a promise kept

As I'm sitting here, attempting to put into words something to fulfill my promise to write more, I have no words. With all that has happened lately, I still can't find the words to put it all down.

I guess I'll start with what I've been doing in between shifts in the ICU. Mostly, I just sleep. It usually takes me a full day after 3-12s before I feel normal. The past two weekends, I have been busy, however.

The weekend of July 10, 11, and 12th, I was busy with all the festivities involved in Valarie's wedding. It was worth all the lack of sleep. That Friday, we got our nails done and had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The dinner was at Maggiano's in the Galleria area. It was SOOO delicious, but way too much food. I went to bed that night (crashing at Jasmin's, who graciously allowed me to spend the night there so I didn't have to travel back and forth so much) feeling very full. Saturday was the wedding. But first we needed to get our hair done. So all the bridesmaids, the mother of the bride and mother of the groom, and of course the bride, hung out all morning getting pretty. Unfortunately, the photographer was there. Whoops. Oh well, it was a lot of fun. The ceremony itself was beautiful. So sweet, and not overly long. Okay, really, it was just so beautiful that I didn't notice the time. It might have gone on for years for all I knew. The reception was a blast. The food (more italian) was so delicious. I had such a fun time dancing and partying with Valarie, and my other friends. Valarie made the most beautiful, stunning bride I've ever seen. And she and Brandon were so happy. It was wonderful.

This past weekend, I flew out with Rita to Florida, for Kenna's wedding. Kenna is a good friend from high school that moved to Florida after college to live with her Fiance, Adam. Adam has made Kenna so happy and I couldn't be more thrilled for her. The weekend turned into a bit of a friends reunion, with Kayliegh and Amber flying out from California. Rita and I got in just in time for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which was low-key but fun. We all had a few drinks, and just relaxed. Back at the hotel, we sat around the pool for a while catching up. I've never had so much fun just hanging with my friends. The day of the wedding, we took out Kenna and her parents for breakfast before Kenna had to whisk off to her hair appointment. While she was doing that, the rest of us got ready and got out of the hotel. Then it was wedding time! And just in time for the rain to start! But we all made it, albeit with slightly frizzy hair. The wedding was short and sweet, but so perfect for the two of them! After a few pictures and mingling around the church, Rita and I took off with everyone's stuff for the hotel in Daytona Beach (where the reception was, about 40 minutes from the church). We got us checked in and ran a few errands while waiting for the wedding party. When everyone arrived it was cocktails then the reception. The dinner was good, the speeches short, and the dancing so much fun. Okay, so the "guys" (I'd call them more of little boys for the amount of maturity they showed) weren't that great of company, but I had a blast with Rita, Kenna, Amber, and Kayleigh. After the reception we all hit the beach for a while, then turned in (way way too late considering our morning flights home). We did sleep with the curtains open so we could watch the sunrise over the beach though.
Flying home sucked. It was bad enough leaving our friends, but our flight was terrible. I shouldn't complain too much though, as we were lucky to get on that flight. Rita and I were flying Stand-By, and by some luck we got the last 2 seats on the plane. Since I had to work the next day, it was too important to me to be picky about the seats or flight. It was turbulent though. Terrible. I'm surprised I didn't ralf.

Other than that, I've pretty much just slept or watched TV. I swear, soon I'll get used to my work schedule and will have a full life again.

Dear Blog

Dear blog,

I'm sorry for ignoring you lately. I promise to try to write more crap to fill up all this empty blog space. I promise to write more crap, more often.

Please forgive me.

Linnea

long overdue

I swear eventually, I shall put out a proper blog filling in the cyber world on my life as of late. [Of course the lack of emails begging for a new post would suggest that very few people, if any, really read this, and it has become just a creative outlet for me, and me alone] Nonetheless, I shall continue writing, for the time being at least.

This weekend was Valarie's wedding. She was quite possibly the most beautiful bride I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, she was beyond stunning.

The whole ceremony was beautiful. Tons of people cried, myself included (it was all Brandon's fault...he had to go tear up when he saw his bride-to-be walking down the aisle). I did feel a little lost in the ceremony, as I have never been to a catholic mass let alone a Catholic wedding. I survived it alright and the ceremony flew by. After many, many pictures, we finally made our way to the reception. The hall was gorgeous. Valarie did an amazing job planning it all.

I had so much fun dancing with everyone, drinking wine, scarfing down food, eating cake, making toasts, and hanging out. I don't think I've had that much fun in a LONG, LONG time.

I wish I could say that pictures are to come, but as I left my camera at home, you won't be getting any from me. But I'm sure soon pictures will be surfacing all over Valarie's Facebook page.

Aside from the wedding stuff, I've just been working and being busy.

I'm trying to find time to celebrate my birthday that's coming up, but so far it doesn't look like there'll be much of a celebration. It's getting to be impossible right now to meld my schedule with anyone else's so that I can just hang out with my friends, let alone have some sort of celebration. But right now, I think (and it'll probably change soon) I'm just going to have a small dinner sometime around my birthday that hopefully at least one friend can come to. I think maybe the 29 or 30 is what I'm aiming for. Or maybe the 31st since that's a Friday and seems more likely for people to come then. We'll see. I don't want a huge party like last year (okay maybe I kind of do cause that was fun, but that's not possible this year). I'd just like to celebrate with someone. No gifts are necessary, just finally getting to hang out with my friends after not seeing anyone for several weeks thanks to work.

working woman

Just thought I'd update y'all on the wide world of being gainfully employed.

Today I got my first real check. I was so excited! Too bad Uncle Sam had to take so much out of it.

My first week of working on the floor was interesting. My first few days had a little bit of everything: long hours, exposure to TB, post-mortem care, sedated patients, and births in the ICU!

For the record though, the "exposure" to TB turned out to not be one, but for about an hour there, my preceptor and I thought we were screwed. We had been caring for a patient for 2 whole days when we found out that he had an active TB infection, or so Life Gift told us. Turns out he has a history of TB infection, but not actively infected at this time. Phew!

So far I'm not sure how I feel about the ICU. I think it's just a lot of getting used to. In a few weeks when I feel more comfortable, I think I will absolutely love it.

orientation

So I started orientation yesterday.

I was so nervous and excited rolled into one. Mostly I was just ecstatic about finally earning some much needed money.

So far, orientation has been pretty boring. We've really only done the typical [and painfully boring] stuff like going over the employee handbook, going over some of the paperwork stuff, etc. We did, however, finally get into the skills lab today and got a chance to play around with the equipment some. I hope it'll help me not to look like a complete idiot next week when I'm on the floor for the first time.

They handed out skills checklist packets to everyone, and all 3 of us in the ICU's packets are HUMONGOUS compared to everyone else's. Oh well. It'll be a fun learning process. My fellow ICU interns are so much fun and my nurse manager is amazing.

Hell, all the interns are pretty great. I'm having a blast getting to know them (and making ridiculous side-comments about all the crap they are going over with us).

Next week I start on the unit. I'll be doing a mixture of working with my preceptor and spending some time in the classroom going over unit-specific stuff that I have to learn. I have a feeling though that orientation will go way too fast and before I feel fully ready it'll be time for me to fly solo. Oh that thought scares me.

Went to my unit this afternoon to pick up some paperwork. The nurses were looking at me and Christie like we were fresh meat and they hadn't eaten in days. OI.

what it was really like

This post is for all my non-nursey friends out there who are all going, so what's the big deal with this NCLEX thing?

The NCLEX is our licensing board exam. You pass it: you're a nurse. You fail it: you get to take it again, but will most likely lose your job (since no one wants to hire a nurse who fails her boards). So much of our entire future is wrapped up in this exam.

It's a CAT (computerized adaptive test), which means it makes it up as it goes along [not the questions, those come from a testing bank, but the number of questions and the level of knowledge the question requires]. For the RN exam, you can get anywhere from 75 to 265 questions. Basically, if you are doing okay, but not great, it'll keep giving you questions until the CAT decides you've either done well enough to pass or are screwing up so badly that you fail. And when it cuts off, you don't know which it is. Everyone thinks it's because they are screw ups...but that's just the nature of the test.

So Thursday night I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned all night, feeling woefully unprepared and wishing I could change my exam date but knew it was too late for that. Friday I barely forced down a bagel before leaving, knowing I had to have something in my stomach.

When I arrived, I saw Luis in the parking lot. Then Tracy pulled up, then Emily. The four of us walked in together. I felt infinitely better walking in to the testing center with them. I didn't feel so alone. Of course, we were also feeding off of each other's nerves.

We each took a number as we went in. I was number 3. When she called my number, I had to go up there with my ATT (authorization to test) and my driver's license. She had me give my finger print and I had to sign my name on this little electronic thing that you can't look at your signature while you do it. She made me sign my name 4 times. Apparently it had to match the signature on my DL. Then I took a picture where I'm sure I looked terrible in. I was so nervous and didn't bother making myself pretty that morning. I was going to take a freaking test, who needs make-up and a comb? I locked up all my belongings in a little locker (including my watch and hair clip since these were not allowed in the testing center). Then I headed back to the exam.

The lady at the door went over the rules. She explained that if I needed more pens or another dry-erase board, all I had to do was raise them up. Apparently every inch of the computer room was video and audio monitored. She then had me turn all my pockets inside out and checked me for any concealed items or any way of cheating. What's next, a strip search? Where am I? Prison?? After all of this, I had to show my ID again and use my finger print to get in the room.

Then I sat down and began the test. After going through an annoying tutorial on how to answer the questions (as if I had never taken a computer exam before), I got my first question. It was a medication calculation question. Oh shit. So this is how it's going to be today. For me to get a med calculation question felt like a cruel twist of irony [remember the D&S debacle?].

Each time I hit "submit" I was sure I was killing my score. I just knew that I must be getting most of these wrong. Every question I was torn. Is this right? Maybe it's that other one? Maybe they wanted me to be thinking about bleeding not ICP issues. Maybe I'm way off. What the hell? Why am I guessing on the NCLEX?!? I know nothing!

I kept looking at the time counting down and looking at the question number. When will I be done? I felt like I would never reach 75, and I was sure that it was not going to cut off at 75. I knew that when that happened, I would cry. I just wanted to be done. I wanted to quit at question 30, how was I supposed to survive past 75?

Finally, I was getting close to 75, and feeling worse and worse and worse. Then I got to question 75. I'm not even sure I really tired on that one. I just wanted to hit submit. And when I did, the computer stopped. Is it frozen?!? Am I done?? Then the it said, "you have finished the NCLEX".

As I walked out, I had to do the finger print thing again. My hand was shaking so much it took a little while to get a good reading. I felt like crying, or screaming. Tracy finished at the same time as me and we rode the elevator down together. I was shaking. I wanted to cry.

I got a phone call from Emily on the way home. She was crying. Positive she failed. I didn't know what to think. I felt like a miserable failure, but then again, it cut off at 75, that's a good sign right??

I went home and crashed. Slept all afternoon, not wanting to think about the exam at all.

This morning I was woken up at 8 am by a phone call from Emily. The results are up. She passed!! So I got up, logged in to Pearson Vue, paid my $7.95, and my heart stopped beating.

Then in tiny little letters it said: "grade: PASS".

HALLELUJAH! I did it! I passed!!! Holy crow! I'm a nurse now! I can keep my job!!!

Congrats to my nursey friends

This post is dedicated to my wonderful, talented, and now licensed friends!
These are two of the funniest people I know. And now they are officially nurses! (that's right these two crazies are now licensed, so everyone watch out and be VERY careful which hospitals you go to for medical treatment)
To that crazy, wonderful, amazing Deanne. You rock chica! Crazy fun and are going to make a kick-ass pedi nurse.

Valarie, I am so proud of you! I knew you could do it! You are going to be one hell of a nurse and the L&D world is so lucky to have you.
Jerusha, you did it!!!! You are such a wonderful, sweet, compassionate person. I'm so proud of you!

To everyone else, sorry I ran out of decent pictures to throw up here, but I am proud of all of you! Congrats Michael, Lisa, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and everyone else I can't think of right now. Congratulations to all of you!! Now go celebrate!