I passed!

I can't believe I passed, but I did. I now have a nursing license. I had to call a million times before I actually believed it, but I made it.

NCLEX Study time, redux

So I am doing a lot of practice questions. There's just not that much to talk about with them. They are pretty damn boring overall.

One of my good nursing school friends takes her test 2 days before I take mine, and we have been studying together. Stupidly, I planned a trip to the beach for 4 days the week before I take my test. I'll be studying the whole time. It might help me relax. I started to get worried when I got an email from my new job saying "We REQUIRE you to pass the NCLEX before you start". Jeez, thanks, I didn't think I was panicked enough!

I finally got my ATT

That means I got an authorization number to take my NCLEX. I called to schedule but I have to wait for someone to get back to me. Sigh. This is frustrating. I really just want to get it over with.

They said I would hear back within 3 business days. It's day 2. I am going to go completely insane if I don't hear back soon.

Down to the wire

So, I am in my last few weeks of programming computers and am preparing for my licensure exam. It's really hard to stay on track, really. I'm worried about all kinds of things happening if I don't pass, or if I do.

I am afraid because when I went to new grad day at this hospital, everyone was young and just graduating college at a 4 year school and had all these opportunities I didn't have. I still got a job here, but I worry that I am somehow an impostor and will get "outed" quickly.

I worry that I won't be cut out for the ICU and I'll fail out of orientation on some stupid test.

I worry I'll fail the NCLEX and they'll fire me.

I know these things are stupid, and none of them are really that realistic. But I am scared to death, and lately am not feeling very competent.

Everyone was so happy to graduate, except me. I loved school, I did so well there in a controlled environment and I don't know what to do outside that. It's stupid, but there.

I'm alive, I promise!

I have one 6 hour shift left in my preceptorship, and 2 final exams left. Then I graduate. It feels both complely unreal and completely terrifying because I still feel so inept that I can't do this on my own yet.

I've been precepting on an oncology unit at a local hospital. It's been going well but I feel like in some ways it's almost ruined my life. Really it's because of the hours. I have to work the night shift for my preceptorship, but I work the day shift for my regular job. So if I want to keep my job/health insurance/etc, I just don't get to sleep.

So it's really mixed right now in terms of how I feel, but really right now I am really relieved it's almost over. I've had to do things the human body isn't really supposed to do, in terms of staying up numbers of hours. It sucks and it's been the hardest thing I've ever done.

I am not sure if I'd do it over again if I had another chance honestly. Don't believe them when they say your GPA will help you in your placement, because nights was my last choice. I really figured since I have a 4.0 I would have more of my requests for my placement honored. If I knew it would be like this and working nights, I think I would have taken a regular clinical once a week during the day. It's been that awful to do nights/days at the same time.

Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit

So, as you may have gathered from my silence, I didn't get an offer from new grad day. They called me back and explained that I didn't have a bachelor's degree and that's the tiebreaker they had to use because they had so few openings. Sigh.

So a few days later the department of nurse recruitment called me and asked me if I'd like to interview on the Neurosurgical ICU. Whoa. I had never thought of a critical care area as a new graduate, mainly because I was worried about not getting enough training since so many hospitals are so bottom-line oriented that they regularly give nurses too many patients and stop hiring nurses in a down economy. But this hospital's orientation seems to be top notch for this kind of department. I left the interview thinking I could really do it, and I loved the unit from what I saw.

I scheduled a time to shadow (today, later) and was offered the job!!! I asked for a few days to make up my mind and I am going to decide after shadowing - but I am 95 percent sure it's what I am going to do. I just want to give it the shadow time to make a thousand percent sure it's what I want. It's a 2 year commitment to the unit plus 6 months of orientation, which makes it a fairly significant decision. The schedule isn't completely what I wanted (4 days a week instead of 3 for the first year, but they have done research and found that new nurses achieve competency faster if they work 4 days a week as opposed to the typical nurse schedule of 3, for their first year). So it's for my own good for better training, etc, but it's more day care costs for us.

I loved it though - the high acuity, the types of patients, and I love the nurse manager I met with. We really seemed to get along.

I think I'm pretty sure I am going to do this. It's crazy that such a cool position just fell into my lap like this, it's been a good week!

Job applications, again.

I shadowed this past Wednesday at a pediatric hematology/oncology unit and I loved it and felt so at home on the unit. I stayed for 5 hours (even though the original shadow was only supposed to be 2 hours) because I wanted to see a stem cell transplant.

I love that place so much. I would kill to work there. It's too bad I don't have much of a chance - they are having budgetary issues and don't know how many people they will be able to actually hire. They should know by the end of the month.

Tomorrow I have an all day new-grad nurse hiring event. It's for a position on an adult oncology unit. They do say up front that they do 90 percent of their new grad hiring for the year at this one event, and many times people leave tomorrow's event with a job offer. I am cautiously hopeful about my chances. I am really lucky because I signed up when it was very early and I was able to get a spot. I know people who have called up and asked to register and were told there were 250 people on the waiting list for the event. I feel vaguely guilty because I am sure there are people on that waiting list more qualified than I am, but it was first come, first serve and I didn't cheat or anything, I just called them early.

All day in a boring business suit and pantyhose. Bleh. I am NOT looking forward to that part of things. And the uncomfortable shoes. :( Maybe I'll get an awesome job offer and it'll all be worth it. Stranger things have happened!

The first hospital (peds oncology) told me that if I got an offer before they had their budgetary info and really wanted to know what their position was about hiring me, before I accepted or declined the other offer - to call them and see what they would be able to tell me.

My scariest scenario right now is having to make the choice of one or the other of these places. I already know both units have almost near zero turnover and the nurses are so happy they stay on both units for years and years. So I know I wouldn't be unhappy either place. But the idea of having to make the decision between both these places makes me panicked just thinking about it. So right now, I am actually hoping at least one of them turns me down so I don't have to be in that position.

So, if I leave tomorrow with no offer in hand, it could well be a blessing in disguise. We'll see.

Oh, and the first test of the semester - I got a 90, even though I took the test with bronchitis and was afraid I'd gotten my first failing grade in nursing school ever. So I'm still good for this semester. I just have to not lose sight of school. It's hard to keep my focus with the job stuff going on.