Switching Over

Last night was my first ever night shift as a nurse. It was tough only because I had to work during the day on Monday, so I only had one night to try and switch myself over to sleeping on a difficult schedule. It didn’t go so well since I was exhausted on Monday night from work and other activities, so i could only stay up until about 2:30am and then I had to give in to sleep… it was almost painful how tired I was.

So I worked from 11pm-7:30am last night/this morning and then got home and slept until about 2. I’m still extremely tired though, but it’s hard to fall back asleep when you wake up in the middle of the day. I probably won’t be blogging much at all until I get a little more accustomed to this new internal clock. And after this week I’ll only be working 32 hour weeks instead of 40… which means more blogging opportunity! :) I start working every other weekend this weekend, too.

Anyway, that’s about all my brain can put out right now. If the night is slow tonight, maybe I’ll write something in here to keep me awake… we shall see. Please be praying that I don’t get sick from this crazy new stress on my body!

Sick, or just Sick-er?

I think I’ve been off and on sick for the past month or so, and honestly am getting real sick of it (sorry for the horrible pun). I think I’ve had to call into work (or class/clinicals) 3-4 times since January; not a very good reflection of my work ethic, but what can you do when you keep getting sick? Yesterday, for example, 100% healthy (to my knowledge), then today, woke up with a very sore throat and upset stomach. Grrrr bugs! I also finally had to call the quits with my nursing home job because of 1) getting sick so often, 2) need to focus that time on school, 3) we’ll be moving out of town soon, and 4) my husband has had no clean socks for about a week due to my lack of time to do laundry! I’m sure the last reason is negotiable… but it just proves my point. Plus, working at a nursing home is quite the stressor and wasn’t helping me recoup over the weekend from school. So, now that phase of working is done… it was tough, but I’m glad to have had the experience of doing the dirty work as a nursing assistant; no doubt it will help me be a better nurse in a few months! yikes! 

Gimme some CCCC

CCCC stands for chocolate Caribou Coffee cooler in my mind. I just thought it was nifty (yes, nifty) that it had such a long alliteration. Oh how I miss simple english classes of middle school…. I just finished one of the many last few nursing exams that I’ll ever have to take (can’t forget the big kahuna, the state Boards exam….). It was about nursing delegation (or in more formal terms- directing), controlling (performance appraisals, budgets, audits, the fun stuff… not), and then change and conflict. So really, it’s all stuff that I have hardly any experience with yet as a nursing student. Definitely makes answering 60 tricky multiple choice questions tough. I always thought MC exams would be a synch, but not nursing ones. We get to look at the key after we turn our exams in to see how we did, and I believe I counted 14 questions that I got wrong. Oh yippee. ‘Twas why I stopped by CC on the way home for a CCCC….  and now I’m off to do my weekly statistics for science homework.

But… by 7pm tonight I get to go to the first meeting of my church homemaking group! (Titus 2 groups) I guess only 2 of the 6 girls can actually make it, because of holy week stuff, but I will definitely cherish the time off from studying or doing assignments. Then tomorrow all I have is a day of mental health nursing clinicals at the VA and then… SPRING BREAK!  

*(Sorry this post was more a run-down of what is going on. That’s what happens when I’m in school mode…. only 2 more months of it though!)*

Lesson Learned

The other day, I learned (or I should say, re-learned) a very important lesson. After feeling super anxious, stressed, and just plain grumpy while hanging out with John one night, he took my hand, brought me to the couch, and asked me what was so wrong that I was acting so strange. I broke down, felt horrible for my attitude that night and the past few months probably, and felt the spirit leading me to confess so many wrong thoughts and words and feelings that I’ve had towards John. He lovingly listened as I cried out to him as I felt so stupid and selfish and proud. Instead of being upset at me for acting so horrible to him, he hugged me, prayed over me, then read me some scripture. WOW. I have the best man on earth!! And in 21 days, he’ll be my husband and so much more available to help me stay in line with Christ than he can now. Let’s just say I am overly blessed to have someone close to me who cares enough to listen, forgive, encourage, and pray for me at all times no matter how I’ve treated him. It’s things like this that really humble me and challenge me to be more forgiving and selfless like he is. Anyway, so my lesson was…. when in doubt (in times of stress, anxiousness, frustration, etc.)… just pour your heart out to the LORD and confess and repent from your heart. Then, dig into some of God’s word (I like the Psalms for times like these). Ahhhh… God is good. :) Keep praying for us though, we have only three weeks to go!