When do I feel like a "real nurse"?

I feel like a fraud in scrubs. The things I don't know are legion. It's really tough, even though everyone I work with is very willing to teach, when everyone knows how to recognize the significant things. I just don't see the telling signs that the experienced nurses do. I need to seriously learn the significance of all the labs besides the obvious things. The can look at a slight change in the patient and start looking at a thousand things that may be causing it. I've been so blown away by how good they are, and I feel like I'll never be that good.

I saw my first patient die yesterday. I was always afraid of that, and in fact, the only dead person I've ever seen was my grandmother and she was already in the casket. Now I know that most of the time, the last breath is a relief. In the four weeks I've been on the floor, we've lost six patients. Though I didn't see any of them die until yesterday, I wanted all of them to. It was a blessing. Cancer sucks.

Hoosier REGISTERED Nurse!!!!!!!!!!

It's amazing how a random series of numbers/letters can change everything. The boulder on my back is gone. I desperately wanted to share this with my husband and of course, he is not in town. Poor guy was wakened at an unacceptably early hour, but he understood and I could hear the smile when I didn't even say hello, just "I passed." Right this very second, life could not be better!

Boards blow.....

I did it. I took my boards today. May I add that I didn't definitively know the answer to more than five questions on the whole damn test? I would get through one "check all that apply" to be greeted with "first priority". Then would come "what would indicate immediate attention to patient who had XYZ" and all of the possible answers were things I didn't have a clue about. Because of Big Brother, and the agreement that I won't share a single horrible question of that test, this is as specific as I intend to get, but know that I guessed my way through the whole thing. I had a ton of med questions (of which at least two were check all that apply) and I suck more at that than anything. Those bullshit study guides didn't help me one bit. The thousands of practice questions I did didn't help me one bit. When I was getting to 60-65 questions, I was praying that I was one of the people who would have to answer everything so that I would at least have the advantage of volume. When that computer shut off at 75 questions, I was numb. If feeling confident in my ability to critically think my way through that is an indicator of whether I passed or not, I'd be seriously leaning toward failure. $250.00 down the drain is all that is running through my head right now along with the dread that I may very well have to go through that again. Shit.

Whirlwind!!!!

I've been on my floor orientation for a week. Some days I've just followed, some I've taken a patient or two, just whatever the preceptor wanted. Since I'm not an RN, I can't do IV pushes or hang chemo yet, but everyone has been so good about running in and saying, "I've got a patient about to -fill in the blank- so do you want to watch/do it?" Thanks to them, because yesterday (my first full 12 hour shift), we had a very full house. Every bed occupied with one poor man in the hallway for two and a half hours while we scrambled to discharge someone to find him a spot. One nurse called in and there were no floats available. An hour and a half into the shift, my preceptors child got sick and she had to leave PDQ. The charge nurse asked what I wanted to do since there were now four patients who needed a nurse and everyone else had four or five. I gulped and said, "What the heck, I'll take them all." I did it. All the meds got passed, charting got done and on time to boot, beds and baths done, and one got discharged with all paper work done and one got transferred with all reports and charts with her. I have never been so tired in my life. I have never had so much fun in my life. I love these patients and the nurses who work on this floor. Despite any awful things they say amongst themselves, when they are in the rooms or within earshot of patients or families, they are pros of the highest order. You have never seen such a caring group of women. I am so lucky.