Did I REALLY sign up for this??

That's right, it's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!!! I mean can you even say that without singing that song? TWENTY EIGHT days until my LAST assignment is due!!!! Wooooooofreakinghoooooo!! Honestly, I could NOT be happier that this time in my life is almost OVER!!! No more school for me EVER!!!!!! Of course everyone is all like, "Yeah you say that now but you'll go back and get your DNP"...um NO! No I won't. I have NO inclination, nor desire to go on in schooling. Of course this is a personal decision based on where I am in life, not anything against getting the DNP. If I were younger I would probably go ahead and pursue this but at my age I just don't think it's financially feasible for me to continue on. While I think the DNP is on the right track, at this time I don't find the DNP to be very useful to actual practice. The DNP is too paper/theory/research heavy and in my opinion those things should be reserved for the PhD. If advanced practice want...

It's getting closer and closer. Only 4 1/2 more months of graduate school left and then I will be FINISHED with school forever!!! This semester I am in Adult. I have to have 240 clinical hours and 240 patients logged by the end of April. I'm severely lagging behind...as of right now I only have 116 hours. I probably have more patients than hours but I'm not even sure about that. All I know is the next month and a half are probably going to be pretty hectic. I am doing clinicals at two different sites, one is a family practice and the other is a walk in/urgent care clinic. I have to admit, I am LOVING the walk in clinic. As I may or may not have said, I'm not sure that family practice is my forte. There are so many illnesses, and I just don't know that dealing with everyone's multiple chronic illnesses is for me. I love the fact that in the urgent care clinic patients are coming in for one one thing (usually). They come in with their specific symptoms, you ...

Let's talk children. In my last semester I had Peds and Policy. To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to my Peds rotation. Although children have never really been my thing, for some reason they always seem to love me. I think I was worried about the fact that I still don't feel that sure about all of the disease processes of the adult body, much less the diseases of little people. Hindsight was that I shouldn't have worried. Of course that's hindsight on basically all the classes I've taken. I have found that I've needlessly worried over each and every class for nothing. Up until this point I have gotten straight A's, well except for that B that I completely eeked out in Patho (man was that a stressful semester). Another tidbit of advice, if there are FB pages set up for your school then go ahead and join them, they're a great place to get information. On the flip side of that though, DON'T visit them too often, and DON'T let everyo...

Yep, you heard me right, one semester down, and only 6 more to go! So, there were a few changes that I had to make in order to get all of my semesters in line and in making those changes I went from 8 semesters to 7, which means instead of graduating December 2017, I'll now graduate in August of 2017. I know it's just one semester less, but that's 4 months sooner and that makes me excited. So on to how this first semester was. First of all, I took two "easy" classes. I had Nursing Theory and Advanced Roles. While I disliked Theory very much, I felt ok about AR. Also, with summer being an abbreviated semester, it took a minute to get used to so many things being due all at once. Since my school is online there are discussion boards that have to be done every week. Usually there were 2-3 topics due each week where we had to post an initial discussion and then respond to at least 2 of the classmates postings. This was fine. The only real pain was that the postings ...

I love spring, spring is absolutely my favorite time of the year. To me spring feels like life, it's so full of promise and hope, of newness and freshness! I'm so happy that I'm starting school in June at a time when the daylight is longer and I can take my books outside and study in the fresh air. Speaking of which, I am so close to being able to register for classes. I have updated all of my information and am only waiting on one more hold to be released and then I can register!  It's getting so close, just right around the corner! Can you feel my excitement?!! If not, it looks a little something like this: Although on the same hand I am nervous as all get out! (Yes that's a southern expression.) If you read back through my blog you'll see that I'm definitely a nervous Nelly when it comes to school. I get myself all worked up quite often and although I'm not in a frenzy YET, I am still worried about how I'll do this time around. I mean I've...

I know I have been MIA for quite a while now, I suppose that's what working 4-5 days a week will do to  you, but I'm back and with good news, I WAS ACCEPTED INTO MY MASTER'S FNP PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!  Can you tell I'm excited?  Doing the happy dance, doing the happy dance. Ok, to be honest, I've known this for a while, but since I don't actually start school until June, I didn't see any point in rushing to put it on here, but since June is just 3 short months away, and registration for classes start April 3, I figured it was time!! Well, that and I'm working in rehab today so I have a little time to kill :D  So, the deets. I am going back to the same school that I graduated from with my BSN. This is a RODP (Regent's Online Degree Program) where they assign you to a home school and lucky me I was assigned back at my alma mater, so thrilled! Like I said, I start in June. I am planning on attending part time, which equals 2 classe...

So yesterday was my first day of Peds, the clinical I have been waiting for since I started nursing school was finally here.  To say I was nervous was an understatement.  I was TERRIFIED, and honestly I have no idea why.  Maybe because it was the tiny human population?  Maybe because it was VANDERBILT, maybe because I didn't get enough sleep the day/night before.  Maybe because my best friend was no longer with me in class?  Honestly, I don't know why I was so skittish but seriously I felt like I could cry at least 3 times that day.  Ok, here's a recap of how it went & why it was so terrible & wonderful at the same time. Worked 7p-7a Saturday night.  Slept on Sunday until about 1:30 then got up because I knew I had an 36 strip EKG assignment due on Tuesday & I knew I wouldn't be able to do it Monday since I had Peds clinical.  Worked on my strips for as long as I could but then I was just totally exhausted by 6 pm.  ...