December 21st, 2012!!

Welp.  School has been extremely stressful as of late.  Nursing school is supposed to be stressful right?  You wouldn't believe the stress my school has been under.  I invite the thought of regular nursing school stresses now.  Oh what it would be to just stress about school work, tests, and that ever coming NCLEX. 

My nursing school is shutting down.  This, that, and the other... they were told to shut down this coming September.  Where did that leave the poor students that were supposed to graduate December, three months later?  Oh.  They told us that we were going to be finishing school at Ameritech College- graduating in May 2013 instead.  Yes.  My reaction was have at least three melt downs, freak outs, and cry like a maniac.  December is everything I've set my sights to for a year and a half of my life.  It's what I've worked so hard to get good grades for, so that I pass all of my classes and can start 2013 as a Registered Nurse.  But they wanted my to restart 2013 as a student again?  I don't think so.

Well, long story short, the students in my cohort took the liberty of emailing the nursing board of education (the ones who make the decision about closing the school) to figure some things out.  We talked them into allowing us students to come meet with them and we told them our story.  We told them how hard we have all worked for this graduation and how dedicated we all were to our education.  We reminded them how close we were and the fact that all we would have left to take was our NCLEX review class and our preceptorship.  We got just about everyone in that board room crying and well... we got them to say yes!  Yes, I get to graduate as planned.  Yes, my hard work in school has paid off and I will be graduating in 5 months with a nursing degree ready to take my NCLEX exam to make me an RN.  Yes, the countdown to December 21st, 2012 begins!

I'm going to repost something I posted a while ago.  It's a passage from the book My Sister's Keeper.  It's what someone says about the nurse that is taking care of them one day.  It's something I have always remembered since I read the book, it's what helps get me through nursing school and what got me through this stressful few months of figuring out when and where I will be graduation.  The Lord is sure looking over me to get me where I'm at now.  

Quote by Sara (mother of Anna and Kate, who has AML)

"An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definate hierarchies of command. The patients, they're the ones doing the tour of duty. The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heros, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where they've left off from the previous visit. It is the nurses who are the seasoned sergeants-the ones who are there when your baby is shaking with such a high fever she needs to be bathed in ice, the ones who can teach you how to flush a central venous catheter, or suggest which patient floor kitchens might still have Popsicles left to be stolen, or tell you which dry cleaners know how to remove the stains of blood or chemotherapies from clothing. The nurses know the name of your daughter's stuffed walrus and show her how to make tissue paper flowers to twine around her IV stand. The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable."