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!

so glad it's over with

Took the NCLEX today.

It sucked.

Now I just have to sit around and wait, hoping that the BON will put up the results as soon as possible. I hate waiting.

The first question I got was a medication calculation question. I felt like, oh shit, this is a sign of what's to come.

But I survived.

I'm so glad it's over with.

NCLEX and stress

I feel like the day of reckoning is coming.

I take the NCLEX on Friday.

It's the test. My entire future [okay that is a tad dramatic, but my current job is definitely riding on it] is riding on this exam.

I spent today (and like the last week) doing hard-core studying and I was feeling pretty good.

But the anxiety is back.

I guess the anxiety is better than feeling down. I'm so sick of feeling down.

I'm sick of feeling stressed. I'm sick of being so up and down and all over the place. I'm ready to be normal, happy, stable again. I thought once school was over it would wash away and I'd be back more to me without all the nursing school BS and stress. Guess not. Living with my parents again, worrying about the NCLEX, not seeing my friends on a regular basis, not having any money to do anything fun at all, and wondering what this new career I am about to embark on has me feeling rather discombobulated and unstable.

I suppose it'll pass.

best and worst thing

Moving back home has been the best, and worst, thing that I've ever done for myself.

On the one hand, it's exactly what I needed as I have about $10 to my name. That last week before I moved home I went to the grocery store and could only afford to buy one thing. So I bought more cat food for my kitten Greta. I lived off of slightly moldy bread, tap water, and 100 calorie pack cookies for the last 2 days I was in my apartment.

I'm so broke right now, it's not even funny. Thanks to my [former] crap-hole apartment screwing me out of $184, I can't even go on my friend's bachelorette party trip to Padre. I can't buy gas for my car. I couldn't even buy aloe for my nasty sunburn last week. And thanks to our lovely economy, the only monetary assistance my parents can provide me is a roof over my head and some food (provided I don't eat too much and don't mind cheap food).

I say this is the worst thing I've done for myself because living with my family again is very hard. I'm not just talking about losing my independence and what not (because my parents are very flexible and I can go wherever, whenever-you know if I had money; they really don't care). Mostly I'm talking about adjusting to being around people again....(if you could see my editing of this blog, here's where you'd see a whole HUGE paragraph deleted. While it felt great to write that out, I'm just not ready to share that tidbit with anyone in the world who feels like reading my blog today).

Having no real study space has become a huge pain the last few days. My stuff and my parent's terrible-pack-rat-accumulated-crap is everywhere. They had been using my bedroom as a storage room, so now all that crap is all over the house, not to mention all the stuff from my apartment. I'm trying to find places for it, to put all my stuff (and theirs) away, but it's not going well. So I'm stuck sitting on my bed in my room for privacy. Attempting to study in the same room you've sat in for four days to get away from the crazy does not end well. Not only am I getting stir crazy, but my family won't leave me alone! I keep telling them I am studying, that I need peace and quiet and no distractions. Yet they keep coming to bother me. Tomorrow I am going to the library. I can't take it anymore.

I'm so upset/worked up/down/whatever about my current monetary and living situation that I'm back to not sleeping well again. Okay, to be fair, I never did sleep that great to begin with. Still, being wide awake at 3:30 am despite trying to sleep is quite annoying.

So if I jump in my car and show up at your doorstep randomly at an odd hour of the day, know it's my last-ditch effort to preserve what is left of my sanity by escaping.