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27

[kafflene]

How to deal with burnout

I have no idea. Please advise, because I’m a new nurse and it’s too early for me to be dreading my job and daily life like this.

Also, I slightly question why I chose night shift because now I definitely don’t know how to live a normal life. And I am somehow going to manage going to back to school. I am screwed.

[kafflene]

Trying to plan a wedding while starting as a new grad nurse is a complete nightmare and I do not recommend. I don’t know how to effectively handle the stress of being a new grad with an unpredictable work schedule, and personal life struggles. Wedding stuff can be very, very expensive. I’m too tired or sad to cook or clean when I come home. Self-care is something I am still learning to prioritize, because I know I can take better care of myself, but it’s much easier said than done.

Bedside nursing is challenging, and I find myself questioning if I’m really cut out for this career. My preceptor reassures me that everyone struggles with the steep learning curve between nursing school and working as a licensed nurse, but I hate how frustratingly inadequate I feel at times. I try to remind myself that this is a learning process and that every patient I encounter has the right to a competent advocate; striving to do the absolute best for a patient will not lead me astray. But I’m absent-minded and easily intimidated at times.

I’m learning to work with our patient population, and it’s challenging. Everyone has multiple comorbidities, usually poorly managed, sometimes psychiatric, and maybe homeless. There’s a balance to be found between everything a patient needs, what they want, and what you can do for them. Sometimes I can only do so much, and it’s frustrating or heartbreaking. I’m an avid NPR listener but some days I can’t listen to the news during my drive home. Hearing about people denying structural violence and racism, when the community we serve is so affected, easily becomes emotionally exhausting.

[kafflene]

Work is pretty exhausting and I struggle to maintain productivity on my days off sometimes. But my transfer petition was approved and I just need to work out an enrollment plan for my MSN. I’m glad I took a break to start a new job and will be gaining a few years of acute care experience while I work on becoming an FNP. 

In the past 1.5 months working here in South Central LA, I can tell there’s so much for me to learn about working with a medically underserved population. I’m working on my time management, interprofessional communication, and other skills that come with bedside nursing, but it feels like I’m starting from zero in learning to navigate a patient population with so little health literacy and resources. How do you negotiate with patients who are used to leaving AMA just whenever??? How to explain liver cirrhosis in Spanish to someone with encephalopathy??? Why do you have nowhere to start IV access??? Hemodialysis, for everyone??? (But also the providers at my facility are mostly great, and teamwork makes the dream work, friends.)

[kafflene]

Tough it out

Moving to LA to start my career as an RN hasn’t been easy. I’m reluctant to leave every time I go home to SD. I wonder why I so willingly uprooted myself to move to a tiny studio to work at a fledgling community hospital. Being a new grad isn’t fun; being a new grad in a newer new grad program in a young hospital means growing pains in various ways. Socializing and trying to mesh with multiple preceptors is incredibly taxing. Staying positive after consecutive 12-hour shifts with less-than-stellar job performance feels impossible. 

But I’m at a hospital I hope to grow with professionally, and I hope to continue grad school in January, at least part-time. I’m finally able to pay my rent and bills, and I have health insurance, so there’s a lot to be grateful for. But I miss my family and my dogs, and I wish I cooked a little better. I am realizing that I need to incorporate self-care into my weekly routine; I inherited an electric guitar and can hang out with my partner when we’re both off. So I can do this. If my parents moved to the U.S. in their 20s, I can tough this out.

[kafflene]

Sharing where my job searching led me as I spend my last days at home, someone always asks,

“Why are you going to work in South Central LA?!?”

I received more than one job offer, so yes, I chose a community hospital in South LA, and I know it’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it. Geographic location and socioeconomic status shouldn’t impact someone’s access to quality and compassionate care.

(But also my partner’s hospital rotations are in South LA so the universe was looking out!!!)

[kafflene]

I start working in a week and I am absolutely terrified. I didn’t start nursing school with a “dream job” in mind; I like emergency medicine, community health, and enjoyed pediatrics. Like any new grad, I sought a supportive transition program. I applied to dozens of hospitals and nursing facilities, drove hundreds of miles to-and-from LA for interviews, and was convinced I’d never land a position with a rate that would comfortably support me moving out. Maybe it’s imposter syndrome, or maybe I just got lucky, but the universe came together in my favor,  and I am somehow a Versant RN Resident in a safety net hospital. I remember prepping for the interview for hours, trying to imagine how amazing it would be working at a hospital with a mission and vision that resonated so closely with my goals...and then wanting to cry driving back from my interview because I was convinced the panel didn’t like me (and then frantically driving straight to the ED because my Dad had a small stroke. But that’s a different story).

But here I am. I just moved into a tiny apartment after scraping up what was left of my savings after being unemployed throughout nursing school. I’m an LA resident again. For the first time in 4 years, my partner and I live within an hour driving distance of each other.  I also have less than 6 months to plan my entire wedding, but let’s be real, I’m a lot more worried about not hurting anyone as a new nurse....

[kafflene]

My Public Health Nurse Certification finally came through, and I’ve been blessed with opportunities to work in underserved communities in LA County. A lot of stress with choosing an offer, HR, paperwork, finding a place to live, and moving my entire life is due in the next 2 weeks, but this is what I’ve been working towards, right?

[kafflene]

I’m not desperate

But someone pls hire me. I honestly really like being a nurse. It’s personally fulfilling helping people recover, and understand their conditions and working towards their well-being, as they define it. I enjoy and know I can learn while doing the grunt work; I like doing compressions or starting IVs during codes, I’ll do bedside patient care, and I’m punctual and really efficient when I chart!!!!!!

[kafflene]

19 months later

I finally have the BSN, RN after my name. I thought I’d be hungry for the MSN or FNP like many of my peers, but I just want to become a competent RN for now. Hopefully, I can transfer the classes I took if I change institutions, but for now, I NEED A JOB. I have an interview here in SD, which I would be blessed to land, but I’m not sure I want to deal with trying to decide if I want to live separately from my future spouse for a bit. But what’s a few more years of somewhat long distance? Being within 100 miles of my SO is enough for me??? (I haven’t been thinking about the marriage thing too deeply because I put wedding planner on the back burner, but it’s about to suck.)

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud of myself for sticking to my guns and taking the NCLEX the soonest date available. But I also felt like I was on the edge of getting sick every single day for the past 2 weeks, so I can’t say I’d do it again.  I also walked out of the test center certain I failed, so, I also would not go through that experience again, haha.

[kafflene]

     I’m doing an externship with the pediatric vascular access services team (or PICC Team), and it’s significantly calmer than my preceptorship in the ED (Thank you, God). I’m involved in communicating with the interprofessional health care team, and since I’m not trained, the most I do is help hold patients during procedures and sterile dressing changes. As you might expect, the PICC team deals largely with very sick kids who are hard sticks or need reliable long-term access for chronic or critical illnesses. So we service kids coming in for outpatient treatments and often the PICU or sometimes the NICU.  I wanted to be a peds nurse and I really do enjoy holding babies and talking to kids, but sometimes I go home with a sense of helplessness. Peds nurses have special hearts for kids but sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that a Creator betrayed them. When I try to calm a screaming baby or a kid crying for their mom, sometimes it just feels terrible.

[kafflene]

I’m kinda proud of myself for finishing my preceptorship, going to AZ for almost a week, coming back to get all 4 impacted wisdom teeth out, and then getting through memorials/funeral/family get-togethers as a half drugged chipmunk. (NTS: Family is everything.) 

But I take my NCLEX near the end of this month somewhere in-between an externship at Children’s, even though I haven’t studied in a week, and while trying to finalize some wedding stuff??? (I chose the soonest open date so it’s probably God'sign that I need to make time to study.) I put in my intent-to-enroll for Spring 2019, but LOL @my life planning not making my MSN a priority. Let’s see how the rest of 2018 goes first.

NTS: Be cautiously optimistic; there are times when trust might just be enough. Here’s to hoping for an RN license and a happy final 3.5-month leg of a long distance relationship.

[kafflene]

I agreed to this and I am dead inside

So I’m fine with getting married because I’m definitely done with long distance. But I’m absolutely dreading the wedding, the planning, looking for new grad jobd in counties in which I haven’t worked, and moving. I can’t JUST focus on finishing my externships and studying for the nclex because everything is in the process at the same time. Trying to do everything outside of being in the ER with three 12s every week is slowly killing me inside(/outside). I don’t have the resources for all of this.

This isn’t Trevor’s fault, but it’s his fault.

[kafflene]

Doing my preceptorship in the ER has been quite an experience, both good and bad. I’m still getting used to 3 consecutive days at the hospital, but I like the 12-hour shift work flow. I spend the remaining 4 days of the week sleeping and studying. Job searching in hospital systems I never did clinicals in kind of sucks, and getting in a new grad program is stressing me out, but I’m trying to be patient with myself. I’m doing my best.

I had my first family get upset behind my back about me working with their loved one, because I’m a student. The nurse manager had to salvage the situation, but I was assured it wasn’t my fault. It’s kind of discouraging but it’s bound to happen. I’m not 100% positive that the ER is for me, but the location I’m at is known for being a bit difficult because of the population we serve. There are also unique challenges that come with taking border calls, and the fact that there are fewer hospitals down here, so it’s been a great learning experience. We pulled a patient smoking meth out of a bathroom, I’ve seen some graphic PVD and edema complications, a lot of seizures, stroke codes, not as many STEMIs yet, and a lot of extremely sick people with poorly managed chronic conditions.

Yesterday, I was asked to be second set of eyes for an intravaginal ultrasound, so I wasn’t familiar with the patient, but expecting patients usually come to the ER for vaginal bleeding or decreased fetal movements, and the results are far from ideal. While setting up, I mentioned that it had been a while since I watched an ultrasound and the patient said “well this isn’t going to be a good one.” “But that’s okay,” I replied to her, and she looked at me and with the saddest smile, “you’re right, it’s okay.”

I really like the ER, but sometimes I don’t.

[kafflene]

I don’t know how to feel about losing sleep writing a paper for a graduate class when I’m not continuing with my MSN for now but it’s too late now, (it’s 1am). But I finished my last clinical (minus externship) for my BSN last week, so I guess that feels nice. But mostly because I don’t have to wake up at 0430 for a while.

This is my first holiday season “officially” feeling split between me and my partner’s families, along with 2 weddings before Christmas. The reality that I am getting married next year and will have two families is starting to get to me, and I’m not sure how to navigate things or feel. But I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing about where we were 6 years ago when we started dating, and it’s making me really miss my friends from undergrad. He definitely wasn’t the only meaningful relationship I gained from UCLA. 

Maybe I’m just overall sad that I’m not done with this paper.

[kafflene]

Going into the last months of nursing school (at least for now, I’m taking a year off/never coming back), my drinking definitely increased. It’s been a great learning experience, nursing school LOL.

[kafflene]

So we still have the the rest of the semester in critical care, but I think this nursing student found her heart in pediatrics 🤗

[hillergoodspeed]

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