18 days of nursing.

source.

first 18 days of my professional nursing practice.

I'm a little disappointed to be honest I haven't been writing more on this blog for two reasons. One, I know in years to come this will be a beautiful thing to look back on for encouragement and to see where I've come from. Two, there aren't a lot of bloggers that are nurses and really articulate the journey from being a student, to a new graduate nurse, to veteran and I know that would have been awesome for me to read along in my own journey (and for those of you nurses that do exist maybe there are blogs and I don't know about them and would love if you left a comment!). So for myself, and potentially others out there I really am going to try my best to keep blogging, no matter how frequent or infrequent it may be.

Excerpt from my personal journal on Monday, January 13th, 2014:

when you're a new grad, in your first job out of undergrad, and your new boss, who will now forever be known as your first boss as a nurse tells you to buy a journal and to write in it until you at least get through your first year as a nurse, you follow her directions

....and buy a journal. 

I can't say that my writing in my personal journal out of the public eye has been written in much more than my online blog, but it's a start. I value writing, reflecting, and mindfulness. I continue to be amazed by how lucky and blessed I am to have gotten a job, with these people, working in the profession I went to school for, at an institution I could have only dreamed of in nursing school. I believe it was after the first week of orientation, and hadn't even stepped foot on the unit I received the weekly update for our unit from our boss, and at the end there was a section on personal growth and linked to it was a ted talk on vulnerability. I immediately clicked over to it, one because I love Ted Talks, and two I was intrigued as to why my boss/ nurse manager thought this Ted Talk was important enough to put in the weekly news letter. After watching the whole thing I knew why.

Nursing is a hard job, no matter if you work in home care, long-term care, community health, on a hospital unit, the ICU or med-surg, it is a hard job. It is difficult regardless if you work 8-hour days or 12-hour nights, it is difficult. I will speak for myself, but I did not go into nursing as a professional life-long career because I knew it would be easy and I would be the hero in everyone's personal health/ illness story. I went into nursing because there is a place that the nurse stands between the healthy human experience, and an experience that you hope most people don't have to witness in their life of chronic/ acute illness. Nursing has a unique opportunity to work alongside humans at their most vulnerable point and in a sacred space that no one else outside of health care, and arguably other profession can experience. I feel that nursing is the extension of my purpose in this world and am so blessed that I was able to start to figure that out when I was a 16 year old in high school. It now has lead me to this place.

In the first 18 days I have:
- Signed up for insurance and benefits
- Wrote my first nursing note as an RN that did not need to be co-signed or reviewed by anyone else
- Met nurses that work so hard to do the right thing and advocate for their patients
- Have been encouraged and supported by my boss as I venture into uncharted territory
- Received my first full-time nursing pay check
- Signed up for my first two nursing conferences ever in topics of oncology and credit for continuing ed and renewing my license
- first unit staff meeting

It's been a whirlwind experience even in the mundane, intense, and stressful. I have been on a roller coaster ride since I started this position and I once again through it all I have fully come to realize this is the best place for me right now, and that nursing is the career for me.

I just got home from my first staff meeting on the unit and feel like my role is only starting to be realized and am excited to see what God has planned for me even in the near future.

...and one more thing. after today's staff meeting once I pay off all my loans and get a little more ahead in my finances my but is getting myself to yoga ASAP!!