Long Week

Man, this has been one heck of a long week! It's primarily due to having a crappy schedule, but still. Sometimes you just want to curl up in bed and never leave. This week I worked Sunday, Tuesday (12-4 class), Wednesday 11-7, and Friday. I never really got a real break since my days off were spent sleeping. It was awful! I cannot wait for this week to be over. I also got floated Wednesday night to IMC (our ICU stepdown). I actually really liked it there. Everyone was super friendly and they gave me their easiest patients. However, that's partially because our institution says I don't have adequate training to care for their more intense patients, but that's fine with me. Bring on the "easy" ones! It was seriously just like my floor, but with 2 less patients. How does that make sense? I just feel like my floor is far more chaotic in general. We're constantly running around chasing bed alarms and dealing out pain meds like they're candy. On IMC, none of my patients had pain meds and I heard like 2 bed alarms go off the entire night.

I'm just sad because weeks like this past week really make me feel burnt out. It takes me some legitimate effort to remember how much I loved my role transition in school. I don't love what I currently do. It makes me depressed and makes me hate people. Well, people under 65. The non-elderly hospital patients are some of the worst people. They are just rude and whiny and have completely unrealistic expectations of what being in the hospital means. It's a hospital honey, not a Hilton. I'm not going to bring you your dilaudid the minute it's due every time - prn means as needed, not wake you up 4 times during the night because it is "due" even though you have no symptoms of pain that I can see. Ugh. This is mostly a rant about one patient I had who tried to give me his phone number. Gross and no thank you.

I'm just burnt out and tired of feeling like a legal drug dealer. I got into nursing because I cared and wanted to make a difference. I hope that my dream will linger on just a while longer so that someday I may find it again. At least I understand now how the jaded nurses I met in school came to be that way. Nursing is not all rainbows, sunshine, and saving lives. Most of the time it's paperwork, wiping asses, and pushing pain meds (hah! pun intended. :P). I just want to feel like I have some meaning in my life instead of just grinding out a week for a paycheck.

Vacation - All I ever wanted!

The hubs and I just returned from a trip from Vegas last week with his siblings and some friends, and now we are already planning our next adventure! Vegas just didn't feel like a vacation to me, and both of us like to have something to look forward to, so here we are planning again! It's kind of exhausting figuring out where to go, what our budget is, what the timing will be, but in the end it will be so worth it. I told him that I wanted to do something at least 5+ days this time, since for the past year we have just been taking a ton of little "extended weekend" type trips. While fun, they are exhausting and don't allow you to fully experience a place. We actually talked about going back to DC because there was so much more that we wanted to do while there, but we were visiting friends and it was only a 3 day trip. I'll keep you posted on what we decide. Based on my initial research, it looks like a cruise may be the most bang for your buck. We'll see.

Back to school

Well, I am officially failing at my goal of posting once a week. That is ok though, as April has been a busy month for me! I was in Las Vegas this past weekend, and worked almost continuously up until then. It was a good time, but I'm glad to be home. I have so much stuff to catch up on around the house!!

Anyway, back to the title of this post. For a while now, I have been toying with the idea of going back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I have always been kind of a commitment-phobe when it comes to education - not from fear of failure, but from wanting to learn a little bit of everything! For example, even though I want to (possibly) become an NP, I also want to be an oncology nurse, a WOCC-RN, and a hospice nurse. I want to do everything! Part of the reason I went into nursing is so that I could have some variety in my career without requiring another degree.

I'm still uncertain as to whether or not I actually want to go back to school. It would mean more money sunk, and more opportunity costs in life. But, it may pay out long term with an increased salary. However, I think that I should certainly take some time to examine my options. Right now I'm just running headfirst towards school because I strongly dislike med surg.

I also met my friend's girlfriend while in Vegas. She, like me, had a degree and psychology but is currently in school for a master's in software engineering. I'm not sure how successful in that field I would be, but I think it is something work looking into. One of my favorite sites (Mr. Money  Moustache) has an article  about Treehouse - an online educational service where you can learn programming for as little as $25/month and be "job ready" in 6 months. I think I may pursue this avenue, as it is inexpensive and I enjoy learning regardless of the outcome. For example, I am currently using Duolingo to learn Spanish solely because I find it interesting and enjoy learning new things.

Anyway, that's that. The hubs and I are going out tomorrow night for fancy birthday dinner, since I have to work all weekend. It should be a good time. :)

Life at the moment

Well, no nursing stories this week. Just regular life stuff. This week everyone I regularly talk to is out of the country so I'm all on my own. The hubs is in Canada for work, his sister (one of my bffs) is in Germany for work, and my parents are in the Dominican Republic on a well deserved vacation.

So, what have I been doing with all my free time you ask? Well, a whole lot of nothing. I should really clean the house, but that's the last thing I want to do (side note: on the radio today they said 93% of people would rather do anything besides clean their house. lol. I am the 93%!). I applied to some prn positions and got rejected from some already. The Children's hospital contacted me today saying they were interested, but didn't know how I would be able to attend the 2 week M-F 8a-4p orientation while working full time. I politely rejected them. Ain't nobody got time for that!

I also went and bought some new Danskos today since my others are too small. While I was at the mall I turned in my Mac empties and got two Back to Mac lipsticks in Shy Girl and New York Apple. Sooo pretty!

I don't know if it's just loneliness or what, but I'm quite mopey tonight. Just lots and lots of negative thoughts. At least I haven't been binge eating the ice cream in the freezer like I initially thought I would. I just have too much time alone with my thoughts. At least work will keep me occupied for the next two nights and then my hubby will be back.