Life

NURSING SCHOOL THUS FAR…

Posted on December 13, 2018

It’s been a wild and amazingly challenging two years, let me tell you babes.

It feels like just yesterday, I was getting oriented about the Do’s & Don’ts of nursing school. I remember sitting in the front row of the auditorium feeling so nervous, and yet so excited at the same time. I had confidence that I was going to absolutely crush nursing school, but I wasn’t sure what doing so would look like.

In those first few weeks, I talked to myself A LOT. Saying things like:

Would all my hair be gone from the stress of this program?

Could I continue to keep my anxiety at bay with the steps I had learned to use to battle my anxiety?

Was my body up to tackling the challenges of nursing school?

Four semesters in and I’ve realized two things from that time:

I didn’t lose any of my hair, thank the heavens & my body, mind, hell my spirit was and continues to be more than capable of tackling the challenges of nursing school.

I feel so much gratitude to God for granting me the grace to make mistakes and the grit to learn from them and keep pushing forward.

This allowance has opened my eyes to so much.

For starters,

My first semester was an incredibly adaptive experience. I say this because the way in which you’re taught in nursing school is so different than what your prerequisites’ experience may have been. There is so much that you have to get used to that is unlike anything you may have ever done. From the quickness I had to go through a chapter (or chapters rather) to understanding the key differences in assessment techniques… First semester was a bit of a doozy that took some major getting used to. I found my core group of friends that served as equal parts study buddies. They were important to have because bouncing concepts off people who were as eager to understand the material as you are seemed like a no brainer. I was also on it this semester because there was just no time for nonsense. Not that I’ve ever been a nonsense type of student, but still. The pace of things was just different.

Second semester proved to be sooo rewarding. I had taken the skills that I have always used in order to excel in school, and fine tuned them a tad bit. To say it made my semester amazing is an understatement. IT ROCKED. I had finally gotten the hang of things and remember both literally and figuratively moving and grooving through the semester. It felt like I’d finally found my balance and was exactly where I was meant to be.

Third semester was different. Yeah it was definitely different. It was strictly about preggers and life after preggers. Two of my absolute favorite subjects. Sidenote: I’m pretty obsessed with preggers and my heart oozes around kids (in the best way imaginable). So you would be right to assume that learning this material was a ball for me. A ball. I learned two things from this semester that I will always keep at the forefront of my mind,

1) being pregnant does NOT mean you can eat whatever the heck you want because gestational diabetes is no joke

2) us women are fucking heroic creatures, let me tell you.

Fourth semester was nothing short of amazing overall, but annoying in a lot of minor ways. So here’s the thing. At the university I attend it is normally standard that students “double up” by taking Psych and Medical Surgical Nursing II at once. Where the challenges lie with that is they’re both attached with labs. Therefore, things can get pretty hectic pretty darn quick. I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to take Psych in the summer. Which made things that much easier for me when fourth semester started in August. I learned so much this semester and snagged a better grip of the content I had been learning for the past two years.

I officially ended fourth semester yesterday and recounting all of this with you guys and myself, makes me feel so damn proud. I worked damn hard to get to where I am today and I’ll be damned if I don’t bask in the giddiness that brings me.

For me, that is nursing school thus far and in a few short months, I’ll be a nurse y’all.

As for the day I snatch that degree and put those accolades behind my name? May 11th, I can’t wait to make your acquaintance,

Thelms