What Being a Nurse for 6 months has taught me ( actually it's 9 months. but I figured since It was supposed to be 6 months....)

Hey my loves! What  a year this 2012 has been! I for one can say it has been so blessed <3 12="12" a="a" here="here" in="in" is="is" months.="months." my="my" nbsp="nbsp" of="of" p="p" quick="quick" recap="recap" year="year">
January- PASSED NCLEXX OMGEREGERDERSDFERESRED~
February- Began jobhunting and writing KIZAWESOME,LPN ( and reading every medical journal I could)
March- FINALLY GOT AN INTERVIEWS ! One of these interviews would lead to a job! =) ALSO made my first state roadtrip by myself with friends. it was pretty exciting =)
April- On orientation for a complete month. Learn how to work all 3 shifts- find that I ABSOLUTELY HATE 2 shifts and only truly love one shift ( aka Nights.)
May- Start going back to college!
June- Mah Birthday!
July- Travel to Pa & to the beach with grammy, it was fun! =)
August- Attend employee banquet thing and win a door prize!
September- Go to Lburg and see into the woods with Niki =)
Octobre= halloween and after halloween shopping with friends!
 Novembre- work on thanksgiving- but get a killer paycheck ( also become "officially" part-time.even though I work full time hours....whatevs.)
Decembre- BESTIE TRIP 2012 to DISNEY!! LOVED IT! Met the cake boss, reconnected with old friends...it's been a beautiful year. =)


What being a nurse has taught me in 6 months

• I have had to stay over to work once and it was when I was only off of orientation a week. NURSES EAT THIER YOUNG, SPIT THEM OUT AND THEN STOMP ON THE REMAINS!. Harsh I know. But ugh the morning I had. Here it is : I worked from 5 pm-10:15 pm that night at michaels. I had also worked at the nursing home AND michaels the day/night before. I was running on 4 hrs of sleep . I did not know half of the residents, how they like their medicine etc. I had one resident who had LAWYERS coming ( and that lady also precided to fall. TWICE.) I had a #$@#$@# replacement nurse come at 11 am HOWEVER was nowhere to be found in the building until 12:45 pm. At that rate I should have just stayed. I was tired, overwhelmed, told the other day shift nurse to leave me the @#$@#$#@$ alone after bugging me over and over if I gave so and so med or so and so med. I had an IV to do that I couldn't get to stop staying occlusion. I couldn't figure out the drug dosage right and whne I asked for help the day shift nurse said : are you sure ? like 10 times. I said yes I think, I am not sure. so when we put it in the IV pump they distributed the med in half the time it was supposed to be and I had to do a med error report. I wrote to my DON and told them about the other nurse and they simply stated : it was your resident, not theirs. UGH. I also tried to call my DON and tell her I had to be at my other job  at 4 and explained how I had 4 hours sleep etc etc and she simply stated :" If you leave it will be resident abandoment and you will lose your license." Anyway I was ready to quit I absolutely HATED my job and everything involved with it, and then I decided I better wait until I have 6 months in. My replacement nurse was a total jerk. She wanted me to get lal these treatments and crap done when HELLO she is the official TREATMENT NURSE! I hate small towns and I hate small town drama, that is even at a nursing home. That is why I work at night. No one sees me, I don't see them and I enjoy all my co-workers. 
• Nursing can bring on depression. I don't know why but some nights when I go into work it is a GREAT chore to motivate myself to go. Some days I feel like all I am is popping pills and writing in charts. Sometimes I have 15 freaking skilled notes to write. And other times I enjoy what I do in my life. 
• Being in a Long Term Care setting has allowed me to learn multiple things 1) I am a CHARGE NURSE and that will look good on resumes 2) I am a treatment, wound,medication,floor,emergency,dietitian and intervention nurse. 3) I am a Peg tube BOSS. No one primes the tubing like me and I rarely have an issue with my PEGS. 4) Sometimes a resident will have a bad dream, all they want is for you to talk to them to tell them it will all be ok. 5) You will make mistatkes and get overwhelmed. But that is ok you are only human.
• Whoever says they have never made a medication error LIES. You will make a med error, but you will also live through it ( and deal with the reprocussions whatever they may be. For moi it was a write-up and having to read a handout ( over giving out TYLENOL. pssh whatever.) 
• The most humbling experiances I have had involved no more than 5 minutes of my life. I shall share the top 3 ) One resident had a bad dream and was SCREAMING out loud, she wrote a note for the CNA to give to me it said : " I would like to see my nurse, I have had a bad dream, I am very frightended." I went into her room and just talked to her for 15 minutes, she was then ok. I gave her a hug and went on with the rest of my night. The second time was when I had a residnet who I give 0600 morning meds to wake up and give me a hug saying how much she missed me while I was on vacation- the amazing thing is she has alzheimers but she remembered I went to Florida and that I was gone for 2 weeks ( it was really only one, but thats pretty good.) I could go on and on about my residents. Like last night my resident was scared and wanted to be with me, she hugged me and was crying because she was scared- and all she wanted was to be near me. She stayed with me at the nurses station until 0200 when she finally decided it was sleepy time. =) My last instance is when I had a resident who was in the hospital for 2 weeks. I have to check his heart rate every shift and what not and when I was assisting him with some meds and breathing treatments and things he caught me off guard ( and my eyes were watering from the MASSIVE amounts of flowers in his room.) He thought I was crying for him and thne he started crying saying : you can tell that you have alot of experiance as a nurse because you still have the heart of compassion, not like these young ones now adays. Oh if he  only knew I haven't even been a nurse for a year yet....
• I have learned that nurisng is really hard, and that when things happen it gets even harder. I have also learned that I enjoy what I do and cannot wait to see where I end up next. Would love to move to Florida. For real. <3 br="br">

A letter to my former self ( Nursing Student)

Hey there Kym! Hope life is serving you well! I am writing to you on the upside of Nursing School ( Smile that means you made it!) It was SO tough, but you buggered through it! You work at the local nursing home ( I know, hard to beleive, but its not to bad.) Let me tell you being a nurse is....ok. Its not what you expected but then agian it might be because you are in LTC and your heart isn't really there. But that's ok too! Here is my advice to you ( or others who may be reading this) on how to survive nursing school.

First off Look at this bloggy thing. It's hilarious and you can relate to more than you think! =)

 http://whatshouldwecallnursingschool.tumblr.com/page/11

          You are working 2 jobs ( 1 full time, 1 part-time) and going to school fulltime, you sleep in your car between jobs and you see Mom and Pete once every 2 weeks, when you actually do make it home. You barely squeak by your first semester but you make it!

         Second Semester is the hardest for you. Pappy's health is rapidly declining and you go visit 2-3 times that summer to Pennsylvania.That last time you visit give him the biggest, tightest hug and kiss you can ever imagine, listen to him read you the bible, give him the card and go down to the giftshop where you will get a penn state pin and pillowcases from the hospital. Give him the biggest hug you can imagine. that will be the last time you see him , alive anyway. You are struggling SO hard with school. You are still working 2 jobs but only for the beginning of Summer. Catherine's lets you go, without letting you know ( apparently she did that to 1/2 the people that worked there, never got their last day memo either.) You barely squeak by in Pharmacology, but you make it. Med-Surge however you do not pass, you miss it by 2 points. After the Summer Semester ends ( Mid-September) You face MAJOR depression. You failed out of school, Pappy is declining and in and out of the Hospital, you are now completely jobless, your relationship is horrible ( turns out later he was just a jerk all along ;) and you just suck into this depression vortex. I would tell you things get better, but it is not for a little while

   October 24th 2010 at 0500 am Sunday Morning, you get a phone call. Or rather the house gets a call on the house phone. Pappy has passed away without warning ( even though his health was declining, it was still a surprise, due to the fact that he was supposed to come home that Monday) This sends you into an even deeper depression, but thankfully it only lasts for a little while. That was the hardest goodbye you ever had to say. To this day it still makes you cry. In fact, writing this post about it makes you cry. Funny how the mind and feelings work like that. That October you and your 3 best buds have a mystery halloween party on halloween. I will never forget that and I will never forget how they cheered me up, just days after Pappy's passing. I also remember James being really nice and supportive during that time. He was ok sometimes. While you are up there you get 2 job interviews, one at Michael's and one at Kohls. You get the job at Michael's and your boss is so super duper nice and the best boss ever. Then he retired, but he totally deserved it.

   Fast forward to March. Your grammy winn starves herself and is a failure to thrive and passes away. You are sad, but it doesn't really effect you to much. IT sounds mean and pitiful I guess, but the truth is its hard to miss someone who disowned you and was hateful to you the last time you talked. You forgive her now, but its hard to forget those things. You do have a pretty good time with your Dad in PA those 3 days, he seems pretty stable and normal. That's good.

    In April you re-apply to the LPN program in Farmville. You wait and wait and wait and wait, your friends all get back in but you don't get a letter stating you get back in. That is until 1 week before class starts. You will THRIVE this time. You end up with a 86 in Med-Surge and do well , you are very confident and so different from last year, you instructors can see it too. You learned that the proper success is to STUDY super hard , have a good study group ( <3 a="a" amp="amp" autumn="autumn" boo.="boo." close="close" friends=")</p" group="group" have="have" holly="holly" is="is" it="it" of="of" outside="outside" resources="resources" thing="thing" to="to" too="too" use="use" wonderful="wonderful">

  You Pass to Third Semester, by this point you are just ready to graduate and have a countdown to the day ! ( actually you have had a countdown since second semester) Clinicals are no longer Scary. Just kidding. Clinicals are always scary , but you survive! When you get into the 'real" world, you learn procedures are not really as scary as they seem in clinicals. Like now you are a peg tube BOSS! =) You have survived LPN school, ending up with a B and an A in your last 2 courses. Graduation was so super special. Grammy came down, and you started crying during graduation because of what you wore under your collar and the message you wrote . Mom and Pete took pics and taped the whole thing =) You have watched it 3 times now. It's beautfiul life.

   For the NLEX, you take a break during Christmas, but you study study study study. When you are not working at Micahels you study. You use Kaplan over and over and over, find other trainers buy 3 different books. You study like a Boss ( It is well worth it!)

   The Morning of NCLEX you pray , and then you talk to Pappy for a little bit ( and cry a teeny bit too.) You make Your Peppermint Mocha Coffee, leave the house at 0700 for the test at 1030/1130. You eat something, but I don't remember what. The whole way driving there you just are relaxed, calm praying, singing, doing lab values. The last thing you do is read your bible verses, say another prayer, take a deep breath and go inside the building. The only thing I will say about the NCLEX is MAN it was HARD! Your test shuts off at 85 questions and you freak out a little bit. You took it on a Friday and you have to wait until LATE monday night to find your name on the phone registry thing ( incidentally you are with your Bestie and squeal like a little girl over and over) You do not fully believe you pass until you get the paper copy in the mail, which you immediately frame. Also the NCLEX people are SCARY! You feel like you are getting ready to go to prison with all the pictures and scanning and whatnot that they do. They scanned my hand, my ENTIRE hand.

  What is the moral to this letter Kym? Besides telling you your story there are some morals right? Of course silly.

     1 ) Yes, Nursing school is ridiculously hard- but you DO make it through and learn that sometimes you wish you would be back there ( not for the studying part, but for the "fun" parts)

 2)  study study study study study study study study study study (have I mentioned study)

3) ALWAYS do your patient research for clinicals AS SOON as you get home ( then you can go to bed by 9pm and wake up bright and cheery! also make sure you know ever miniscule detail, look up labs, procedures , tube feedings etc. ( you were terrified of PEG tubes and trachs.) (you still hate dealing with trachs.)

4) Keep pushing through, you will be ok!

5) You and James breakup mutaully- you talk every now and then, it seems to work out best that you don't date

6) It's ok to be scared. I think it is a natural reaction to the situation, everyone is scared, we probably look like a little herd of deer.

7) It's ok to ask questions ( but you usually and rarely will.)

8)Stop beating yourself up for every mistake- you aren't perfect, no one is ( you will continue to beat yourself up throughout the duration of school and your job)

9) Find a group of students that you get along with, nobody else will understand what you are going through, the long hours, the frusterations, but they will. Find them, cherish them and keep in touch with them . =)

10) Find an outlet to handle your frusterations & take a day off ( or a night off, whichever you can afford) Find something that relaxes you and makes you happy.

    Know that when all is said and done you will by K.Izawesome LPN and life will be peachy keen forever ever after ( HAHA who are we kidding! =) ) Stay tuned to my next post on being a New Nurse 6 months =)

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