Even though I finished my first week of nursing school, I have to keep reminding myself that I'm in... I'm in, I'm in, I'm finally IN. It took FOUR years out of my life waiting to just get in to the program. That equals getting a rejection letter eight times and that really wore on me as the years went by. I was seeing all my friends doing something meaningful or productive with their lives and here I was, stuck, stagnating and going nowhere. Sure I had a decent job at RAS but it was a dead-end job.
I did almost give up nursing, I had started to take classes and make preparations to apply to both the rad tech and ultrasound program as my Plan B. Now, I'm glad I didn't give up.
So we just finished first week and my first off-hand thought was that it reminded me a lot, not completely, of CNA school. I went through CNA school in the Fall of 2008 but I never ended up working anywhere after I got my license. I couldn't get a job as a CNA at a hospital and I didn't want to quit RAS for a lower paying job with no benefits so I just let my cert lapse which I kind of regretted. Reminds of CNA school because our skills we have to pass before we even go out to clinicals are basic nursing skills like bed making, ROM exercises, transferring, vitals, bed bath, peri care, applying restraints, measuring I&O, etc.
I love my classmates and I feel a great sense of camaraderie. Like my professor said, we already competed against eachother getting into the program, now it's time to watch out for eachother. I have made particular friends with three girls whom I feel will be my friends for life and I love that. My professors are all great and I can't wait for clinicals!
Back to nursing school, we learned a lot about communication and I really appreciated that lecture because now I understand that as nurses, we need to communicate in a different way. I learned we need to be more conscious of how we're saying something and we need to look beyond the obvious like non-verbal cues. We have to acknowledge a situation and be able to move on.
Trying to balance this and work is going to be a little tricky. Already it's giving me problems! I got all ready for work this morning, got there and found that I wasn't even scheduled to come in today! Imagine my surprise... Half of me wanted to stay and work because I'll need the money but then half of me wanted to go home and crawl back into bed. Eventually, they sent me home.
I do feel some pressure from family to work every weekend between school weeks but I am not playin' around with this. I worked so hard, through blood, sweat and many, many tears to get into the program, I am not going to let ANYTHING mess it up. I want to get good grades and really soak up all the knowledge and experience. My future is not in being a housekeeper, my future is working as an RN. I appreciate their thinking highly of my ability to juggle all of this but I don't want to overwhelm myself with extraneous stuff, I'll already have enough on my plate for the next two years.
Well, I'm gettin' a bit sleepy, time for a nap before studying!
This is what a rejection letter looks like, I got another after this but it was my last one! Btw, I was notified by email that I got in.
I will be so proud to wear this patch during clinicals
heheheh Yes, we are the Beavers... Notice the RED on the top, it says to hospital staff, "WARNING, I am a first semester student, WARNING! Don't ask me to do anything too complicated yet!" Then it's yellow, then green and finally blue for 2nd, 3rd and 4th semester.
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