Overwhelmed

So, my work life got turned upside down.  I was just about to begin my life of working the graveyard shift at the time of my last post.  I think I got a week or so into it, and was starting to adjust to it, and then my schedule completely changed.  The easy clerical-work-filled shifts with the occasional panic when someone falls and a decision must be made turned into 3-11, non-stop med-passing, overwhelming to the point of tears, kind of shift.

 I cried on my 2nd night of orientation on PM shift because all hell was breaking loose, and my preceptor left me to my own defenses pretty much.  I cried on the way home, I cried when I got home.  It was impossible.  There is no way I will ever to be able to time-manage my way out of this.  50+ med passes??  Just simply impossible.  Then of course, the realization that my full-time status would be taken away as a result of the change just made me feel like I had really done something stupid.   Plus, my dental office suddenly wasn't seeming to be as flexible as once promised.  It was a rough week, knowing that I potentially put us in a bad financial situation because of a split moment decision that this was better experience for me and my career. 

It has been rough.  Especially when cars start giving us issues, and student loans start creeping up on the horizon, demanding to be repaid.  Plus, feeling like I was so overwhelmed with adjusting to this shift, and making mistakes and beating myself up over them over and over and over.  This has not been fun. 

But this past month is over.

I have actually come very far from that first shift on my own.  Not knowing which room a resident is in, not knowing which hallway to go down to get to that room.  Forgetting my keys in the resident's room, at end of the hallway on the OPPOSITE side from where I was.  Grabbing the wrong MAR book, and thus not knowing which meds to give.  People going to bed early on me, or staying downstairs when they are usually in their rooms, or refusing to take the medications, or making the med pass take 20 minutes, when it should have been 2 minutes, etc.  I can go on and on and on.  The time I wasted in running from hallway to hallway to the nursing office and back to the residents' rooms, it just insane.

I've made mistakes, some of them I only made because that's how I was shown to do it, but regardless, I made them.  I also learned from them.  I am still learning, as well as I'm sure I have more mistakes that I will make.   It's so hard to face.  Going from being a near perfect student in nursing school, to realizing that everything isn't the cookie cutter process they teach you in school and you are no longer the rock star you thought you were is hard to face.  Sometimes, I want to call out sick, or hope my car breaks down, or just give up and be a receptionist because its so much easier.  But I haven't.

I keep going.  And I am starting to surprise myself.  Last night's shift for instance was a nightmare.  I had orders to process, I had to call a doctor, and then someone got hurt right before I needed to start my after dinner med pass.  Losing 30 minutes to an incident is not something I had time for, and I had already given up my lunch.  All I could think about was how screwed I was.  I was never going to catch up on my med pass.   "I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm fucked"  The other nurse on duty saw 4 residents for me, and then I was ok.  I actually had time to call and yell at the pharmacy for not delivering a resident's insulin as promised.  I finished my med pass relatively on time despite my serious set back.

I was truly surprised.  Not every night is going to be this cluster fuck of things going wrong, so if I can finish on time when everything is going to shit, I can actually do this!  Holy shift!  So, of course, I rewarded myself by spending a little extra time with the last resident I had to give medication to because she is one of my favorites, and then spent the rest of my shift finishing up my paperwork.  But I went home feeling good.  To my knowledge, I didn't forget to do anything or make a note of something I needed the day shift to look into. 

I am growing so attached to the residents.  There are one or two that I could do without, but most of them, even though it is stressful, I like getting to spend the couple of minutes with them while they take their medication.   And this is the part of my job that makes me happy to be a nurse.  The constant, on-the-go, walking everywhere nature of my shift is exhausting, and makes me sore by the time I get home, but there is a reason I do it, and it would be so much harder to do if I didn't care about the residents the way that I do.

So, the last month has been so difficult, yet so good in many ways.  And I am sure in a month from now, I'll be even more surprised at how far I will go from this point.

In other news, the sucky realization that I won't have enough vacation time accrued to go somewhere for our 5 year anniversary sunk in.  It sucks.  I may have wanted to cry because I was looking forward to the idea of it.  But, that is life.  I have to be happy that I got a job as a nurse, and remember there will be time for it later.  But this first year, its just gonna be hard to take any significant time off, and nothing can be done about it.  It doesn't make our anniversary any less special, and we will be able to have a day or two off together, so it will be wonderful regardless of what we do.

I thought my schedule would make it so that I never see Mike, but its been kind of the opposite.  He has still been up when I get home late at night, and we can truly enjoy our days together rather me being groggy when he gets home, or me sleeping until 3 or 4 on my "day off".  I'm actually pretty happy with my schedule now, and I am so happy that I can truly enjoy the time I do get with Mike.   Sure, I have to get some school work done here and there, but now that I am not spending HOURS obsessing over my med pass schedule, it is just so nice.

I also finally gathered up my courage and learned how to use my sewing machine.  Oh my goodness, I was so happy when I finally figured out how to thread that thing, which is super confusing for a newbie.  I haven't "made" anything officially yet, just practiced sewing with some fabric I had leftover from some other projects.  I haven't done much more due to being overwhelmed with work this past month, but I hope to see how I do making a simple throw pillow.  I just gotta get around to doing it! 

The weather is also starting to get back to its beautiful self, and we can't wait to go back on our walks again.  We found a new frozen yogurt place down the street, and we are in love.  It may be a bit long to walk to, but we figure it isn't an impossible walk, so we may be doing that quite a bit this summer!!  :)