Update

• Days to Graduation:  12
• Days until Jerry gets home:  10
• Shifts left to complete:  5
• Final paper completed:  Nope
• Anxiety levels:  marginally better.  Being super busy working with sick people always helps distract me from my small-time problems.

NG tubes:  As in nasogastric tubes.  As in tube that theoretically ends in a person's stomach via their nose.  You watch the demonstrational videos.  You practice on the dummies in lab.  But you just don't really get how awful they are until you are shoving one down an adorable 90+ year old woman's disoriented nose.  So you can promptly push 4 (freaking 4!) liters of GoLytely through it in the following two hours.  Oh the story gets so much worse, but I'll save it for the post graduation highlight reel.  For now let's just say that when it was over and this sweet little disoriented lady is watching liquid being pushed into her stomach with a syringe she looks up at me and innocently says, "Is this how you always help people honey?  I never dreamed of this."  Picture the little Nana from Happy Gilmore when you run this scenario in your head.  She's also patting my hand while speaking.  She's not angry, she's bewidered and just wants to understand why I am doing this to her.  This was after a horrifying catheter insertion, multiple blood draws, an NG tube, failed attempts at sedation with pharmaceuticals and 3 of the 4 liters of GoLytely.  Plus the blood pressure cuff made her scream every 15 minutes because her arm had a circumference of about 5 inches and was full of the lab tech's stick attempts at her tiny, fragile, dehydrated veins.  Her memory reset about every 15 minutes too.  So I was continuously explaing why WHY we had shoved tubes into her nose, bladder and arms.  Not surprisingly, the nose was what bothered her the most.  Yes, this is pretty much how I help people.  And no, I don't feel great about it right now, ma'am. 

One other anecdote.  Jerry currently resides just a few hours from where my dad lives.  With his new wife and her 5 young children.  It's a whole big awkward situation, but suffice it to say that I spend as little one on one time with this awkward situation as possible.  My dad invited Jerry to go fishing with him for the day.  Jerry agreed thinking that the party would consist of my dad and perhaps one of my uncles.  Imagine his delight when my dad brought the whole awkward situation with him in the form of his new wife.  About 5 hours in he texts me "Ask me how much fun I'm having."

So...to sum up.  Everyone is having fun.

The Last Long Haul

• Anxiety Levels:  still pretty freaking high, probably 8/10 during my tranquil moments

• Days to graduation:  15

• Days until Jerry gets home:  13

• 12 hour shifts left to complete:  7 (In the next 9 days. Should be fun.)

• Final Paper:  not done, but done to a point that I think I can finish on time.

• Last night I had a dream that one of my family members that I really can't stand was pregnant again.  I didn't like it.  CD5 up in here ya'll. Yay.

• I cannot find my CPR certification card anywhere.  It's really bugging me but I don't have time to do a thorough search right now.  

• Interested in a super fun stroll down memory lane?  Want to relive your wild late teens and early twenties via an extremely frustrating series of background checks and driver history reports?  Go to nursing school.  Now that it's time to fill out the NCLEX application I get to track down every random speeding ticket I ever received, along with a littering ticket from 2004 and a following too closely ticket from 2003.  Oh and the paperwork for my medical withdrawal from my 2005 attempt at nursing school.  Good times.

• I really can't even formulate full sentences tonight so there you have it.  Scared.  Anxious.  Wanting it to be over. 

In Lieu of Lorazepam: A Whiny Post

Still plugging along over here.  School, true to Nursing School From Hell form, continues to be a stressful, anxiety-producing pain in the ass right up to the bitter end.  I'm terrified.  And my jaw hurts because I am walking around all clenched all the time.  Even when I sleep.  I'm fantasizing about lorazepam. Or any heavy sedative really.  I'm not picky.  

Also, I pretty much hate everybody right now.  Classmates, family, extremely tolerant fiance who doesn't deserve an extra ration of my crap, etc. Pretty much any human being who attempts to interact with me. I still like the Kiddo (and have tons of mommy guilt).  And the dogs.  The dogs are ok.  

I have one large, obnoxious, paper left to write.  One.  You'd think I'd be encouraged, bolstered by the fact that it's the very.last.one.  But no.  Instead I have a crippling case of writer's block and have written 3/4 of a page of text in the last 5 days.  On Friday, I start my last marathon run of 12 hour shifts.  It's not going to be pretty.  So I have 2 days to write a paper.  Typing that just made me a little nauseous.  

If it helps, I absolutely know I sound whiny and obnoxious.  I do.  It's just....it's been so many years since I have felt free from pressure.  Since my first innocent stab at nursing school back in 2006.  It's been grief and pregnancy worries, then baby worries--all topped off by the crushing pressure I've felt to go back to school, then get good grades, get accepted to a nursing program, and finally...three years at the Nursing School From Hell (was I supposed to capitalize From?  I don't think so).  The truth is, I have always had a sinking feeling that something, SOMETHING will get messed up and I won't get to graduate from nursing school. I have such a hard time believing things will be ok.  Believing in anything some days. And often life cooperates with my suspicions and throws crap at me.  So...I continue to be an anxious wreck.  Its 2.5 weeks to graduation.  Announcements have been sent.  Family is coming.  I want to be done.  I am craving the pressure relief I anticipate feeling when I know it's over.  I have so much time and emotions tied up in this thing.  I just need it to turn out ok.  I wish I felt secure and like I could just glide through these last days, but the potent combination of the Nursing School From Hell and my own obstacles has made gliding impossible. So I'm whining.  And an anxious wreck.  And once again using my blog as a place to dump my emotional baggage. 

A Good Day

I've really missed my blog. For weeks now, I've been floundering along, stumbling through each day plagued by self-doubt and depression and lots of other crap.  April really sucks.  I don't have the heart to ruin my good day by describing it in detail.  It sucked.

But it's May.  Thank God.  The lilacs will be blooming here in the next few days, the snow is melting from the mountain tops and everything is gloriously, brilliantly green.  Today I had my last big nursing school test.  I think most nursing students would be familiar with Kaplan?  It was Readiness Test day today, the test that predicts a student's readiness for the national licensure exam.  It is a requirement at The Nursing School From Hell to attain a Readiness Test score that translates to having a 95% chance of success on the licensure exam--before they will let you graduate.  Basically, you walk at graduation next month but you DO NOT have a degree before they say so.  No degree means no licensure exam and no job.  I was in the last group to test, having worked 8 night shifts in the last 10 days.  Walking into the test, only 3 people before me had passed it.  I hadn't found the time/motivation to get the studying in that I needed and my practice test scores have been subpar at best.  My preceptorship has been terrible and I just survived April.  My friends that usually test right with me or just below me in scores had all failed it already.  It wasn't looking good.

Guess what?  I rocked that sucker.  I have no idea how, but I did.  A huge weight has been lifted. I think God knew I couldn't handle the extra pressure right now of having to retake that stupid test.   I am done with testing, folks.  Done.  I was driving home and it hit me that this whole nursing school business may actually have a successful outcome.  I'm still not counting my chickens before they hatch, but I have one paper and 4 shifts of my preceptorship left to finish.  Hopefully I'll be screaming from the rooftops a month from now.  

So tonight I have just been basking in the glow of my unanticipated success.  Vampire Diaries season finale (not sure how I'm going to make it without a new episode for 4 months) followed by Grey's Anatomy.  Takeout and popcorn with the Kiddo.  My house is a mess and I need to go grocery shopping, but tonight I don't care.  I am now snuggled into bed with the Kiddo snoozing beside me watching Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy and pinning crap on Pinterest.  Today was a good day.

In other news....still trying my damndest to get knocked up but trying to lay off the obsessive cycle monitoring.  My body hasn't been coping well with all the stress and my cycles have been all over the place.  If I'm not preggers by fall, I'll be in the doctor's office demanding Clomid and exaggerating my TTC attempts to grotesque proportions.  In the meantime...at least I can drink at my graduation party.  I even pinned some fun summer drinks.  I'm looking forward to a low anxiety summer.