CPR certified. Tongues. BSN.

I started my first day of the Bachelor's program today.

We did that thing where you go around the room and tell one interesting fact about ourself.  I said that I can swallow my tongue.   ...which I can, by the way.

Some other guys fun fact was that he was CPR certified and could save my life if I couldn't get my tongue out of my throat.   

Made me laugh.
Nurses are so funny.

It's common when I go places that I immediately think, "If someone went into cardiac arrest, I'd be responsible for them because I'm a nurse."   

Pretty vain, I know.  But, I always think it.   I pick out the most unhealthy looking person assuming he/she will go into cardiac arrest and then I make a judgement on whether or not I'd feel competent enough to save that person.

Silly things nurses do.

Cheers to another year of Nursing.

Hospice Nursing.

How I know I want to be a hospice nurse: Part One.

 

When I have a load of 5 or 6 patients, I try to take equally great care of them all.  Make sure they are all bathed, clean, happy, smelling good, smiles on their face, nice and snuggly.  

 

However, throughout my whole shift, I find myself worrying about the one particular patient I have who is on hospice.  I worry about him/her and I want to hurry back to their room as quick as I can to make sure they are doing okay.  I find myself talking more intimately with this particular kind of patient to find out their story, to hear where they have been, to hear where they are going, to listen to their family and to bond.

 

Of course, I want my "healthy" patients to do just as well and I want them to progress and get better, too.  But, something about the hospice patient pulls at my heart strings and I want nothing more than to make them comfortable.  I want to fluff their pillows, turn them, powder their bottoms, turn the radio to some soft music, and offer them sips of water.  

 

And I want to do that allllll day long.

Just sit with them and listen to them cry, laugh, vent, share.  

Alllllll day.

 

And then I go home and I worry about them.  And I pray for them.  And I think about them often. That's how I know that hospice is for me.  That's how I know where I want to be as a nurse.

 

Somewhere that pulls on my heart strings.

and somewhere that makes me want to be a better nurse EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

 

Falling for Fall.

This makes me happier than anything.

Oohhhh, fall.

I love it.

:)

Searching for Jobs.

You know when you have an outfit and it's the cutest, most beautiful, most adorable, best outfit in your closet and you are dying to wear it but it just doesn't fit anymore? You love the outfit and you loved when it fit and you loved how it made you feel, but now you try it on and you've just completely outgrown it?

That's me. That's how I feel about my job as an aide. I love working as an aide and it made me happier than anything ever has, but I've outgrown it. Now I come to work and feel like I'm being mocked and degraded. I feel like the knowledge I've learned over the past two years has been pushed to the back burner and I'm not able to uitilize my skills, and that's frustrating.

I'm trying to squeeze back into my sparkly outfit, but it just isn't working.

I left work after a twelve hour shift yesterday and I cried the whole way home. I'm stuck inbetween positions where I don't fit in as an aide anymore and I'm not quite a nurse. I don't feel like I belong in either spot.

...and I hate not fitting in.

I'm ready to be a nurse. A real nurse. A nurse who starts IVs, gives medications, listens with a stethoscope. A nurse who is thirsty for knowledge and eager to help. A nurse that saves lives, continues to learn, continues to grow.

But, instead, I'm stuck as an aide who has reached the top of the ladder and ran out of steps. I don't feel like I can progress any further as an aide, and now I feel like I'm regressing. I don't try as hard or push as hard or give as hard because I don't have the motivation. And that's a horrible, awful thing.

Maybe it's a debbie downer day. Maybe I can blame it on the lack of sleep, or the hunger, or the PMS.

...or maybe I really just need to get a nursing job. And F A S T.

Cassie's Engaged.

Nothing makes me more happy than people in love.
...and nothing says "love" like an engagement.

Last weekend my big sister got engaged to her girlfriend of two years, Miss Lacey.   Cassie is one-of-a-kind girl and Lacey matches Cassie like salt matches pepper.

....or a more romantic analogy.

Lacey took Cassie up to the mountains for a fishing trip.  They fish all the time together and they are good at it.  They have their very own canoe, fishing poles, and gizmos and gadgets to catch all sorts of big fish.

Bet Cassie didn't know she was catching a fiance' today.

That's the ring there, on the end of the pole.

How romantic.

And this is Cassie as happy as a clam.

And this is them together.

Super in love.

Super perfect for each other.

This makes me happier than a sister could ever be.   I've always been protective of Cassie and of her relationships.  I've always felt like I needed to defend her and support her and educate people on the LBGT community.   

Cassie never has been that way.

Cassie just lives.  And she just does.   She doesn't give a care about what people think and she doesn't worry about what those have to say.  She doesn't try to defend herself because, to her, there is nothing to defend.  She doesn't defend her relationship in the same way that I don't have to defend mine.  It just is. And I find that incredibly inspiring.

Jenny Boylan, author of She's Not There said it best.   "I'm sorry I can't make it make more sense to you.  But it is what it is.  Whether I 'really am' gay, whether I 'had a choice' or not, whether anything no longer matters.  Having an opinion about homosexuality is about as useful as having an opinion about blindness. You can think whatever you'd like about it, but in the end, your friend is still blind and surely deserves to see."  

Cassie just is.  And her relationship with Lacey just is.   It's normal and it's healthy and it's obviously natural.  Their love for one another is completely beautiful and Lacey makes Cassie happier than anyone ever has.  I am so glad that Cassie found her lobster and I'm so very glad that lobster is Lacey.

Congratulations to them both.

...and hooray for love.





Nursing School: The End.

Nursing school is O V E R. 

Thats such a weird sentence to type.   I don't know how to feel about that.  If I go back and read old posts, all I wanted was the end to be here.  Now it's here and I feel...lost.  

For the past two years nursing school has consumed my life, and that's not even a little bit of an exaggeration.   All I thought about was school.  All I did was school.  My brain was full of when to study, how to study, where to study, what to study.  Class was three days a week for 8 hours a day.  Lab was once a week for 8 hours a day.  Clinical was 24 hours a week, sometimes more.   My friends were nursing students.  My text messages were about nursing, from nursing students, to nursing students, complaining about nursing school.  

Nursing.
Nursing.
Nursing.
Nursing.

For two entire years.

And now it's over.   After a million tests and a hundred billion hours of studying, it's all done.   We took our last final on Tuesday.  We signed our grades.  We withdrew from the school.  And that was all.  Our grades would be posted in a few weeks, our diploma will be sent in the mail.  No more coming back. E V E R.   

We left the building and we all sat on the grass, just looking at each other.   Like we were just dropped off into the real world.  No more instructors to watch over us, no more guidlines and rules to follow.  No more schedule or calendar or due dates.  Just real life nursing and we are here.   

As we drove away, I felt like hugging all 40 of my classmates.  Just to thank them for being my nursing class.  It's a bond that you can't replace with any other person.  No one quite understands nursing school like those in your class.  No one gets how emotionally, physically and mentally consuming nursing school is except those in your own class.   I feel connected to these people for all of forever.  These are the ones I turned to when no one else understood.  These are the ones who saw me at my best, my worst, my emotional breakdowns, my huge accomplishments, my As, my Fs, my growth, my depletion, and my transition.

...and I just drove away, maybe never seeing them again.   What a weird feeling it is.  

I can't explain how I feel.  It's a loss that doesn't make any sense.  I always thought I would be so grateful to escape that hellish place.  But, now I feel a huge hole in it's place.  I'm not sure what it is that I miss.  Maybe the class, maybe the routine, maybe the goofy-crazy-odd things nursing school does to a person.  I don't know, but it's forever gone and it won't ever come back.  

I'm grieving over a class that has changed me forever. I am the nurse I am because of the experiences I've had and I hope to never ever forget those times.  

Nursing school has my heart.
and will forever be a part of me.