Did I REALLY sign up for this??

Me & my fam (not sure where my hubby is in this pic!!) Me & my beautiful daughter, as you can tell this is from her SC Yep that's right people, IT IS DONE! I know it's been three months since graduation but hey, I've been decompressing!! Actually I still am. Last night I was laying on the couch with my daughter watching Christmas movies & I looked over at her and said, "I'm so glad that I'm not doing homework right now" and she goes, "Yo u're still not over it huh?" hahaha!! No I'm not!! 6  Six (APA wouldn't let me type the number 6 haha!) years of nursing and nursing practitioner school still has me traumatized!! But I digress. Let's talk about NP school. So here goes with some tips and insight that I promised. 1. Every semester you get the syllabus and trust my you will FREAK!! Now trust me again, STOP IT. The syllabus ALWAYS looks worst than what it actually is. Yes there are 50 bazilli...

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...

So I was just reading back over my last post (which got several comments thank you very much!!) and I noticed that I totally skipped posting a single thing about my Women's Health semester. Of course to give myself some credit, the summer semesters are JAMPACKED with information all into two little months. So to go back a little I'll just say I LOVED my WH clinical. I can't tell if my love stemmed from actually loving the rotation or if I was just loving actually "practicing" as a NP! My preceptor was THE BEST! Seriously, I have been so blessed so far to not only have to go on a full out man hunt for my preceptors (no you don't understand how hard that is) as well as how great my preceptors are. In WH I thankfully had an "in" as I have been friends with the office manager of an OBGYN's office for over 16 years now. When the time came she was more than gracious and helpful to me and I'll love her forever for it!! Speaking of which, now that I ...

So tomorrow starts my fourth semester. Although I am excited (and quite a bit nervous) about starting clinicals, I have to admit that I'm still sad that my summer "break" is over... Normally on the first day of a new semester I stalk the website & wait for all of the information to come up. Then I sit down & put all of the due dates on my calendar and start obsessing over all of the information that I have flooding my brain. But guess what I am choosing to do this time instead? Take my girl and go to the lake. Yep, you heard me & guess what else? I even thought about really rebelling and not even taking my laptop, but then sanity hit. So, even though I am taking 4 teenage girls on a small camping trip, I will still be taking my laptop & checking in with school. I mean I'm not totally crazy. I know I'll at least have the "introduction" post due, you know, the major stuff right at the beginning. We will only be gone 2 days, so I'...

Can I just say how MUCH I am loving my tiny break from school? I have a few days to feel like a normal person again. No constant thoughts running through the back of my brain about what assignments I have due, what paper I have to write, what quiz I need to be studying for, or did I miss an assignment, was that quiz this week or last week, wait there was a quiz??!! You get my point. These few weeks have given me the recharge I needed to plunge back into the thick of it, especially since summer semesters are particularly brutal. Trying to squeeze 17 weeks worth of content into 10 weeks is no joke. Thank goodness I'm only taking one class though. Well, one class, one clinical. Believe it or not I actually went and bought some books to read FOR FUN! Man I miss reading for fun...I love reading. Right now I'm reading two books and although I know I probably won't finish them before the semester starts back (I mean there is still work and my child and of course several season...

I know I haven't posted in 500 years, but I promise I'm still here....and I'm still in NP school. Thankfully I just finished my HARDEST, most stressful semester of all of my nursing school career. This past semester I took Advanced Patho & Advanced Assessment together. Can we say, BIG mistake?? Why didn't anyone tell me how time consuming and hard these classes were? I mean yes, I realize that we're talking Patho & Assessment here, but still, a little warning would have been nice. The funny thing is, I thought I was making the best choice. I mean it was between taking Patho & Pharm together or Patho & Assessment, so naturally I thought I was making the right choice, I mean wouldn't you think so? Well, guess who was wrong, big time?? Me!! Unfortunately, Pharm was WAY easier than I thought it would be and although assessment wasn't hard persay, it was EXTREMELY time consuming. Between the discussion boards (DBs), the write ups, the quizzes, th...

Christmas is over but I am still basking in the break and the fact that I have no school until January 18th. Sometimes I feel so burnt out, like if I were to just stop going to school tomorrow I would be ok with that...but then I get floated to Med/Surg and I'm like "HELL TO THE NAW!!" I seriously don't understand how floor nurses, especially Med/Surg floor nurses do it. I just couldn't see myself being a floor nurse for 30 years. There is NO way. Not too long ago I read a statistic that said the majority of new nurses were burning out and changing careers within THREE years of becoming nurses. That's crazy! Three years just barely gives you enough time to be wet behind the ears! But I can believe it. In my hospital alone I have seen almost a complete nurse turnover of the whole hospital. That means that every unit in my hospital has had major turnover, and that's not just older nurses, I'm talking even brand new nurses have left within a year of ...

Second semester of graduate school is going along swimmingly. So far no snags. True to what everyone suggested, I am so HAPPY that I chose pharm this semester instead of patho. Everyone in my program that I've talked to has said that patho is a beast, and I just couldn't afford that this semester. Thankfully, I heeded what everyone said and I chose pharm, which has been surprisingly easy. We just recently took our midterm and I only missed three, not too shabby. As I said in my last post, I'm also taking research as well. Another blessing. Everyone said with research it all depended on the teacher, and again, THANKFULLY I got a GREAT teacher! Something else that's different about this semester is the time. Starting my program in the summer I just assumed that every semester would be as jam packed as the summer, but it's not. The regular semesters are nowhere NEAR as packed together as the summer semester. Of course they're trying to jam 4 months into two months ...

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 ...

Summer is here, well I mean not officially, but close enough, and this summer means school is back in full force. Of course by full force I mean part time. In one way I'm looking forward to the fact that I'll only have 2 classes at a time to focus on, which hopefully means I'll make straight A's. On the other hand though, I wish I was able to go full time, like in nursing school, and get it over with! Another 2 1/2 years...sigh. The good thing about this time around though, is how AWESOME clinical is going to be!!! I am soooo looking forward to my clinicals, all dressed up in my white coat and professional name tag! Guess I need to do some shopping before then huh? Going straight from nursing school into nursing, I haven't really had the need to stock up on professional clothing. I went from jeans, sandals and tennis shoes, to scrubs and tennis shoes. And of course there's the ever present bun that I wear, definitely going to need to get my hair did before then!...

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...

This weekend my nursing bestie graduated from Nursing school! I am so proud of him! It was so neat being at pinning again, but this time in the audience. I can remember how it felt sitting there waiting to get your pin, knowing that this was the culmination of everything you had worked so hard for. I can hardly believe it's been 7 months since I was the one walking across that stage getting my beloved pin. Here is a pic of me on my way to pinning :D It was a great night and I even got to see some of my classmates. I can't believe how much I miss all of them! We all said we need to get together soon & I plan on making that happen. I really love those people and let's be real, the only people that can truly understand the hell that you had to go through for those 2 1/2 years are the nursing peeps that went through it with you. Speaking of being out of school, it's so weird. Being out of school and just working is such a different pace. There's no more deadlin...

Well, I'm still waiting, but I'm pretty sure I should have some exciting news shortly, I'll let you know for sure as soon as I get the final word (like you couldn't guess). Anyway, as my title says, I'm really starting to settle in to my job on Med/Surg & dare I say, I've actually started LOOKING FORWARD to going in to work. I don't know that it has so much to do with the job itself or with the fact that I'm starting to find my place. It seems like it's harder to find your place in a tight knit group, especially when you only work 3 days a week, which I am TOTALLY loving btw. But when some of those nurses work 4 & 5 days a week they really get to know each other.  Then of course you have the ones that have been there for 30 years, so they REALLY know each other. It just takes a while, but I think I am really starting to not only find my place, but get a groove when it comes to running my day in M/S. Of course I know I still have a long way ...

Soo, nothing from graduate school. I applied to the online RODP program on August 5th & have heard nothing. I have a friend that said that one of the girls she works with heard immediately after she applied, so I'm thinking that my answer is no.  The thing is that if it's no then I'll get over it, but I'd really like to know either way. I've called twice & have been told that my application is with the "review board" but dang, it's been over 60 days how long does the review board take?  I've kind of given up, but even so I'd like to hear. Anyhoo, yesterday I met up with two of my nursing school friends & it was great to catch up and talk about our new jobs.  I have to say I miss my nursing school peeps!!  Well, the majority of them anyway ;) Also, I feel so stagnant. Even though I finally have what I've been working so hard for, I still feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Is that bad? Does that mean I don't appreciate wha...

So what has 2 months as a brand new RN taught me?  Well here goes: 1. Doctor's REALLY can be serious jerks 2. When doctor's are being serious jerks it's usually not personal, so try not to take it that way 3. Patients really do die & even though it's not your fault, you still feel like it is in some way 4. Errors CAN happen, be VERY vigilant 5. SLOW DOWN 6. If you're doing something that you're unsure of and your nursing sense starts tingling, STOP what you're doing and ask someone about it 7. It's hard to remember your patient's names when you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off 8. Once you're off orientation it's full steam ahead so if  you feel like you need more training/orienting time then say so! 9. Nurses are a cool group of people 10. TED hose really do make your legs feel SO much better after a 12 hour shift (and they sell some really cute ones too) 11. Working 3 shifts a week ROCKS!! 12. This...

Sorry it took me so long to post, but yes I passed the dreaded NCLEX!! I was so nervous but it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I got 141 questions & I swear around question 130 I thought "I'm the one, I'm going to get all of the questions", but luckily I wasn't, but my friend was!  Me & two of my friends took it at the same time & one finished with 75, then there was me & then the other one got all of the questions, thankfully though we all passed!!  After it was over we all came together & did "the trick" & yes it really works.  2 of my friends failed & they were able to go all the way to the credit card screen after taking the test, but everyone that passed was stopped before getting to that scree, so just in case you're wondering, yes the trick really works. So, I have been working on Med Surg now for about a month & I have to say that I have really learned some interesting things of which I will...

So as you can see I have GRADUATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!  I am SO happy that nursing school is over, but can we say holy terrified?  Tomorrow is the NCLEX & I feel thoroughly unprepared.  Fortunately our school provided us with the HURST Review  and even though I have been studying this for about 2 weeks now I still feel completely terrified to actually take the test.  Of my former classmates I know of one so far who has failed....so scary... The rest of them are chugging along & passing on a daily basis, hopefully I will be one of them! But to rewind, here are a few pics from graduation & my graduation party that my precious husband & sister threw for me: That's my baby girl to my right, she looks taller than me!   I seriously couldn't have been cheesing any harder!! My nursing bestie & his bf hiding in the back! My study buddy!   My inlaws, aren't they precious!! Definitely one of the ...