Reasons For Hope

Since we need a little optimism I was doing some thinking and thought of a few things that I should to keep in mind to be hopeful and excited for the future.

#1: I am probably going to graduate from NP school in May

Back when I met Hubbin I was working in research but research doesn’t make very much money. My original plan in college was a career in research which would require me to get a PhD and move on from there — only after working in a lab for a few years, while I liked it, and still miss it sometimes I decided the PhD business wasn’t for me. I couldn’t pick a concentration and didn’t want the rest of my life to be defined by grant writing. I made the decision to go back to school but wasn’t sure for what. Medical school, which is probably what I would have done if I had some better advising in high school and college, was kind of out of the question because of my GPA from college. I never really wanted to be a nurse, but was interested in being an NP or PA to be sort of a mini doctor. So the breakdown went as follows: PA program for 2 years and done but I couldn’t work during it and would need to take out loans for school. OR NP school. To do NP school though, first you need to go to nursing school and a bachelors in nursing is required for entrance. So I needed to do nursing school, get a BSN, then go to the masters program, which would take a lot longer but I would be able to work the whole time.

Since Hubbin and I were engaged and getting ready to start out lives together, I made the decision to go the nursing route, mainly for financial reasons. We didn’t want to take on huge debt for school at the same time we were trying to buy a house and everything. Which sucks. Because I’ve been working full time and going to school part to full time since 2005 (really, with the prerequisites for nursing school – Nursing school actually started in January about 6 months after we got married)

So just think: The ENTIRE time we’ve been together I’ve been working and going to school full time. How nice is it going to be when I will just have 1 job! We both talk about how the best part of being on vacation together is getting to finally spend time together. The thing to be excited about is that the more time I spend with Hubbin the happier I am and the more I love him. It might just feel like vacation all the time once I’m out of school!

#2: I’m going to graduate loan free

Which I consider to be a HUGE accomplishment in and of itself

I have completely busted my butt and dealt with a lot of comments from Hubbin but this is totally going to pay off. I don’t mean it like that per say I mean we both agreed it was the route to go, but it is hard for Hubbin to 100% avoid reminding me that he pays ALL the bills. He pays EVERYTHING, my pay check goes towards fun activities, vacations, dates, and a weekly allowance for both of us. Otherwise I squirrel it away in my savings so I can write a check for a few thousand dollars each and every semester.

Between my tuition benefit from working full time, and choosing to go the cheapest route possible for nursing school (community college) I was able to finish nursing school by paying cash. While I was doing that I took a slight pay cut moving from research to being a nursing aide. But I thought the experience would be important to job hunting (and it was, because I was offered my nursing job in my same department about 5 months before I graduated). THEN I started my job as a nurse and got about a — $13,000 a year raise by moving from an aid to a RN. I enrolled in a BSN-MSN program the soonest start date after I graduated and paid about $15,000 in tuition to get my BSN. So we never felt that raise. The month after I finished the BSN I started the nurse practitioner program and I’m just ending and my bill is $33,000, so the entire time I’ve been working as a nurse we’ve still only been getting the same income as from when I was an aide really…. When I start working as an NP I’ll get an approximate $20 – $30,000 a year raise from my salary now… SO if you add that on to the raise I got when I was a nurse that we’ve never really felt the benefit from me finishing nursing school in the first place. So:

#3: It’s going to feel I’m getting a roughly $50,000 a year raise when I get a new job. (Holy shit!)

And

(Which I am both excited and nervous about): One of my coworkers in the ER who is a PA now is encouraging me to apply to jobs over Christmas break because the ER company is hiring lots of PAs & NPs right now. EEK! So:

#4: There is the potential to have a job lined up for me before I even graduate.

My friend who graduated last year said no one was too interested in talking to her in interviews until she had passed her boards, but my friend who is encouraging me to apply says they hired her before she passed her boards. My original plan was to leisurely take boards maybe around August after I graduated since I have this awesome weekend only gig at work now which I’ll be sad to leave. BUT this is causing me to need to seriously reevaluate this and really just the thought of taking boards makes me a little nauseated, I’m not going to lie. The plus side is if I can get a job lined up to start in August then I might be able to quit my current job in July and Hubbin and I could take a nice long vacation or just enjoy a long time together (since he’s a teacher).

and PS:

I believe we are a ‘go’ this month for the first unmedicated IUI. I called the clinic to let them know we were planning on doing it. The only issue would be if it needs to be a weekend. The clinic is open but my mandatory 12 hour shifts would prevent me from going in at all. So. Cross your fingers for a nice Sunday- Thursday positive OPK.

Back on the Wagon

I am currently studying/paper writing at Panera and pondering the irony that I may or may not be stealing coffee from Panera while reading and writing my Ethics homework for the week……

Nothing but work and school since I last posted. I do lead a very lame life. My official stint as a steady charge nurse has begun which is really quite a pain in my ass. I accepted this position (which isn’t really a new position or more pay) really because it will A: look good on my resume and B: because it’s probably a good growth experience for me. However, with no additional financial compensation there’s not really many other benefits than now the “flow” of the ER and all the other issues throughout the day come back to me as my responsibility.

I am back on the diet wagon. We’ve got a competition going through my workplace with teams of 5 and we all weigh-in weekly. I know I’m not obese so can the negativity before you start… but my jeans are fitting tighter these days and I’ve got a bit of muffin top action going with my pants and shirts. (I do love that I get to wear scrubs on a daily basis – they are very forgiving)

Official starting weight on the 11th was 130.1… I’ll keep you posted. We have like 11 or 12 weeks of the competition and I set my goal at 8lbs (although 10 would be ideal). Which will get me close to what I was back in March when I fell off the wagon. The winner in the competition is based on the percentage of goal weight that the team achieves. I decided I needed a little motivation and accountability.

I’ve been using my Lose It! app on the iPhone.

Mini Vacation

I’m purposefully ignoring school and all obligations this weekend to party up in the lowcountry of Charleston, SC for two college friends who are getting married.

I was both very excited and a shade nervous about the weekend because I didn’t go to my college reunion, so this is the first time I’ve seen most of these people since graduation. So it 50% wedding, 50% reunion.

Off to a good start as our flight arrived 20 minutes early (honestly when does that EVER happen?!) took some much needed naps after getting up at 4am to dodge G20 national gaurd to get to the airport. Then we drove to a beautiful piece of land out on Johns Island with big old oak trees and Spanish moss. Drank wine. Ate BBQ pork. And listened to the band.

I am so tired…

…of being so tired.

That is all.

Please tell me…

Who out there actually enjoys school? Like genuinely?

I had yet another person ask me today “how’s school?” “do you like it?” and then be surprised when I said “It’s okay, no, not really”

Why is that such a surprising answer? Explain to me exactly what I should like about going to sit for 8 hours in a class room on my day off? A beautiful sunny day? About sitting here tonight on my night off looking up information for a research paper and typing up responses to a dumb fact-finding mission my teacher has sent me on. Explain to me what’s supposed to be fun and enjoyable about this?

“Oh sure I just love spending all my free time reading text books and writing papers, sure, school is GRAND, who wouldn’t like school?! There’s nothing I’d rather be doing on one of the last nice days of summer than sit in this classroom listening to someone tell me about political science, or nursing research… And boy I can’t WAIT to get home and start working on my paper rather than finishing the laundry or going to the gym”

Is that really the answer they’re expecting? It can’t be? Right?

Stressed

So I had my first panic attack/ mental break down last night. I swear to you I haven’t had a day at home in the past three weeks and in the past two I’ve only managed one solid day of school work. I have no idea when I’m going to catch up on all this homework. Plus with being so busy I haven’t been to the gym in probably three weeks either… Which brings me to this thought of the day from standing in line at the coffe shop, poingent no?:

Summer Review

Aww thanks Ashley 🙂 Nice to know I’ve been missed (PS, can you let me read your blog again? I miss knowing what you guys are up to)

I took a blogging hiatus mainly because I felt like I had nothing to talk about and due to school I was just a giant pool of negativity. Rather than post nothing but whining I thought maybe I should take a break.

June– Stu’s dad came for Stu’s graduation from our school district and stayed for about a week. Hubbin looooooved Stu’s dad and promptly announced he wanted to adopt Stu’s dad for a year too. I told him we couldn’t just go adopting every German that swings by. We saw little of Stu his last couple weeks in the US because he was hanging out with his friends and getting in all the last minute social stops and graduation parties he could. We dropped Stu off at the drop off point on June 26th where he went to debrief for 3 days before flying home. All in all, Stu was a wonderful kid to have for a first exchange student because he was so pleasant and easy going. I’m quite sure we’ll have another one in the next few years. Fortunately I’m off the hook this year because Hubbin successfully recruited one of his German students to host another kid. Whew.

July– We celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary 🙂 Then the next day I dropped Hubbin off at the airport for THREE WEEKS in Germany. Being a teacher is a very rough life. I finished my summer classes July 14th (finally!) My heart was just so not in the classes this summer and I felt guilty because I felt like I didn’t learn enough. I got ‘A’s in both of them but I did feel like I wasted a lot of time especially with my Advanced Assessment class. After school finished I essentially worked a lot in July and cleaned the whole house really well since there was no one to come around behind me and mess it all up. 😉 I swept swiffered and mopped each room in the whole house 🙂 and it stayed nice and clean until the day Hubbin got home and his suitcase exploded in the living room. Hubbin had horrible flight karma on the way home and missed his flight from DC to home by 5 minutes and then the next flight was delayed because of weather then delayed again and again, so instead of picking him up at 5pm in the afternoon my mom ended up picking him up at 2am because I had to get up for work at 5am the next day. Alls well that ends well but it was highly irritating to be looking forward to pick him up for THREE weeks and then barely get to see him at all when he got home.

August (so far)- I’m finally on my summer vacation and we just spent 5 days in Nice, France 🙂 We liked it so much on our cruise last year that we thought it would be a nice place for a summer vacation 🙂 I know it seems like a short trip but I was trying to be budget conscious with booking it 😉 It was very nice, we had a lovely time and every time we go on a vacation together where we can relax and aren’t distracted by our computers and TV and actually hang out together and reconnect I’m reminded of how well we fit together.

Now hopefully I can get back to posting more regularly without all the whining.—that may be a little optimistic though because my classes start again in two weeks and I registered for 14credits. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t this a part time program I signed up for? I thought so. Oh well, I’ll be finished with the BSN in December and then I solomnly swear I will register for no more than 8 credits the rest of the program!

End of Year Fiesta

Yesterday we had a big cookout for Stu… combo gradparty/bon voyage party. Because he technically doesn’t go home until the end of June but his time is rapidly drawing to a close with us and June is already packed full of his own social engagements with his friends. Stu’s father comes next week and will be staying with us through graduation and taking a few little roadtrips with Stu to see as much of the USA as possible before heading home.

Hubbin is really going to miss Stu, but we’re both looking forward to having our house back and for it to be just us again.

I feel like I spend most of my posts now apologizing for the lack of posts and offering up excuses, so I won’t bother.

School is stressing me out, I’m taking 7 credits this summer and even though online Sociology is a lot of “busy work” it’s still A LOT of busy work. I’ll be glad to finish up with the BSN program this fall so I can quit taking BS classes like sociology now and poly sci and global studies this fall. BLEH. I feel like it’s a serious waste of my time and money to take electives.

I’m also currently working on hammering out a plan for summer vacation the second week of August. I’m open to suggestions, got any? What are your summer vacation plans?

Congratulations Erica!

A Rare Follow up

Twice this week the man who had a cardiac arrest right under our noses a few weeks ago stopped by. He’s back to work now and looks amazing. I still couldn’t believe it. He said he wanted to come by to thank us, tell us that he thanks god for us every day as does his wife, daughter, and grandson. Then he stopped by a second time, later in the week to give my preceptor who had been his nurse a big hug.

I’m hoping to get back to blogging a bit more soon. My statistics final is this week and my pathophysiology final is next week. This summer I’m taking advanced assessment and then an online class: intro to sociology. Hopefully these summer classes won’t be quite so time intensive. I was looking at my schedule for the fall though and had one of those “what the fuck was I thinking? ….I thought I was doing this part time” oh well… I think this fall might be even worse than this semester. It will included advanced pharmacology 😦

Lame

So essentially I’m very lame and have no very good excuses as to where I’ve been for the past few weeks. School has been totally kicking by butt time commitment wise (and therefore emotion wise) Today I spent no less than 10 straight hours on this beautiful sunny day hunkered down in Panera typing up THIRTEEN pages of notes for my midterm in Pathophysiology which is on Tuesday. Pathophysiology is a little overwhelming as I expected and I’d like to meet whoever had the bright idea to make this class into an “accelerated format” class and make the students responsible for 14 weeks worth of lessons, including 14 separate online tests, the mid-term, final, class presentation, and online discussion board questions in an 8 week time period. Our mid-term on Tuesday, 4 weeks into the class, covers the first 600 pages in our text book. Nice. And the final… 4 weeks from then our final will be covering the next 8 online tests and 800some pages in the book.

Make my statistics class accelerated — we’ve learned nothing in that class!

I’ve also been working nights because they’ve decided we should work 6 offshifts each month now. Out of a total of 12. I also had a traumatic shift one of those nights where I made my first major med-error as a nurse. Hopefully last, although a few people have assured me that’s just wishful thinking. I had a patient who was being boarded in the ER for the night because there were no beds. She was a sick cancer patient who was in for pain control. Very sweet, I tried to take good care of her and everytime I walked in asking her how her pain was an reinforcing that I had her narcotics in my pocket and could give them whenever she needed them (probably better for her than being admitted to a floor room because she was my only patient for most of the night). Anyway. The floor doc came down and wrote orders for her sometime around 3/330am. I looked them over, morning labs, regular diet, PRN (as needed) med, Daily med, Daily med, patch to get changed each sunday. She was assigned a bed about 630am so she left before change of shift.

I was driving home about 8am and I got a call from the daylight charge nurse asking if I had given her metformin in the middle of the night because the floor was “all fired up” about this med not having been given. I said “nooo, I only saw daily meds” – anyway long story short, apparently one of the meds was ordered “daily with a dose now” and I totally missed it. And to make matters worse I found out the next week that it wasn’t metformin (oral diabetes medication) but atenolol (blood pressure medication). I felt like the worst person alive. Her pressure had been up through the night but the ER doc had finally written for some nitropaste which brought it down, plus she was in pain which can elevate pressure too. I mean nothing bad happened, when she went to the floor her pressure was about 130/80… but I still felt just AWEFUL. It’s totally inexcusable regardless… but it’s not even like I was busy or doing something else. I just didn’t see it? I looked through the list and just never saw it. Oh god, I was in tears for days. Plus I was convinced I was going to be fired.

I had a long talk about it with my preceptor, which I think was good for her too because she was having a lot of guilt about that cardiac arrest patient from the other week, but the summary of her advice was “You have to look at how your patient was, what was her pressure when she went to the floor?” I said 130/80, and she said “well then it doesn’t matter, shit happens and no one died” and my mother kept telling me “it’s bad, but it’s a learning experience, it would have been worse if you had given her the WRONG med, or too much of something… nothing bad happened to the patient”. Ugh, I hope to never go through that again! The guilt was terrible… for weeks! Everyone has assured me I won’t be fired. The charge nurse that day said she was pretty sure our boss was most upset that the floor called him at home, on his day off, at 730am. It’s been a few weeks, and I haven’t got a pink slip yet, so hopefully I’m okay.

I also totally fell off the shrinking-jeans wagon for ahem, all of March… which is now spilling over into April. I’ve just been too busy to go to the gym, and have been induldging my food wants just a LITTLE too much. A little because I want to, but I’m sure a little has to do with stress… I need to get back on that. Of course, then there’s this mid-term.