After all most comments made were negative comments such as "you will never pass A&P", but I did. I also heard, "I don't trust you giving out meds." This comment was made by the Head of Nursing program at the community college I attended who had never seen me give out meds. Prior to that comment I had had my exit interview with my clinical instructor and she stated that "if I did anything right, it was giving out meds". She made these comments prior to my pharmacology final. Later after I got the graded test back and noticed that some of my answers had actually been erased! You get the message. Anyway I was .3 of a point short to continue in the RN program, but not before I heard more negative comments from the same Head of Nursing program. She came and got me out of the hallway! She said, "you think you passed, right?" From there it was a visit to her office where I heard, "we all can't be astronauts,"! What? I thought. Wow is she way off and out of line. As far as I was concerned I had had enough of her and her program. She wanted me out and she got it. When I walked away from the campus I thought a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. This was not worth the demoralizing. All I ever wanted to be since a little girl was a nurse.
But to make a long story short, and even after being denied passing into Nursing II, I thought long and hard finally decided to go for the LPN program. After taking the RN prereqs, LPN schooling was easy!
I already knew most of the info being taught. Unknown then was just how this handy this prior info would be in more years later.
I went onto be a "desk nurse" on a subacute floor. I was the only LPN working the floor amongst all of the RNs, my boss wanted me at the desk to run the floor! I really didn't want to have that much responsibility, I wasn't getting paid for it, but I did learn so much than being a floor nurse.
One Sunday afternoon I was working, an RN came to me telling me a patient had pulled out his trach tube. I had her call RT, in the mean time he was bleeding and I went back to the desk to check his chart, he was an DNR. She did not find him in a passed state so life saving measures were imminent. He was later taken to the hospital once his condition stabilized.
The young girl who was a so called manager called me over to the side and told me he was a DNR. I was aware of that, but you do life saving measures if the patient is still living, which he was.
The next day at work I was called into the office by my boss and he said I did everything right!
That was the day I told myself I would never call myself "just an LPN."
What a great day after being put down so many times by nurses with so much more education than I!
Nursing is a love of people and knowing what is the right thing to do at the right time.
