It may not be much to boast about yet, but I can now officially say that I've made it through my first week of nursing school, and I don't think I've gone through such a broad spectrum of emotions in such a short period of time.
I started the week already a bit exhausted and apprehensive, because of the considerable amount of reading and preparing we he had to do before even being taught anything, but for the most part, I was ecstatic to finally be where I'd been working to be for four years now.
My poor, naive little heart started to run circles around itself once we finally got down to things - at first, it was just hesitation to get into the first-semester world of catheter-inserting and bathing. While I was always aware that these were things I would have to do, suffice it to say that I never considered them among the reasons I wanted to get into nursing. Devising care plans, definitely. Talking to patients and assuaging their concerns, absolutely. Working with and giving encouragement to families - for me, that's the stuff dreams are made of. Now, finally realizing what I would have to do to get there, I felt like my stomach was being turned inside out and pulled out through my esophagus. Is that even anatomically possible?
The end of the first day saw me frustrated, even questioning why I got myself into this, and that in and of itself felt discouraging. Was doubt supposed to set in this early? Shouldn't I have been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed until at least my first day of clinical?
After a couple hours of rest, I went back to school for a Lifespan Psych course, which was open to more than just pre-nursing and nursing majors, and suddenly, I felt like a fish out of water. I had spent all of my time that day with students who were accustomed to making school practically their entire life, and to suddenly find myself in a "normal" classroom environment with people who hardly could be motivated to come to class, let alone sit through a lecture was almost scary. I didn't yet feel like I quite belonged in nursing school, but I most definitely did not belong here.
The second day was hardly better - spending the entire time learning how to give baths, wipe catheters, and make beds hardly felt like what I had imagined nursing school to be. I knew that this was just the beginning, of course, and they were only starting from the bottom up, but it didn't seem to quite click yet.
My first day off (if one could even call it such) was spent studying at home, studying at Starbucks, and studying at home a little bit more, and my fourth day consisted of entirely lecture, which waxed anti-climactic.
Come Friday, I was in my scrubs again and more than a little anxious, and the day itself took its toll on my nerves. My hands shook as I learned (again) how to take a blood pressure reading, which I had only learned once in Physiology class and had nearly forgotten. By the time the class was done rotating and practicing, I had made several new acquaintances, but also had an arm bruised up nicely by the blood pressure cuffs and a blood pressure much higher than what I had started with.
As the day progressed however, things began to feel slightly more natural. Working in teams to position patients in beds, and to apply and remove restraints, working and talking through things suddenly began to feel like the "nursing" environment I had so long hoped for.
Looking at this past week in the rearview mirror, the first moment of nursing school was like the short moment when you're at the top of the roller coaster waiting for the drop - you don't know how fast you're going to go or how fast you're going to fall. You don't even know if your seatbelt will work. You take a breath and start to drop - your seatbelt is probably fine, you probably won't cry or vomit, but you're terrified and free-falling and you wish you hadn't gotten on this ride at all.
But, obviously if you jump now, it will hurt a whole lot more.
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