Ringin’ It In

When the clock strikes midnight, it will be 2009.  Totally surreal.  Where did 2008 go?

I must say it was an odd year.  Learning how to live without my dad … starting nursing school just as I witnessed my would-be classmates at Duke prepare for graduation … filing for divorce … selling a house … and falling deeply and madly in love.  A mix of bittersweet, sad, and magical.  The last few months were especially trying as I adjusted to life in a new city and underwent the tribulations of what was reportedly our most difficult semester.

So what are Nurse Teeny’s New Year’s Resolution(s)?  I’ve never really taken the concept too seriously but then again, this next year promises to be full of even more changes and challenges, and I feel a need to “buck myself up,” so to speak.  So here are three that I consider to be most important:

1. Take better care of myself.  Mind, body, and spirit.  Nurses are notorious for self-neglect.  And by next New Year’s Eve, I may well be an actual nurse.  Better to start now.
2. Learn Spanish.  The chances are good that I’ll need it.  I decided to be “outside of the box” and take Latin in high school, then German in college.  Silly Nurse Teeny.  Spanish is where it’s at.
3. Share an address with S by next New Year’s Eve (or at least a zip code, with active searching for a place of our own).  Whether that means the mountain comes to Mohammed, or Mohammed comes to the mountain is yet to be decided.  But if I hadn’t moved away for school, we’d already be living together.

Of course I resolve to pass the NCLEX too.  But that’s not just a matter of making a resolution.  It’s another year of hard work and preparation.

And I’m looking forward to sharing that year with y’all.  See you in 2009!

25% RN

Well folks, it’s official. I walked out of my pharm exam an hour ago, feeling groovy (the grooviness not necessarily correlated with my performance on the exam, but honestly I did feel pretty good about that too).

Semester 1 of nursing school is OVER. Whew, that was fast. I was mentally done with the term as soon as I made it through my wound simulation on Tuesday. But now it feels so good to really, truly be done with the whole kitten caboodle.

And I actually feel like I learned stuff. Our entire class passed all of our ATIs (the first time in the history of this particular program), and we have been told repeatedly how well we’re doing. So maybe we are on our way, after all. The scariest part is, at this time next year, I’ll be tackling the NCLEX!

But for now all I care about is Christmas break. I’m homeward bound in a matter of hours. Fa la la la la, la la la LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Happy Holidays!

He’s Ba-ack!

Ask me how much I have studied for my Pharm final, scheduled for tomorrow at 10:30 am.

My answer will be a sheepish grin.

I’m past the point of no return when it comes to this semester. Unless I completely flub the exam, my GPA is pretty much locked up. A GPA with which I am more than pleased for a first semester of nursing school. So therefore I have sought, and discovered, every possible method of procrastination in the book today. At least I’ll get a 4.0 in resourcefulness.

Not to mention that I’ve discovered the return of my favorite (medical*) blogger of all time. The Fake Doctor. Love him. I followed him along his medical school travails, silently thanking myself the whole time for NOT going into medicine. And being thoroughly entertained in the process.

So anyway, Fake Doctor had reserved a blog domain for documenting his residency, but it had been silent all last year. I didn’t check for months because I had given up hope and called off the search party. Then, miraculously and in a fit of desperation to continue my studying delay, I checked today and he has returned, emerging from the pits of hell (a.k.a. First Year Residency) to blog occasionally about his misadventures.

It is strangely comforting to know that we all start at the bottom of the heap.

*For those who were curious, my favorite nursing blog of all time is newFNP. Also hilarious. When you’re getting your a** kicked up and down the block, laughter really is the best medicine.

“Parish” the Thought

Well there were moments when I wondered if I’d ever be able to say this….

WE MADE IT!!!!! 

I just got home from my LAST clinical shift of the semester.  It’s unbelievable how quickly the past 6 weeks have gone.  My classmate and I ruminated today on how we’re starting to actually feel like we know what we’re doing.  And in less than a week, we’ll all be 25% RNs.  Craziness!

Last week was a flurry of ATI exams and unless I heard wrong, we all passed all three of the exams!  Go us!  And next week is a flurry of final exams.  Thursday afternoon I’m headed to the airport to fly home for the holidays.

We also got our clinical assignments for next semester.  My first 6 weeks will be my community health rotation and I’ll be doing parish nursing, which I am absolutely thrilled about.  The only downside is that I may lose some Sundays to do programs at the parish where I’ll be located.  So scheduling visits with S will present a challenge, but we’ll figure it out, I’m sure.

Then I move into my second Meg-Surg rotation, also on a neuro floor but at a different hospital.  Not sure if it’s a coincidence that I’ll be doing neuro again or if they wanted some continuity so we could handle more complex patients right off the bat.  Either way, I’m both excited that I’ll actually know what I’m doing and a little bummed that I don’t get to try something new.  And admittedly it’s rather bittersweet – my dear father was a neuropsychologist and he would have absolutely LOVED to hear about my experiences with patients who often might have ended up in his office.

Going to go soak my tired tootsies in my brand new massaging foot bath.  Very smart use of my birthday gift card at Target, I must say!