Nervous Newbie

This blog post is simply for my own attempts to self sooth, not necessarily a way of informing those who don't see me often about what goes on in my life these days. Since the very beginning of it all, back when I was a kid and I knew that my calling was to be a nurse. School was hard to get through. Passing my boards was another scary and difficult milestone. Finding a job proved to be troublesome. Finally, here I am again, facing probably the most scary of challenges thus far. Sure, I have a license that I've worked so hard to earn and I don't want to lose it, but it's sooo much more than that. Today was day 5 for me on the Burn Intensive Care Unit (BICU) working as a newbie nurse. You would have thought that day 1 would have been the most horrifying and intimidating day and it would only get better from there. In all actuality, day 2 was harder than day 1, day 3 harder than 2 and so on. Why is this so, you ask? Well, because I am given more and more responsibility as my preceptor backs off more and more. I am expected to know more each day. So many times in the day I ask have conversations in my head that go a little like this, "Have I learned this yet and just forgotten?" or "Ok, Lacey told you this, this and this, wait, what was the first thing again?" It's completely normal to experience nerves as a new nurse. In fact, it is EXPECTED!!! Without some level of anxiety, one must have stopped caring about their job, and mostly the lives of their patients. I have heard that a lot from friends, teachers and Lacey.

Wednesday of last week I was so tired from a combination of never getting sleep and working three 12 hour shifts in a row. I was sitting at the desk with Lacey and Angela the clerk and all of a sudden just started to swell up, get puffy, turn splotchy, and you guessed it...... started crying, well almost. Lacey looked at me and asked in an attentive and caring voice "Are you crying?" Trying my hardest to hold it in, my response was "NO..maybe..I'm not sure." Lacey tried to get me to go take a break in the back and asked if she was pushing me too hard. I eventually sucked it up, told her that if she stopped looking at me with such a concerned look and pretended I was ok than maybe it would go away. It worked for about, eh, a couple hours or so. My anxiety hasn't been this uncontrollable in 2 years. Waking up for work in 5 and a half hours sounds miserable, so I'm going to try to sleep to avoid another breakdown at work. More on this topic later.