365....And Counting

It has been barely little more than a year since the first clinicals for my BSN-A classmates and I; just over 365 days since we first hit the floor in our (super attractive) green scrubs and (so very uncomfortable) snowy white shoes. For some of us, like me, it was our first hospital experience, our first time taking blood pressures on real (not classmate) people or answering call lights. If you had told me my first day on the floor some of the things I would do within the next 365 days, I might have nervously whispered to my professor, "I am concerned this patient is experiencing a decreased level of consciousness with increasing delusions, maybe you should come and help me assess them."

 I whispered everything nervously my first day on the floor, I think. Sometimes I wonder if my professor wasn't considering slipping me a Xanax just to help me get through the day. The mere fact that she was able to keep a straight face as I carefully took my patient's apical pulses before dispensing all blood pressure medicines speaks to both her kindness and professionalism. 

Cox College Selfie....

Back in those days I was very proud of my Cox College scrubs, I thought everything in the hospital was exciting, including the menu choices in the cafeteria. I've learned a few things since then..beginning with how unflattering those Cox College scrubs are. I was once asked when my baby was due while wearing them.  Also, not everything at the hospital is exciting. Not everything at the hospital should be exciting. A colonoscopy, for example, is not exciting at all. And I am pretty sure that is reassuring news to the patient, a calm colon is much better than an overly excited and busy one. 

I secretly envied my confident nursing school friends who seemed so at home and sure of themselves in the early days of class and clinical. Just making friends had been hard for me, I felt shy in this world of adults after years of working with adolescents. I felt clumsy and awkward in patient rooms handling medical equipment and trying to memorize a whole new language. I was sure I was the dumbest person in my class and my professors and patients were sighing and feeling sorry for me. It was in my nature to try and make myself small and disappear but our professors had stressed that getting involved in clinical was one of the keys to landing a job so I lurked around the nurses' station and tagged along with any nurse who would let me, using sheer dumb luck and the patience of good nurses to gain experiences. Enthusiasm and eagerness can open a lot of doors for you, even doctors will explain and invite you along if you appear willing to learn. Before you know it you might find yourself strapped into the medical helicopter with the flight crew if you can tag along often enough.

Eager Ride Along Fun

Our first week of nursing school we had to introduce ourselves and state where we wanted to work, I remembered hating this moment because I had no idea and it seemed everyone else had some sort of plan. Also they all had normal names not hillbilly names from 1942 that made them sound 80. I think I muttered something about "nursing education" a job I doubt if I even knew existed, but education was what I had always done. Barely 6 months later I would job shadow in the Emergency Department. Life changes fast in accelerated nursing school. My favorite professor had told us, you will know when you are "home" and after one 12 hour job shadowing shift, I knew I was "home." Unlike my surgery experience, where I kept sneaking peaks at the exit wondering if I could escape....She knows everything, that professor, she really does. 

Me...If I was much cooler....

I didn't come to nursing school thinking I would be Nurse Hathaway. I didn't come to nursing school expecting Peds clinical to be my favorite (yes I said it) or thinking I would care for a 3 lb baby. I didn't expect to see a C-section, I had no idea I would ever calmly put in a IV. If you had told me I would see someone intubated I might not have known exactly what you meant. I didn't come to nursing school to be peed on, thrown up on, clean up body fluids or be exposed to MRSA or pertussis.What I learned once I was here is how much every experience in nursing school teaches you and shapes you into the nurse you become; the one who is caring for all of those patients who are throwing up or needing the IV or are the parent of the sick baby. What I learned is that the friends who you make in nursing school, the ones exposed to the MRSA with you, who then go home and write 12 pages of paperwork and a care plan about it, are really like none other. Because they understand and are the best friends... and the best nurses.  

 I came to nursing school pretty clueless, and as I enter Capstone next week and prepare to graduate in May, I am still overwhelmed by all I need to learn before I start my job in the ER in June. But when I think of who I am now compared to who I was a mere 365 days ago...well, at least I don't think I'll need that apical pulse for your morning meds.