I've been waiting a long time for this but now that it's here I'm freaking out just a little {okay, maybe a lot}. I've never been a good one for handling large amounts of stress and the thought of balancing school, work, home life and my sanity just seems a little bit impossible. But I guess that's what it's all about, right?
So back to the beginning-- I've blogged a little here and there but never much about nursing school, or nursing at all, really. From the time I was little I knew I wanted to do something medical, but I had no idea what. My first pick was a veterinarian. I've always had a huge heart for animals {see future post on my zoo...} and used to shadow a family friend who was a vet. I absolutely loved it and was very content with that path. Then high school happened. My high school was really big about helping us pick a career track. We even had high school "majors". Being such a huge high school, we had a ton of class options. I was able to take anything from pharmacy tech, to EMT, to child development. And more. It opened my eyes to several other options, but I wasn't letting go of the vet dream just yet. Then Africa. My travels overseas are definitely the biggest thing that made me realize my passion for helping people {and my inability to handle animals in pain}. For the first time in my life I saw a lot of physical pain. When faced with all the stray dogs and cats that were starving, I actually broke down. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't look at them, I couldn't hold it together. I would just sit there and sob uncontrollably. When faced with starving people, the opposite happened. Something inside of me clicked. I wanted to help. Of course I wanted to help the animals too, but emotionally I just couldn't deal with it. I learned that I had a strength when it comes to dealing with sick and injured people. Many people get squeemish at the sight of blood, but that's when I think most clearly. I believe that it's a God given gift of sorts. When I came back from Africa I knew I had some figuring out to do.
I now knew that the vet option was not for me but I still had no idea what in the medical field I wanted to do. I got to the point where I narrowed it down to a nurse, physician's assistant or a doctor. And then another major event occurred.
When I was in tenth grade, I wasn't feeling well and stayed home from school. It wasn't but an hour later that my mom came in my room and told me that my dad was at the hospital (my parents are divorced) and that they think he may have had a heart attack. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember sitting in the waiting room by myself freaking out (he was in the ICU which is not visitor friendly). I remember seeing him with oxygen and all the machines turned hooked up to him. My prom pictures that year were taken in the hospital sitting next to him. That was my first real experience of having a loved one sick in the hospital. It gave me a totally new perspective on what it was like to be a health care provider. A year later I had another experience, again with my Dad. He had trouble keeping food down for a month and after weeks of testing was diagnosed with a hernia (hole) in his diaphragm. So basically, his stomach was where his lungs are and that was causing him to throw up everything he ate. This of course required surgery, so back to the hospital we went. After my dad's surgery I stayed in the hospital with him. In those several days I saw the difference between a doctor's job and a nurses. While the surgeon may have been the one who actually cut my dad open, it was the nurses who where there 24/7 afterwards taking care of him. I knew when he left that hospital that that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the one that interacted with patients and took care of them. I knew that nursing was for me.
So fast forward to college. I received early acceptance into the nursing program at CSU here in Charleston. Everything was going according to plan, just like I expected. Until second semester. I had a terrible semester that consisted of Shingles (yes the terribly painful rash like thing that pops up all over your back), drama, depression, more drama and more drama. So much was packed into those couple of months that I could barely catch my breath. And didn't, really. I ended up with a D (in online Psychology, the easiest class of course) because I missed a week of assignments. This made me ineligible to keep my acceptance and set be back a year in school, and honestly, what feels like the rest of my life. So here I am, a year later. I got in again the second go-round and am hoping that my love of helping people is going to be enough to push me through it all. Did I mention I'm going to be working 40 hours a week too??? Yeah, any prayers and good vibes welcome this way :-)
