because it was easy and cheap and moving somewhere else entirely.

My 5 year plan - Feb. 23, 2011

- Get a BSN
- Get a job at a hospital. First as a patient care tech, then as a nurse.
- Save money
- Travel internationally
- Work a job I love
- Try to get involved in women's rights too
- Start researching grad degrees for a Master's in nursing
- Move out
- Buy a Mac
- Take more photos
- Dance/Work out
- Write more

An evaluation on how I'm doing now.
- Well I'm 50 days away from a BSN so I'd say I'm doing pretty well on that front!
- That didn't exactly work out. I applied for no less than 8 million tech jobs up here and interviewed for two. I didn't get either of them. Getting ready to start working on the nursing job in a hospital.
- Save money.. Well I've been moderately good at this. Until a couple of weeks ago I was doing pretty darn well. But I haven't worked much recently.. But I'm actively working on it.
- Travel internationally. Still working on it. Hopefully next year!
- Work a job I love. Found that in my job as a birth assistant. Even though I'm having a hard time with the job right now for various reasons... I love it a lot.
- Women's rights.. Does blogging and reading a lot about it count?? Cause I totally do that!
- Definitely been researching grad degrees for my masters. Now I just have to decide when I want to start and where I want to go.. Probably not for a few more years. Online? San Francisco? DC? New York? Decisions, decisions.
- Move out. NEXT YEAR, MAN. Once I get a job.. the plan is to move on outta here.
- Buy a Mac. Well I ended up getting one as a gift for graduation so that worked out.
- Take more photos. Yeah.. I definitely managed that, if my way overloaded iphoto is anything to show for that. But I'm loving it. And I can't wait till I have more time to do it next year.
- Dance/work out. Sadly no dancing. But I have been working out 2-3 times a week for the last year and half ish. Planning to do some aerial silks or dance or belly dance or SOMETHING next year. I'm excited about that.
- Write more. I sort of succeeded in this? I haven't done Nano in a few years.. which I'm sad about.. but I have been writing some every once in a while. I'm super sad I can't do it this year.. but I'm planning to start writing more everyday as soon as I get done with DARN school!

An updated 5 year plan - Oct. 13, 2013 (Yeah it's been sitting in my drafts folder for a bit...)

- Graduate nursing school and pass the NCLEX! (EEK!)
- Get a job at a hospital. Hopefully somewhere I enjoy.
- Save money. Still..
- Travel internationally. YUP. Also, see above point... The list of places is long though.
- Work a job I love.
- Blog more. Find out a way to be more involved in issues I care about.
- Decide on a few schools I might want Master's degrees from and start applying. (After I figure out when I can handle... I mean *want* to go back to school)
- Move out. And stop commuting about 2 hours EVERY DAMN DAY.
- Be a responsible adult. Pay bills, handle things on my own. Decorate my apartment.
- Take more photos. Do some workshops or get some mentoring for my photography. Maybe start a little side business. But, ENJOY IT.
- Continue to work out. Start some aerial classes! Or pure barre, or dance or something!
- Try to write a little everyday. Set myself a word count and REACH IT.
- Get some experience as an RN and then move to a new city. Experience a different culture, force myself to grow and meet new people.
- Figure out how and when I want to start having kids. Foster, adopt, bio? And when? My weird old plan was always start before I'm 27. Well that's only like 3 1/2 years away.
- Learn another language. Seriously.. my French sucks. But I wish it didn't.
- Go on a medical mission trip.
- Spend more time with the friends and people I love. Build myself an intentional family.
- Get some tattoos.

Also, a while back I found a quote from a survey I did. You know one of those ones that circulated myspace.. back when myspace was still a thing.
The question was: three things you would like to do?
My answer: Travel the world, get tattoos, have babies.
I feel like this should be my tagline for life. This sounds like a pretty swell way to live.

Here's to another 5 years.