Engaged!

This past week I've been at camp all week. I asked John a couple of weeks ago when we would see each other again and he said "maybe next Thursday since I'm off if we can work it out." I was kind of disappointed since it had already been a couple of weeks, but I understood because I had made plans to attend a wedding reception last night and he was going to take his younger cousin fishing in a tournament today. I came in from a long week of church camp, took a nap, then got up and got cleaned up and dressed up for the wedding reception. I was sitting on the couch with Ashley waiting for Mom and Dad to get ready when a white car pulled up in the driveway and John got out with a dozen red roses! He came in and told me that he knew I would be dressed up, so he decided to come up and take me out to dinner. I was totally suprised, but I didn't expect anything! I thought he had just done that because he could tell I had been disappointed. We went out to our favorite restaurant (The Sportsman's Lodge) and had a wonderful dinner. When we got there He opened the trunk to put his backpack inside and I saw a scrapbook I'd made for him and noticed some of my decorations had fallen off of it. Instead of thinking "why is that in there?" The only thing that crossed my mind was "he broke my scrapbook!". He quickly told me he'd brought it so I could fix it, and I didn't think anything else of it. Afterward dinner I was ready to just be home. He asked if I wanted to go see The Proposal, but I told him I'd rather just go home. When we pulled in the driveway he went around to the trunk and pulled out the scrapbook and said "I want to show you something." He then pulled out a calendar and showed me that it was from the first year we dated. He had made little marks the day we began dating, the day he first kissed me and the day he loved me. He asked me if I knew what happened day 95. I told him I thought it was the day he told me he loved me and he said it was. Then he asked if knew what happened day 1,204. While I was trying to think when that was he said "That's the day I asked you to marry me" and got down on one knee and asked! My eyes teared up and the first thing out of my mouth was "really?" He said "really!" and I said "yes!" He did a wonderful job with everything, especially the ring!! Mark June 5, 2010 on your calendars, because WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!

Amanda Smith, RN

Yes, you read right - I am now an officially licensed registered nurse! You can even go on the Tennessee Board of Nursing website and validate my licensure! I took my NCLEX on June 17 and 48 hours later got my quick results, and they said "passing" (The NCLEX-RN is a pass/fail test). Then, on Wednesday I was checking the Board of Nursing site and they had my license number up, and it says that I am an "active Registered Nurse"! I'm leaving Sunday to help out at our church camp, which I'm really looking forward to. I'm in the oldest high school girl's cabin, so it should definitely be an interesting week! After that I'm hitting the job search hard!

So you may be asking, "what have you been doing with your summer since you haven't found a job?" Well, I've been STUDYING, STUDYING, STUDYING right up until I took the NCLEX! Since then John and I went to some friends' wedding in Hohenwald, and then I spent last week at home cooking, cleaning, weeding, watering, and everything else Mom does around here on a daily basis. You never truly appreciate someone until you've done their job! And this weekend John took me to Memphis to see Wicked. It was absolutely AMAZING, and I recommend everyone go see it when it comes to Nashville in September. The music and costumes were spectacular! I expected it to be twisted and scary, but it was hilarious! Go see it!

Update

The week after graduation I had a wonderful get-away with Megan, Mom, Ashley, three aunts, a cousin, one of Ashley's friends, and a second-cousin. We spent a few days in Gulf Shores, then on Memorial Day Megan, Mom, Ashley, Alena and I headed over to Pensacola to see Kaycee and Steven. It was so nice to get away from everything and just enjoy the days!

Since we got back, however, I've been stuck in the house studying while workers build a new deck and do some work in the den, upstairs bathroom, and my bedroom. I did get to see John Sunday night, so that was definitely a bonus! I got my authorization to take boards last week and I'm scheduled to take them June 17th! I should know how I did either the next Friday or Monday after that. If I pass I will officially be an RN and it will be time to REALLY job search. The hospital where I applied and interviewed for the NICU position has all but fallen through. At the moment they have no positions available since administration decided to get rid of the Baylor position, making a lot of as needed people become either part or full time in order to save money. That would be my dream job, but I'm just going to have to face the fact that I need to start looking elsewhere. It seems that the economy-proof job isn't really economy-proof at all! Right now I'm praying for God to lead me where I need to be. I've also been doing some research and discovered that after graduating with my BSN next May, I can be a nurse practitioner in only 17 months. Right now I'm looking at the cost and requirements, and then when the time comes sooner John and I will have to decide what is best for us considering he will probably need a Master's to get a good job. I'm just not sure how things will work if we both attempt graduate work at the same time. We'll just go with the flow for now!

Amanda Smith, GN

I know it's not a great picture - but it's all we've got!

Friday night was our pinning ceremony. Mom, Dad, Ashley, Grandma and John all came and joined in on the festivities. The tradition of the pinning ceremony was explained: Florence Nightingale gave her nursing students medals upon their graduation, and over time this has changed to a gold pin with the student's school on it. Each student was called on stage and was pinned by one of our nursing instructors. At the end of the ceremony we recited the nursing pledge and our instructors lit our Nightingale lamps as we left. They only told us that we'd be voting on a nursing student that we thought was a leader and had a Christian attitude. I assumed this would be the only award given out, but they gave out three others that were picked by the nursing faculty. I recieved the Nightingale award for outstanding clinical performance. This award is given to a student who has exemplary clinical skills as well as a high GPA and Christ-like attitude. It was quite a pleasant suprise to recieve such an honor! Everyone who recieved an award was given a small Bible in place of a plaque or certificate. I thought that was a wonderful idea because now my award is useful!

Saturday morning was graduation day. John's parents came up and joined us. I really appreciate that they took the time to drive up just for me. I was the last graduate to cross the stage since nursing is the last major and I'm the last in my nursing class, alphabetically. Since we only recieved Associate's degrees we had no hood, only a boring black gown and my gold magna cum laude cord. Next year we get hoods, so I'm definitely looking forward to that graduation. The gowns were hot and I ended up waiting for Mom to get to the reception forever because of a sudden downpour as they were getting ready to leave the auditorium (luckily I made it to the reception in the gym just in time!). By the time they got to me I was just ready to get that thing off and give it back! Mom said "We have to take pictures, this only happens once!" I quickly reminded her that it will all be happening again in a year, and the I'll have more decoration to show off!

I really appreciate all of the encouragement that I've recieved over these last three years. That's about the only thing that's kept me going!

I'm getting ready to head out for Gulf Shores in a little bit, but I'm going to try to get some more pictures up soon!

Counting Down

Pinning - 4 days
Graduation - 5 days
HOME - 5 days
Spend the day with Laura Beth, Diane, and baby Carson - 7 days
Gulf Shores - 10 days!!!!!

These five countdowns are keeping me going through finals!

Today I took my Professional Practice final, which is another NCLEX-RN predictor test. We were told that a score of 850 means that you have a pretty good chance of passing the NCLEX-RN, and a score of 950 is "Outstanding". Some people in my class (around seven or eight people I think) failed the first predictor test we took and were told that they must pass this one in order to graduate. Luckily, I already passed the first one, so I just had to take this one for my final grade, which I'm not too worried about. Throughout the whole test I felt as if I was doing pretty well, which usually means that I end up not doing too well... As it started to score I held my breath, hoping for an 850 - I scored a 947! That's just three points from "outstanding"! I figured everyone would do better on this one, but apparently they didn't. None of the students who needed to pass did, and even some who had passed the first predictor failed this one. One friend asked me how I did, so I told her my score, then immediately wished I hadn't told her when she told me that she failed and failed badly. The head of the School of Nursing is supposed to have a meeting tomorrow with the Dean of the School of Sciences and Mathematics to decide what to do. If these people aren't allowed to graduate, we loose almost half of the Nursing School's graduating class. Things are tense around here since the Nursing department has allowed people to move on in the program without the required grades, and now, the week of graduation they're finally going to put their foot down. I'm just praying that the right thing for everyone (whatever that may be) is done.

CELEBRATION!

So I just got home from my very LAST CLINICAL DAY! And it was a wonderful uneventful day in which I actually knew all the medications I was quizzed over and got all my paperwork done before I left! Tonight (although I should be writing my speech) Megan and I are going out to Logan's to celebrate. And then we're thinking of doing something crazy like painting our nails - which is strictly forbidden in all of nursing clinicals!

For those of you who don't understand just how wonderful it is to be done with clinicals, let me explain. Clincal days consist of 11 to 12 hours providing total patient care to 2 patients. This means that we do what their RN would do, as well as what their CNA would do. That means that not only are we running around being quizzed on drugs, giving medications, changing dressings, inserting/removing catheters/IVs/etc, hanging IV fluids, and doing full head-to-toe assessments, we also get to give their daily baths (most can't get out of bed), change their bed sheets (keep in mind they can't get out of bed), and clean up any messes that happen along the way - which can be quite interesting! It's a LONG day and you're on your feet all day except for lunch. So now you should understand why I am SO happy to be done!!!!

Job status: I just heard from the manager of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. There's some nurses that currently only work a few shifts a month and don't receive benefits, so the hospital pays them an increased salary for opting out of benefits. The management has decided that this isn't cost effective so they're discussing getting rid of those positions and giving them the opportunity to become full time employees with benefits. The manager said that if this happens she will have eight baylor position nurses becoming full time, which will fill up any positions that she needed, so there will not be a position left for me. She said that we should know for sure in the next couple of weeks. I'm not too concerned, because right now I could really use a couple of weeks with no responsibilities!

Why Mom Hates Clinical Days

A phone conversation between me and Mom and few days ago:

Mom: Hello?
Me: I'm depressed.
Mom: Why? What happened?!
Me: I never want to work for real on a floor like this. It's like hospice.
Mom: Oh, it's a clinical day. I should know not to answer the phone on these days. I'm not going to anymore.

*Thanks for the unconditional support, Mom!

Today we get on the floor and another nursing student went to see if their patient was still in their room since they were supposed to be leaving shortly for dialysis. The student peeked their head in and saw the patient in the bed and a family member at the bedside. While listening to report from the night nurse when she reached that particular patient: "She dead". My teacher immediately whipped her head around to that student who replied "But she's in there!" The nurse then informed them that the family member was sitting with the body. It would have been a real shock for them if they'd hadn't heard report and had just gone it to get vital signs!

Since I was one of the few students who hadn't done post-mortem care, my teacher snagged me in to help. Definitely not my favorite experience from nursing school. Last night I had a dream that someone was tying the tag onto my toe (yes, that was one of my jobs). Definitely not a peaceful dream!

My primary patient was very sick. She got worse all day and wouldn't respond to anything that I did. I "milked" her finger when trying to check her blood sugar - a task that brings most patients to tears. She flinched, or even opened her eyes. I also gave a shot of a medication that looked like Mellow Yellow and is a pretty unpleasant shot to receive, but once again, no reaction. There was a family member in the room all day and kept blaming her unresponsiveness on the morphine she'd received very early that morning. By the afternoon, I realized that the morphine wasn't the issue. When her blood pressure, respirations, and blood sugar began dropping I notified her staff nurse who told me that she was aware of the situation and that she probably wouldn't make it through the night. The family member had been informed of this, but was in denial of the situation and insisted that the doctor's insert a feeding tube because the problem was that she wasn't getting any food since she couldn't swallow - she refused to believe that it had anything to do with the major hemorrhagic stroke she'd suffered. The family member was the patient's designated power of attorney, so what she said had to go, and if she's still alive today and her labs are stable, they will have no choice other than to insert the tube. She's also a "full code", so if she does die, the medical team has no choice but to resuscitate her - probably only for her to die again shortly. Just another reason I want a living will! I've become quite the little advocate for them here recently!

My other patient's only request for the day was a hot cup of coffee. Every time I'd go get it for her and she'd pour in the sugar, begin to stir... then transport would come to take her to some procedure or another - forcing her to leave her untouched coffee. By the time she'd return that cup was cold so she'd ask for another. This happened three separate time! It was 3 in the afternoon before she finally got to enjoy her morning coffee!

The job isn't looking so good considering I still haven't heard anything. I'm going to call if I still haven't heard by Monday. That's fine with me. If I don't have a job I can enjoy the beginning of my summer, then apply after I've taken my test and am officially a Registered Nurse!