I met up with the nursing crew the other day! It was fun 🙂 In college, I really like planning hang outs. I feel like I planned out a lot of them. I can’t really say why I stopped doing it, but part of it was that I was the only one planning these events lol At a certain point, I felt like no one was as into these get-togethers as I was and soon it was just harder and harder to get people together, with varying schedules, work, school, and a bunch of other excuses. So now I’ve lost motivation to do them at all. Why I held off on getting together with the nursing peeps is a different story… but you know what? It was total nostalgia meeting up with these people. A bunch of memories rushed in and I found myself physically shaking my head, trying to get certain memories out, like one of those etch-a-sketch toys. At the same time it was like, I really missed these guys, I wish I had tried harder to stay close. We talked about work, or I guess they talked about work life and stuff like that. I kinda reverted to…

I’m not 100% sure why, but I feel like I’m always in a rush. I’m in a rush at work to finish all the things I need to do and make sure that I accomplish absolutely everything I can in 12 hours for every single one of my patients – and if I can get a chance, for my co-workers. I’m in a rush to gain clinical experience so that I can be on my way onto the next chapter in my career so that I can make a bigger difference to more people on a completely different platform. I’m in a rush to cross off this never ending checklist of things I’m convinced I need to do to have a meaningful and fulfilling life, and here I am, realizing that I’m burning myself out and trying way too hard. I know, what kind of backwards logic is this, that I would think that working too hard has become such a bad thing? Well, even though I can say that these experiences have somehow molded me into a slightly better version of myself, I can’t help but think that I’m missing the entire picture. “Enjoy the moment.” That’s what they…

For the past few weeks, I’ve been driving to and from work without listening to anything. If I’m lucky, I get a sunset or sunrise view on the way home or on the way to work. But other than that, it’s just me, the car, and the road, driving at 80mph for 45 minutes without anything else to distract me. I still have a hard time taking off my nursing hat when I clock out. I hear the beeping of vital signs machines, pulse ox machines, IV pumps and the ringing of call lights even when I sleep. I’ll question whether or not I did absolutely everything I could have done in my 12 hours of working for each and every one of my patients. Sometimes I’ll imagine the sound of the phone ringing or my handphone that I use for work ringing and that has jolted me up a couple of times at 4:30 in the morning even on my off days. There’s so much I think about when I work, and even after that, it seems like my brain is still set on hyper-speed. And when I’m not thinking about work, there’s a bunch of other things that keep…

*sigh* I’ve been working on my own now for a couple of months and don’t get me wrong, I still love nursing 😛 This isn’t that kind of “conflicted” post. But like I’ve mentioned before, I’m a float nurse. That means whichever unit is short, that’s where I go. The plus side is that I at least get to choose which unit I float to and it’s not 100% unpredictable. BUT, as much of a good experience it is to get to be on a cardiac specialty unit or a neuro specialty unit, I find myself not fitting in to the team culture. I feel like an outsider, like a temp contract worker, and definitely not part of the team. I mean, they don’t leave me alone, they still talk to me and help me out when I need it, but gosh, I don’t feel like I fit in? Like I’m part of the team for that day but I’m not part of the team? Let’s put it this way, one of my wishes coming out of my preceptorship for my capstone in nursing school was to find a nursing work family. I saw how the team was together and…

I get a lot of patients that are really old. Like 90’s old. I’ve been blessed enough to have talked to a couple of them that were not only 95 and 96 years old, but they were still sharp as whip, cracking jokes like nobody’s business, and racing around the unit with their walkers with pretty minimal assistance. In the short instances I get to talk to them while I’m giving them medication or doing something for them, they’ve given me their secret to how they’ve stayed so alert, so active, and so happy. First tip: Faith. As long and as difficult as their lives may have been, their faith had gotten them through many hard times. Their belief in God is what gave them something to hold on to, it’s what kept them humble, and it’s what gave them some sort of purpose in their life. Second tip: Don’t stop reading. I asked her what she did at home to keep busy, she told me she borrowed books from the library and read a book every week. She never stops reading and she would read anything and everything. Third tip: Never stop learning. This kinda ties into tip #2,…