It’s Good To Be The Nurse…

Last year at this time, I was pinned as a graduate nurse. Looking back on that day, I am astounded at how far I have come, and how graduating was truly just the beginning.

The day I graduated nursing school was one of the proudest days of my life. The day I took the NCLEX was one of the most terrifying days of my life. The day I found out I PASSED the NCLEX was the most joyful day of my life. After I took the NCLEX, it took 3 days for the California Board of Nursing to post the results. 3 days I never want to relive. I was told that the Board of Nursing posted online the new licenses at 4am in the morning. Guess what I was doing? I was checking at about 4am in the morning.  When I would check and nothing would appear my heart would sink and the agony would begin for another day.

Then at about 5am on the morning of June 30^th, I woke up, grabbed my itouch, and my blurry eyes searched the site. On the tiny screen of the itouch I saw something I had not seen before on my previous searches. My name with the initials RN. Felicia Ann Lubecki, RN. I am not ashamed to say my heart skipped beats, my head started whirling, and the tears began to flow down my face. I wanted to scream, shout, run, dance, climb the walls, skydive, etc. I was done. I did it.

This was the beginning of a new challenge. Job hunting.

Here I am one year later, and thankful to be one of the few that have managed to find a job as a new grad nurse. Not only a job, but my first job. In some ways this has been a curse. Not only have I had to learn how to be a nurse, I have also had to learn what it means to be part of the work force. I have learned how to clock in, how to have a 30 minute lunch, how to keep your stuff out of the way in a crowded break room, play nice with the co-workers, etc. I am also going to flat out say it is nice to have a paycheck. Really nice. Okay it is freaking awesome.

Nothing really prepares you for being an RN. When something goes wrong, and everyone is looking at YOU for answers, it can be hard to swallow. The RN is the absolute center of care. Doctors come up and ask you for updates and rely on the accuracy of your information to choose treatment. You are constantly getting bombarded with lab personnel, respiratory therapists, radiologists, and all other staff you can think of who want guidance regarding the patient. As a student I was one of those being guided. RN means I am doing the guiding.

Leaving school and starting your first RN job is like being a baby bird and getting shoved out of the nest. Either you are going to start flying or you will plummet to the ground below.  Sometime along the way, you will begin to plunge. Guaranteed. You have to learn to reach out for the helping hands to stop you from falling. (And if needed, demand those helping hands). So much of being an RN is knowing who to ask for help, knowing your resources, and knowing what you DON’T know.

There are many days when I am overwhelmed. There are days when I truly wonder why I didn’t become a park ranger instead. I hate dealing with doctor’s egos, angry and bossy family members, combative patients, drug seekers, non compliant patients that don’t take their medications and end up in and out of the hospital on my tax dollar, and a million other little things only another nurse would understand. However, there are also a million little moments that only a nurse sees.

When a frail old lady grabs your hand because she is scared out of her mind at what is happening to her. Those moments after a person gets a terminal diagnosis, and you just sit with them while they try and process what was just said. The WW 2 veteran with no family that hugs you and tears up when it is time for him to be discharged. The last few moments of someone’s life when you let them know it is ok to let go...

Saying you are a nurse, and being a nurse are two very different things. Some RN’s are burnt out and cranky. Some don’t have the common sense to save their life or anyone else’s. Some are there to get their paycheck only, and do the bare minimum required of the job. Most, however, are truly amazing individuals that rise to any circumstance. We are as different as anyone can possibly imagine, but we have one thing in common. We know what it is to be in the trenches of humanity. While others run away at the sight and smell of sickness and death, we stay.

It’s good to be the nurse…