Final exams finished last week. Am pleased to say I survived. Not so sure I thrived this time, but I definitely survived.
Two exams on one day, one right after another, is brutal. Studying for two exams for the same day is also brutal. I hope that never happens again. But it's over, and as I like to say, "If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger!" -- I guess I am that much stronger for having had that experience.
Just before my last exam on Thursday afternoon, I guess the stress level of everything going on that week was finally getting to me (studying stress, I got sick for the first time all term, the kids were getting sick, school was cancelled one day due to bad weather, raging hormones...), and I was briefly, ever so briefly, regretting my career-change decision.
How easy it would have been to have been sitting in my nice office all week, enjoying my wonderful paycheque, and not studying for or stressing about anything school-related. I texted a couple friends who I turn to often, with these thoughts. My one friend, who is already a RPN, wrote back with the best possible words I could have read. She said, "It'll pass the first day of hospital clinical when you touch someone's life forever...or when someone touches yours." So true.
I knew that feeling was temporary and fleeting, basically just during that exam week, and as soon as the exams were over, I was again beyond thrilled and grateful to be exactly where I am, in nursing school!!! I just thought that answer was so beautifully written and it's so true -- that basically sums up my motivation and thinking to make this career change into a 'helping' profession.
Source: http://sweat-sparkles.tumblr.com/
I'm not naive and am very realistic- I'm not expecting to become Florence Nightengale, and I know full well there are many stresses, issues and conflicts in nursing- just like in any job/career. Probably even more-so than in my first career...or at the very least, different stressors. However, nursing also gives the opportunity to touch someone's life, or have mine touched by someone else, in a way that my previous career simply could not. And to me, that makes all the difference in the world. I cannot fully express how grateful I am to have had the courage and the support from my dearest husband, to have made this change.
While driving home from the last final, I was calculating in my head how many more final exams I need to do until I'm finished (Have I mentioned I like countdowns!?!?) I have 24 more courses to finish, but I have no idea how the clinical courses will be marked, tested and evaluated. I don't know if there will be a written final exam in those courses, or if we're just marked on our work performance and preparation.
So 24 more final exams await me, at the most. Then there's also the "detail" of the licensing exam, the CRNE, so I guess that technically makes 25 more exams until RN, at the most. Somehow, thinking in concrete terms like that makes it seems more real and do-able. I also love the thought that we're almost half way done! And clinicals finally start next month - that should bring a whole new dimension of experiences to write about on my blog!!!
I've been in a vague sense of fog since finals finished on Thursday evening, but am now fully waking up and getting into Christmas prep mode. My cards are going to be super-late this year, and my poor sponsor kids in Brazil and El Salvador....well....they'll probably get their Christmas packages in March or April...nothing like spreading the Christmas spirit out over the year, eh?
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