A Nurses Life

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 11, 2010

well i know this may sound silly, but i'm under the impression that all nurses do is work. by the time i finish nursing school i'll be 21/22, which is still pretty young. i'm afraid i won't have time to do fun things any more, and i'll just be a workaholic, living a sad lonely life [lol]. so when you're not working, what kind of things do you do? are you able to live a comfortable lifestyle? how old are you? these are just things i happen to be thinking about.

the nice thing about my job is that i work three twelve hour shifts a week and have the rest of the week off to play. dh is a nurse also, and for years we worked friday, saturday and sunday and played during the week. it was a fabulous lifestyle. we were always the only scuba divers at that great dive site, the only ones in line at the movies and the only ones in line for the ski lift or at the camp ground.

swirlything · Mar 11, 2010

I'm 38. I LOVE having 4 days off every week. I like to schedule myself Sun-Mon-Tues, one week, then Thurs-Fri-Sat the next.... 8 days off in a row... and then I can fly somewhere and take a vacation without actually taking any time off! I wouldn't want to work five 8-hour days for anything!

I also bellydance. I have a dance troupe, and we perform locally, often to support charity. I enjoy hiking and water sports when the weather is good. Being a nurse actually allows me MORE time for that sort of stuff than other jobs would.

shoegalRN, RN · Mar 11, 2010

I work 2 days a week (Sat and Sun nights) and get paid for 3. I have M-F off every week.

On my off days, I tend to my teenaged son, I cook, I go to the gym, I dance, I shop, I do "lunch" with the girls, etc.

I spend alot of my free time dancing and I am about to join Adult Ballet. I can also travel if I want. I have a trip coming up in May, and another one in September to the Carribean.

lil pixi · Mar 11, 2010

I started work as an RN at 24....and 1st job in a new state, sunny south Florida; by 25, a 2 week vacation in Mexico, seeing the ruins; fit a couple trips to Cape Cod in there by 27. At 28, 3 weeks in Hawaii....by 29, 1st time ever skiing in Colorado, and have had skiing trips every year since then, in Ca., Utah, NM, NH, Vt. Wy., Nv., Or., Alberta, British Columbia, and Chamonix....I've been to China and Prague, and Montreal.....I've been camping all over the Smokies, Az., NM, Co., Ca.,Vt., Wy.,Mt.... Been to Mardi Gras a number of times....
and a lot more....would take a full page to list it all...What you need is:
Good attitude, a budget, and payroll deduction savings...your fun is just beginning....I've been married...raised a child...live in a vacation home now...driven old and new cars....it's all do-able...simply put, you were looking at the glass half-empty, now look at it half full....another poster said wisely:
You work to live, not live to work....

Inspiration. :up:

RNKPCE · Mar 11, 2010

Never did I imagine when I chose nursing at 19 that it would be the best job for me. I didn't realize at the time that I could work full time, part time(2/5,3/5. 5/10, 7/10, 4/5, 9/10), per diem, weekends only, days, evenings, nights, etc. I have never worked full time, 4 out of 5 days was the most even before I had kids. After kids my husband and I decided my going to evening shift would be better for our family so I decreased to 3 days a week, with each kids I dropped down a day and have been per diem for a couple years and work 2 shifts a week.

So since I don't work I have plenty of time to work out, clean my house, run errands, hike, lunch with friends, watch my kids in sports and school performances, chaperone their field trips. We go to the beach during the week or the pool. I take vacations and can schedule myself to not miss much work because I only work 2 shifts a week.

All the nurses I know have a life. At time some of them choose to spend that life working overtime but that is a choice and usually a short lived one as you can burn out easy.

I just don't see myself doing the 9-5 grind and the weekday commute ugg. Having to run errands on weekends is not much fun, go to Costco on a weekday vs a weekend or the mall, or the beach etc.

The holidays is a small sacrifice for all the pluses.

TruNurse86 · Mar 11, 2010

I started work as an RN at 24....and 1st job in a new state, sunny south Florida; by 25, a 2 week vacation in Mexico, seeing the ruins; fit a couple trips to Cape Cod in there by 27. At 28, 3 weeks in Hawaii....by 29, 1st time ever skiing in Colorado, and have had skiing trips every year since then, in Ca., Utah, NM, NH, Vt. Wy., Nv., Or., Alberta, British Columbia, and Chamonix....I've been to China and Prague, and Montreal.....I've been camping all over the Smokies, Az., NM, Co., Ca.,Vt., Wy.,Mt.... Been to Mardi Gras a number of times....
and a lot more....would take a full page to list it all...What you need is:
Good attitude, a budget, and payroll deduction savings...your fun is just beginning....I've been married...raised a child...live in a vacation home now...driven old and new cars....it's all do-able...simply put, you were looking at the glass half-empty, now look at it half full....another poster said wisely:
You work to live, not live to work....

You, Miss, have truly inspired me and brought tears to my eyes! I want to be as well traveled as you if not more. You have shown me that being a nurse is about more than just work and burnout and giving it up. It is all about how much you put on your plate. I feel like I epically failed at clinicals today and became discouraged but hearin about all the amazing things you've done has opened my eyes to see that I just have to be strong and stick in there! Thank you for posting and I hope that you have many more travels and many great days and good times!!!! And thank you for keeping it real about what you enjoy outside of work.

cokristinug · Mar 12, 2010

im 21. just started my first nursing job full-time 40hrs per week. and i feel like i dont have a life. i work all the time. idk. hopefully when i start to get comfortable in my job i will have more energy to have a life outside of work. :)

mustlovepoodles, RN · Mar 12, 2010

I"ve been a nurse for 32+years and there have been times in my life when I felt like all I did was work, especially early on when I was trying to establish myself in the hospital hierarchy. A lot of people have mentioned that nurses work all the holidays. True. But that never bothered me or my family. People get sick on Christmas just like they do on April 24 or November 5. We have always just worked around my schedule, sometimes having holiday celebrations earlier or later than the event.

In the past 32 years I have had three children, now 23, 16, and 14. I have lived in three different states, following DH with his job. I've had the opportunity to work in several specialties, most of them under the umbrella of pediatrics. I never get bored. Nursing is very flexible. I have worked full-time, part-time, per diem. Weekends only, no weekends. 12 hours,8 hours, 4 hours. Right now Im working 6 hours a day, three days a week as a school nurse--very sweet job.

In all these years of nursing I've only been through one really black period when I believed I didn't want to be a nurse anymore. I suffered a major depressive episode that took about a year to recover from, and I didn't work during that time. In treatment I began to realize that I had let my life become terribly unbalanced. Now I have a lot of good coping skills and tools that I use to keep myself in a good place. things like camping with my family, taking a couples trip to NYC with my husband, going to the beach with the kids, playing with my big old poodledog. I took a Spanish class and volunteered at a food bank, packing boxes of food for needy families. I joined a nurses' support group, too, and we talk about lots of things that are common to nurses. When I went back to work I was really READY to work and it's been a great fit. I love nursing just as much now as I ever did.