the deed is done

This morning I woke up around 0900 after a pretty good night's rest, thanks to Ambien. I had to take it or I would never have slept a wink. I laid there until about 2245 and finally decided playing Bejeweled Blitz wasn't going to make me sleepy as it normally does. I placed the iPhone on the nightstand, rolled over and was a goner within minutes. Thank you, Ambien!

It was nice to wake up in such a good mood. Big B and AW had returned during the night from their man-bonding trip, so I quickly made my way downstairs to check on Big B. He'd graciously slept downstairs, so as not to disturb my slumber. Aww! He is so sweet! He'd already awakened for the morning and was just tinkering around. AW was still catching ZZZs and LB had crashed at a friend's house.

I actually don't remember much other than all of that. What I do remember is my good buddy, Ethel* picking me up and us making our way up to the town where we would meet our doom - I mean take our NCLEX exams. We stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel. You know, comfort food..food to feed the brains. It wasn't long before we had to make an, ummm...urgent stop for ummm...my..umm...intestines-that-are-not-liking-the-current-hypernervousness level. And we didn't stop just once.

Then we arrived at the testing center with a few minutes to spare. There was one other nervous test-taker in front of us signing in. Then it was Ethel's turn. After she was done and escorted into the gloom room, I was then checked in. We may as well have been entering the classified materials archive in the Pentagon.

Finger prints AND palm prints? Really? Us fledgling nurse-types are certainly a bunch of dishonest sorts. I mean, what, with our eager need to please and be perfect. Geez, give us time to get develop burn-out and then be suspicious!

Then it was time. I sat there staring at that monitor briefly, hoping it would start blinking with notification that I was the lucky, 1billionth test-taker and had been chosen to receive an honorary license. No need to sit through the grueling exam!

As if!

Nope, through the tutorial I went and then onto the real thing.

You know, I must've completed around 3000 questions in preparation. As time went on, my averages went up.

Today?



















Ha! It might as well have been στα ελληνικά. I hit
next" on the 75th queston and it kept going. Ugh! I thought to myself "Ok, KLS...you're going to be in it for the long haul". Then wouldn't you know it, around question 82-83 the screen went blue! Still, there wasn't any notification of an honorary license, but NCLEX was over. I lived through it.

This is what 22+ months of nursing school(not counting the past 11 or so years since I decided to go to nursing school) has come down to...80 some odd, mind-blowing, make-me-doubt-all-I-know questions. A friend of mine, who took it Monday, told me of the 78 she lived through, 4 was the total of what she felt comfortable with. Me? zero. Ethel had about the same number of questions as I did.

Now we wait.

We left the test center feeling as if we'd been rode hard and put away wet. We called our other buddy, RG,RN, and complained about the ridiculousness of what we'd just been through. Yes, RG (78 questions, from above) made it.

We're not one of the 48 hours results states. Yeha, that was the other attachment that came with our ATT email. If you live in this state you may receive your results in 48 hours by paying... Those, from our class, who took it this past week, found out the next day. Since today is Friday Ethel asked, after finishing her exam, and was told "next busniess day". One of the other girls we graduated with called the BoN and found out we should be able to call tomorrow afternoon and find out.

Guess it'll be another Ambien night!

*Name changed for privacy...I'm Lucy, and she is Ethel, as we were known in nursing school.

All this and I might have a job! I got a call from a local hospital's nurse recruiter yesterday!

big gulp

First, let's start off with some shots I snapped of the fireworks from Sunday's 4th of July display...








When I'm tense or upset in any way I like to do things that I enjoy. I love the photos of the fireworks, since they allow me to look at the bursts of color as many times as I'd like. The third one up from the bottom reminds me of sperm swimming in after an ovum.

Why am I tense? I'm tense because I take the NCLEX VERY SOON!

So far our class has been doing very well. Of the 7 people that I know of who have taken it, 5 have passed. I'm extremely sad for the ones who didn't.

I really can't wait to have it behind me. It'll be so wonderful to be able to go out and search for a job, and do the other million and one things I haven't been able to do because I've been strapped down to the old ball and chain of school and NCLEX preparation!

As for the remainder of today, I'm going to go over some pharmacology, and do my last set of questions. LB is the only one at home right now because Big B and AW took a trip up to NJ to get away, and let me have some peace. I think LB and I will go out to dinner tonight and catch a movie.

This time tomorrow I'll be on my way! NCLEX or bust!

slumpalicious

If Weird Al Yankovic wrote me a song based on my current life situation it would be entitled "Slumpalicious" and he would sing it to the tune of "Fergalicious". That's where it would end because I by no means make any boys go loco. Well, maybe I drive my male offspring crazy. sometimes.

Anyway...

I've been in a bit of a slump lately. Things have not gone the way I thought they would have at this point in my life. In particular, I thought for sure I would be employed by now - I'm not. I thought I would have a date to take the NCLEX - I do not. It's all pretty frustrating and what makes it worse is I have little to no control over any of it at the moment. My fellow new grads and I, from my school, are still awaiting the entry of our transcripts into the SBN system. There are no new grad positions open anywhere and as the days go on we're further and further from being considered new grads. Without test dates we're unable to test and therefore have yet to be licensed.

It's ridiculous. I know my program was not the only program in the state, but come on! We've heard other new grads, from other programs, have received their ATTs and have subsequently been able to schedule their NCLEX dates.

Aside from all this I'm just feeling down in the dumps. I'm not used to being at home all the time with little to no social interaction. It's like a catch 22. Need to study for a test that I have yet to know when I'm taking it, and I can't get a job...

I've applied many places. Most places want a year or more of experience. If it's not been a requirement I've gone ahead and applied. I've even applied for a couple of non-RN jobs. One position was for an EKG support associate and one is as a medical assistant. At this point beggars can't be choosers.



I'm even considering a job that's not even in the medical field. It would be doing what I did before nursing school and that's working as a teacher's aide. There's also a social service assistant position open at a local nursing home. Honestly, I just want to work. Fortunately the social calendar is filling up over the next month. Tons of stuff is going on and I look forward to it.

Of course, then I still have NCLEX to study for...

to transfer, or not to transfer

I've been asked about why I feel the need to transfer nursing programs.

Here we go:

*current program is not privately accredited, although it is state approved

*current program is on the July '08 State Board of Nursing report as being one of the programs in the state with a less than 80% NCLEX pass rate

*current program in a state of transition due to previous instructors leaving just prior to classes starting this August

*One of the replacement instructors walked out after being forced to by the second year students because they didn't like her teaching style(yeah, that speaks volumes about so much, but it is not what is at issue here).

*The dean of nursing, who has been teaching our intro class, has not been able to answer questions from us students, that a dean should be able to answer. Examples of such a question include general information about ATI testing, or information about classes of the upcoming semester.

*The instructor who came back is actually an awesome teacher, but it's not certain she will remain past the spring semester.

*When we've been taught skills we're taught one day, tested the following week, and that's it. Those skills are not re-visited, at all, the rest of the semester. There is no skills final. Because of my previous medical training (Air Force medic, and Medical Assistant) I am ok with this, so far. What about later when we're learning other skills that are new even to me? I can't imagine being one of the students in this program who have no experience. Some of them have voiced their concerns over not being sure about their vital signs skills.

*This semester we were in lecture a total of three hours(two for intro and one for basic skills), and lab 5-6 hours, during the "on" weeks. Our intro class was a "hybrid" class and the off weeks were spent online answering some sort of nursing related question:
The nursing process is defined as being composed of five phases: assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and evaluate. Which of these phases do you believe is most important to the delivery of high quality nursing care, and to the achievement of positive client outcomes? Do not respond that all of the phases are equally important – that evades the question. Demonstrate critical thinking in the argument you present to support one phase over the others.

*one hour a week dedicated to basic skills?

*next semester we have two hours for Nursing Principles and Concepts I, six hours for its lab, 1 hour for Principles of Pharmacology, and two hours for Mental Health Nursing. Supposedly this semester they were extending the latter two to span the whole semester, whereas in the past they've been eight week courses, first pharm, and then mental health. I've heard they'll be changing it back?

*We start our first clinicals this spring, after which we will no longer be in lab. So we'll go from 6 hours of lab a week, to only clinicals Wednesdays and Thursdays 6:30a-12:30p.

*there is no availability for open lab to practice

That's about it for now, because now I'm getting madder.

I know no program is perfect, but when you're paying for an education that is supposed to provide you with the knowledge and skills to pass a state board that determines your career you want to have the best chance possible.