[unitek1963]

Oh, Trauma, Trauma, Trauma! I'll be about your age when I finally GET to my RN! Good lord, where does that leave me? I'll be working till I'm...what...80?

Best regards,

Michael

Originally Posted by traumaRUs

Oooh Oramar, I envy you.!

I am almost 49 now and must work till I'm 70 (no lie). I chose to further my education a few years ago and my student loans will take a long time to pay off. Plus, I didn't become a nurse till I was 34, so I have some financial planning years to catch up on also.

I love this thread! Keep it going.

[Franemtnurse]

Originally Posted by Grace Oz

I don't mean your money!

I mean; how do you spend your time? What interests, hobbies etc are you pursuing?

And, do you enjoy being retired?

A joke just for fun and a laugh
Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days more interesting. For example, the other day the wife and I went into town and went a shop.
We were only in there for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and I said, 'Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?' He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a dumb bell.
He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So Mary called him a blockhead.
He finished the second ticket and put it on the window with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him,
the more tick ets he wrote. Just then our bus arrived.
We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired so it's important at our age.

[BBFRN]

That's hilarious, Fran!

[jla11]

That's funny!! Sounds awfully familiar as that thought has run through my head also!

[jla11]

WOW!!! I love to hear from all of you "older" RN's. I makes me not feel so bad about my own age. I'm 53 and also wondering if I'll ever retire. I used to think I would retire in my 60's, then as I got older, I realized that's too young, and I'd get bored. I've been working since age 14, so I'm used to having a "full plate". I am now at a point where I have 100% flexibility in my life, working registry (no weekends or holidays if I don't want), and at my age, I've learned to not take too much "stuff" from people anymore. But I have decided that I need to get away from bedside nursing and go back to school (again wondering if I'm too 'old' for this). I stepped away from nursing for 1.5 years and realized this is where my heart is. It took me til now to realized 'what I want to do when I grow up'. I'm hoping a CRNA will do it for me. Then I plan to travel with that after a few years of experience.

[Franemtnurse]

Sounds like you have your life wonderfully planned out honey. Hopefully it will all happen.

[aknottedyarn]

Ah retirement! I always figured I would be the one turning out the lights as the facility closed. Instead I retired while I still had health and interests. Last year I drove across country with my husband and ended up dry camping on BLM land in AZ. I am working some this summer and plan to go back to the desert again this winter. While traveling I crochet animals and leave them in towns for the local toys for tots kind of activity. I am able to spend quality time with my husband now that I am not on call and he no longer fears phone calls that were more venting by staff than need for me. We got a new dog from the animal shelter in AZ and she is a great traveler. She forces me to exercise and laugh more than I had in many years. Being a nurse means I can work if I want and live cheaply if I don't. It is always a compromise when you give up full time income to do what you have always wanted to do but were stopped by responsibilities. Life is good!

[safta24]

Good for you for using your retirement time as a tool to expand 7 express yourself in your travel & crafts . Sounds ideal.
I enjoy ed retirement as a bonus to be able to volunteer
a couple of hours a week in so many places.

Life is indeed very good
safta24

[Owney]

My boss got tired of my complaints about the corners I had to cut trying to give nursing care that I could live with. She retired me (AKA found somebody to lie about me, fire me, contest my 6 months unemployment, and challenge my license). After three years of extreme poverty the stress of 23 years of hospital work (mostly in the busiest ERs in town) I became physically disabled. My wife got SSI but even with our SSD it would not cover our predatorily overpriced mortgage and all the other expenses of living in a dying rust belt city. February this year, we moved to the Southwest and absolutely love it. Gorgeous weather, no crime, polite neighbors, wide open spaces and much lower cost-of-living makes us wonder why it took so long to get away from the hell hole that our nice neighborhood in Detroit had become.

At first I missed giving nursing care, but the more I think about it, the more foolish it seems that I spent so many years destroying my body (and my mind) trying to work in spite of the nurse managers and bean counters of hospital administration.

Whenever I think I miss nursing, all I have to do is read about the experiences of working nurses on this board. The latest is "nurses struggling with mental illness" where nurses are expected to disclose their medications to their employers. Have none of them heard of HIPPA? Wouldn't the hospital help a nurse get sued for disclosing health information to a third party? So nurses must treat everybody else's health information (except their own) in the world as priveleged? Whatever happened to privacy?

Yes, I do miss my patients, but the horse's behinds that "run" our "health care system?" Not at all.

Owney:

[Grace Oz]

I've been retired almost 6 years now, wouldn't change it for anything!
I had times whereby I questioned my decision to take early retirement, but those were far and few between and have become even less in recent years. The more I hear of things which are happening in the workforce today, the more I'm glad and grateful not to be a part of it!