Well, my friends. I did it. I jumped. I took the first step towards making my CRNA dreams come true; I went out and became an ICU nurse. It wasn’t enough to just become an ICU nurse, I had to go out and become a Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) nurse. And because that wasn’t epic enough, I decided to change hospitals, add a 30 minute commute and become a pediatric CVICU nurse.
Have I bit off more than I can chew?
I honestly can’t help but wonder if maybe I’ve bit off more than I can chew. Probably. I seriously probably have. I have never been a floor nurse. I have never had to take care of more than one patient at a time and the patients I have taken care of were intubated and unconscious. I am just now learning how to use IV pumps. I barely know what a manifold is; I haven’t used their charting system before. I’m terrible at reading EKG strips. I don’t know the cardiac system well, though I love it. I have only ever worked with adults and I never wanted to do peds!
I have an awful lot working against me, and I am not too proud not to admit that. I can just feel the nurses precepting me wondering if I am ever going to get it or if I am ever going to make it. As a 3 year old nurse, I am incredibly ignorant to the world of floor nursing and the things I should probably already know, I am relearning in the real world setting.
At the same time, this is everything that I have wanted. I wanted a challenge. I wanted to get away from being comfortable. I wanted to move away from the things that were familiar to me and I wanted to do something scary, all the while moving towards my goal of securing a comfortable future for my son as a CRNA – moving back towards the environment that I love, that I didn’t want to leave, where I was comfortable and happy.
I am reassured daily, despite my insecurities, that I will get this, that they can create an ICU nurse out of me – and a pedicatric CVICU nurse to boot. I am literally learning every second of each 12 (let’s be honest – 13) hour shift that I work. The teamwork on this new unit is undeniable and the welcome committee is nothing short of a G-rated Disney movie.
The unit is a launching pad for nurses looking to go back to school for various reasons: research, FNP, ACNP, CRNA, etc. And I can totally see why: the acuity is so very high, we work with vents, trachs, intubations, extubations, bedside procedures, multiple comorbidities and we float to both the NICU and PICU – a very wide range of patients at any given time. I used to say when I walked into the OR that I never knew what I was walking into that day, but I can say now that I truly have no idea what I am going to walk into each day on the unit.
Another bonus? I have never worked 12 hours shifts before. Having 4 days off a week is so foreign to me. And I’m told that is just the minimum. I can create 4 – 8 days off a week if I really wanted to. Wut?
I’m newly engaged to the man I affectionately called “Work Bae”, though technically we are no longer work baes, as I have moved to a different hospital; and you know what? It’s nice. I can totally concentrate on me — not on what he’s doing, our little insignificant spat over dinner or pretending we don’t know each other for the sake of professionalism.
I have been met with an awful lot of people wondering what I was thinking, calling me a traitor (for leaving them), questioning how I was going to pull it off as a single mom, blah blah blah…but those same people now text me almost daily asking me advice on how they too can make a scary jump.
Let that be a lesson to you all to never let anyone’s judgment or opinion about you affect the decisions you make for yourself.
Sure, life is scary right now, but it’s good.
A little positivity goes a long way…
Hellooo Nurse! 