6 Months

Today, as I wrote the date at the top of my clinical notebook at 6:45am ready to get report on my patient for the day; I realized I have been in nursing school for six months.  Wow.  It's also a little ironic that today may have been my longest day so far.  I left my house at 5:45am (up at 4:45am) and had a full day at the hospital, just shy of our typical 12 hours.  I then drove with my car pool buddy to school to work on a group project and attend a required lecture at 7:30pm.  The lecture, though very interesting and educational, ended at 9:00pm and the last 15 minutes of it I was suffering from ADHD!  Couldn't sit still for anything.  I finally got home at about 9:30pm.  Looooooong day to say the least.  Erin and I had about 10 minutes of being in the same room, just giving snip-its of our respective days to each other.  Erin had a full day of work followed by a long evening of driving to her parents house, having a quick dinner and then a couple hours at the hair salon.  She is beyond exhausted, with a fresh hair do, and I am exhausted smelling of a hospital.  I believe today, in a weird way is a summary of the last six months.

I cannot believe how much I have done, seen, learn, read, sat though, stood, cried, stressed, screamed, wanted to give up, pure excitement, pure exhaustion, and never doubted my desire to be a nurse than I have in the past six months.  184 days into an accelerated nursing program.  I know a HUGE part of me was so doubtful that I would ever make it this far.  Another part of me is still very doubt full I will finish.  A small part of me cannot believe I am in nursing school!!  What a wild ride this has been.  I have been blown away at the amount of knowledge I have been able to fit in my brain (and hopefully have retained a small fraction of it!).  I am not sure how I will fit in more.

Before heading to bed tonight, I am forcing myself to read through more pharmacology slides.  We have our second exam tomorrow.  I am already feeling the extreme test anxiety.  I didn't do great on our first exam, somehow got a 100% on our second quiz and I am hoping with every ounce in me I score better on this second exam.  I do not aim for a 100% on the exam, but an A sure would be amazing!!  I must stay positive, take deep breaths, and relax as I go into the exam tomorrow.  My saving grace is that we are allowed to use our drug guide book.  You better believe I already have that book in my bag ready to go!  Our professor is a nurse practitioner and he believes there is no way to memorize every drug with it's dosage, side effects, etc., and as a nurse we will continue to look up medications we are unfamiliar with.  I have agreed with his philosophy from day one!

I could ramble on and on, but my pharm slides are yelling at me.  184 days down, only 250 more to go!!

Lets hope this is not me tomorrow!