Without writing an entire novel, here's what I've been up to over the last 10 months.
The summer was uneventful. I picked up quite a few extra shifts during the day (I know!) to sock away some extra money for my leave of absence following surgery. I trained to a couple of new areas. My IV success rate still hovers at 50%.
The surgery went well. I was talking with one of the staff there prior to the surgery. She wanted to know where I worked, so I told them I was in psych. "Oh, my kid is in there," she said. "Cool, what shift is she on, maybe I know them," I reply. And it turns out that the child isn't staff but a patient.
"Oh."
Then I was told a lot more about this patient than I ever wanted to know. I said nothing other than, "I don't think I've come across them," which was true, as I hadn't. But talk about small worlds!
The surgeon and anesthesiologist were awesome: I told them what I wanted--not to remember anything during the surgery--and they delivered. Though it would have been nice to be warned that the operating room would be like an icebox. But they threw warm blankets on me, and then I was put under right away.
My sister took me there and waited to bring me home. At one point, the staff couldn't find her. We don't have the same last name, plus the name she has (that I used to have) is exceptionally hard to pronounce, so it's not as though they could have paged her. So I told them, "She looks absolutely nothing like me." They found her in less than 5 minutes.
I originally was going to return after one week, but after the first night home, I decided I was taking the full two weeks. All I did was lie in bed and listen to audio books. And get off the hook for doing anything around the house, because I was under orders not to lift or strain myself for a few weeks. Unfortunately, this meant that I also had to stop exercising, so I gained back 15 of the 20 pounds I lost during the year. I'm still working at getting them back off.
The fall was all right, nothing exciting. Played a lot of Minecraft. It's soothing, especially when I'm in creative move. It's almost as fun as DOOM in God Mode, just without the chainsaw and cacodemons.
The little one officially became a teenager in December. He asked that we no longer call him by his childhood nickname. He is also almost as tall as I am (and I am tall!) and has bigger feet than the better half. Pretty soon, this kid's going to tower over us.
My birthday was hard, as it was also the second anniversary of my dad's passing. It was a little easier than the first year, but I don't think it'll ever be pain-free though. Still, he wouldn't want me crying on that day, so I got the tears out while everyone was asleep, and fired up Red Dwarf until I was laughing hysterically. That gave me the strength to get through the day.
At the start of the new year, I sprained my back by not acting my age. Seriously, I was fooling around on a trampoline. I didn't feel any pain then, but two days later it hit with a vengeance. I was laid up for about a week. It felt like it was never getting better...I kind of understood why people in chronic pain get depressed and want to kill themselves. Not that I ever got to that dark of a point, but I certainly felt hopeless and helpless.
The next month, I pulled a groin muscle while exercising. That only had me down for three days though, but I had to cut back on the exercise program for a while.
Littler one turned 5. His speech has improved drastically...he's still hard to understand at times, but he is talking more and babbling less. We're hoping he can transfer to the local school next year, but we'll see what happens at the next IEP meeting.
I did another half-marathon. It wasn't my best time (and as always, I was dead last!), but I did pretty well considering my training was messed up due to the injuries. I have another one coming up in June...I'm usually not this masochistic to do two half-marathons within six months, but this is also a get-together of sorority alumnae as well, so it's as much a social event as an athletic one.
I dealt with some personal heartbreak. I'm not going to go into details, but I will assure you that both immediate and extended family are fine. The pain sucked, but it was a learning experience, so I'm grateful for that. Though I wish there were less painful ways to learn such things.
And this brings me to now, and my big news...I applied to graduate school.
I decided to go with Western Governors University for the MSN in Education. A lot of people--including other staff--at the forum spoke highly about it, so I did some of my own research. It's accredited and has a good reputation. I liked what I found, so I decided to give it a shot and apply. I'm hoping to start in July.
I was looking at local programs, but they would have been hard to work
around given my work schedule. I thought about going back to UTA, but I decided that I wanted a different approach. It's going to be interesting doing a program at my own pace. The pass/fail thing is going to be both a blessing and a curse...a blessing since I won't be stressing out over getting As. A curse because I'm going to end up with a 3.0 GPA no matter how well I ace each test and paper.
I don't want to become a psych NP because I don't want to prescribe all day. I enjoy being in the trenches with the patients. Education appeals to me because I like to teach others and I would love to be able to develop patient education programs. I could help develop the next generation of nurses--I always fancied myself becoming a nursing school instructor...and there's also the potential for staff education as well.
Plus, If I change my mind and decide that I want to become a NP (psych or otherwise) down the road, I could always do a post-masters. Or maybe I'll go for the PhD. Or maybe I'll stop at MSN.
Right now, things are still in the application stage...I don't doubt that I'll be accepted, as I'm bringing along GPAs of 3.93 and 4.0. But I never take any thing for granted. The transcripts are on their way, and I started talking with my enrollment counselor.
It's kind of exciting to be going back to school. It's been almost 5 years since I finished the BSN. I think I'm ready to do it.
Meriwhen the RN, now BSN, soon to be MSN. I like the sound of it.
