I'm not going to lie, it was hard. No room for procrastinating since it was only a 7 weeks rotation with 5 exams. It all started well, I passed my first, second, and third test without any issues. Again, lots of studying was involved. I had little anxiety and I was testing well. The material was easy to understand and I was actually interested in it. Then the cardiac section came along and although I loved it all I felt like I was back in med/surg the first time around. I couldn't get it all down packed and my anxiety started to creep back in. Let's just say it wasn't my best test out of the 5, but I had done well enough in the others that it really didn't affect me much. With one test to go I was having a little anxiety but it was all good in the end. As soon as the rotation finished we headed to celebrate. We were officially half way through the nursing program.

To be quite honest Peds isn't my thing. You need to have a calling for it and lots of patience, something that I lack even with being a mother. Don't get me wrong, the children were adorable and baths and changing diapers is a lot easier on little humans but giving meds to a toddler was not fun at all! Just imagine having to give meds to your toddler? Now imagine having to give meds to someone else's toddler? Big difference right. Yup, my point exactly.  I rather give meds to an adult any day :) Whatever little patience I have went out the window the first minutes. Aside from that however, interacting with them was so much fun. 

On another note, the very tiny humans were so much better to work with. I totally dig the NICU. I don't know exactly what it is about super tiny humans but I loved my experience in the NICU and I was lucky enough to have had an infant almost every day in clinical. It was definitively intimidating at first but I think that was more due to my lack of knowledge on their health issues and how to go about properly caring for them. 

I didn't care much about the office setting neither. I didn't feel like I was really helping anyone. It involved a lot of parent teaching and gathering information for the provider. Kidspeace, a behavioral health inpatient setting was not my cup of tea either. It was sad learning about their family/medical history and to try and help them was very challenging. Is not my calling. Home health care was interesting, maybe it's something I can do after several years of experience in a hospital setting and with the proper training but at this moment is not something I want to do right after graduating. My calling is with the newborn and the premature babies which goes hand in hand with my love for Obstetrics but that's a topic for another post.

I decided to take more of a holistic and prayer approach to my anxiety issues but by that time it was a little too late. I needed a miracle to pass the class and unfortunately I didn't get it. I failed out of med/surg and I had never felt so defeated. I honestly didn't know what I was doing wrong. I felt that I was studying a lot but the question was, was I studying effectively? It was very disappointing failing and letting my family down. They were a great support system helping me in which ever way they were able and here I was failing.

I remember coming to my mom after my first test and telling her "Mom, I failed my test." her response, "Damn Pamela. Is that why you have been killing yourself studying for? Is that why I'm picking up your lack, so you can fail your test?" and then she walked away. I cried my ass out! that was just my first test. I didn't even dare telling my husband. Then at the end of the semester having to tell them I failed the course was torture. I honestly don't even remember how I told them or what was their reaction. And quite frankly I don't want to remember it either. 

There was not a doubt within me that believe that I wasn't meant to be a nurse, so failing out of nursing school or changing careers was not an option. I emailed my program coordinator and told her I was planning on returning and she was a sweetheart about it. I began to analyze the past semester and figure out what I was doing wrong to change it for the next time. First on the list was dealing with my anxiety. I was determined to get myself together, focus, and have realistic expectations. 

I had to wait five months before starting med/surg again. In between that time I found ways to study effectively and ways to reduce my anxiety, especially for testing days. Guys, nursing school is no joke. Nursing school has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Nursing school is about prioritizing, and that means your family is no longer #1 on the list. Nursing school is hard but it's not impossible if you are dedicated and focused. 

The things that helped me this time around was staying organized. I planned a lot, especially my studying time. I did most of my studying in the library, I didn't study in groups, I focused less on the actual disease itself and more on the nursing care/intervention and the teaching aspect of it. I practice nclex style questions, studied one topic at a time, and utilized the resources I had available without trying not to get overwhelmed by all the options. I'm a visual learner so YouTube was my best friend. 

I'm not proud about having to repeat the course, but I have to admit that repeating it was a lesson for sure. I went from grades in the 70s the first time around to grades in the high 80s, high 90s, and even a 100. I got a 100 on my Endocrine system exam! Things happen for a reason. Would I want to fail again? Hell No! Do I want to pass with a nice grade? You bet!

And that was my first (plus) year in nursing school. A complete roller coaster.

Let's start at the beginning. I've mentioned before that many times I have felt upset with myself for not going to college right after high school. But the more I move along through the program the more I am convinced that this was all part of God's master plan. I eep thinking that maybe if I would have done nursing school at 18yrs old I'd probably would have failed. I'm not trying to be negative about it or insinuate that I wasn't smart enough. I'm simply saying that I wasn't as dedicated or as prepared as I am now. 

Nursing 1, which was Fundamentals of Nursing, was fairly easy for me. I like to think that this was due to my employment at the hospital working as a nurse aide. I was familiar with many of the topics, safety, infection control, and protocols parts of it. Nursing concepts, care plans, prioritizing not so well. Familiarity to the other topics made a lot of it seemed like common sense and I say that only because that's what I dealt with a work. The style of nursing questions and taking Pharmacology at the same time as nursing as was the most difficult part of this semester. 

Clinical for nursing one was also pretty straight forward for me. It involved a lot of taking vitals, giving baths, and toileting patients which was what I did on a day to day basis at work. Now, collecting information, assessment, passing medication, and constantly being put on the spot when giving said medication, charting, and relating nursing concepts was something I as not used to. That took a lot of time to get used to. 

My assigned unit was a cardiac floor consisting mainly of med/sug patients with some sort of cardiac problem, step-down patients which is simply patients that require a higher level of care but not high enough to be on a critical care unit, and it included a section of either 8 or 10 rooms exclusively for patients who had just had open heart surgery. These patients would be there several days being closely monitored and then be moved to another room out of the open heart area. It was a great experience from beginning to end. I had the opportunity to insert foley, give meds and hang IV with my instructor or a nurse, give injections, etc. the list goes on. 

The best part of this programmed is that it is part of a hospital so the clinical experience are amazing!

I don't want to make this post super long so stay tuned for part 2 of my first year in nursing school. 

To be continue...

* Steven graduated from the fifth grade and finished his last year in the program El Systema where he played the Viola for three years and taught himself to play the guitar. It was a bittersweet moment as that marked both the end and the beginning of a new stage in both of our life, Steven entering the preteens/middle school years as we embarked on being the parents of a teenager wagon.

* We had great baseball season. We made it to the championship as well as the All Star games and although we did not win in the All Star games it was such an amazing experience for all the kids. I am kind of looking forward to next season :)

* Hubby and I celebrated six years of marriage. I still can't believe that we are where we are today after all of our problems shortly after marriage. God is good y'all, God is good. 

* After two years of not getting our family pictures we were able to do so over the summer. I love to freeze certain moments in time to look back on as the years moves on.

*I successfully completed my med/surg rotation in nursing school. There's more to this story so make sure to stop by and read about my struggles in nursing school thus far, which will be blogged soon.

*Weddings, birthdays, pool time, gardening, grilling, and several camping trips filled up our summer agenda.

*My little cousin came from the Dominican Republic to play in a baseball tournament and after it as over he stayed with us until late August. He was able to come with us to OC and experience summer here in the sates. He was very quiet and reserved and it was like pulling teeth to get him chime in a conversation so I really hoped he enjoyed his time here. The boys and him got along really good, specially AJ. I'm sure he went home and had tons of stories to share about my little crazy family :)

*I am proud to say that as of August 2017 I am an official USA Citizen!

This was definitely a busy summer, or at least it felt like it.