On certain weekends during college I would spend the entirety of the time that the library was open studying; I would get there at 9am and not leave until 11pm, and still I thought this wasn't enough, especially if I had an exam that week. I got good grades (not great), I was no over-achiever compared to some of my classmates. That's not to say I wasn't academically competitive, I was and I still am. I honestly think it's the only thing I have ever been competitive about.
On my last day of clinicals in my last semester on the last week of college, I made a mistake A BIG ONE.
I was on the Labor and Delivery unit for my preceptorship. I was just getting over a cold so I almost got sent home that day, but I insisted that I wasn't sick anymore and it was my last day so I really wanted to stay.
I had a high risk patient with maternal Diabetes and an STD. She was already in labor but the possibility of an emergent c-section was high due to her risk factors. We had to infuse an antibiotic quickly so that the baby wouldn't get an infection on its way out of the birth canal. She was also allergic to penicillin which prompted us to use a different antibiotic than usual.
My Preceptor (RN) gave me the bag to hang, she said "just open it wide up." The antibiotic we were supposed to use was 100mg of Unasyn, the bag that the pharmacy had sent up and put the patients name on was 100units of Humilin (a fast acting insulin). I hung the bag only checking the patients name and birthdate. Neither I or my preceptor checked the name of the medication, and there was no electronic medical record at the time. This resulted in the patients' blood sugar dropping to 40 and an emergent c-section. In the end neither the mother nor the baby were injured in any way, but that's not to say this error wasn't damaging.
I was initially told that it would just be a ding on my record, nobody would even find out....
On the morning of my pinning I got a text from one of my instructors saying "hey did you check your email?" Of course I hadn't since it's the week of graduation and everything is done already. So reluctantly I opened up my email and it stated that I would not in fact be graduating, and I would have to repeat my last semester due to this one mistake. I finished reading the email, and when I had finally realized what it entailed, I screamed... I cried bloody murder so loud my roommate thought my mother had died or something. To me it was the worst thing that could have happened, and to top it off my boyfriend at the time broke up with me that same day. I felt like I hit rock bottom, things could only get better from here, right?
Despite having the worst morning ever, I did in fact walk the stage that night, and as soon as I started the next semester, things were starting to look up. During my final semester I got to precept under my idol (the president of the nursing program at my college) in a pediatric oncology unit, I participated in the California gubernatorial debates, and I presented my research at the pediatric society of nursing conference in Las Vegas. It was an exciting and challenging time in my life.
After I graduated, I spent 5-10 hours a day for a month (yes every day) studying for the NCLEX (the RN licensure exam). When I took it, the computerized exam shut off at the minimum amount of questions: 75. And two weeks later I found out I passed the test.
As a kid you are told that you should "work hard, go to college, and get a good job so you can be successful". And there I was; I had worked hard my whole life towards being a nurse, and now I was...sort of. So after getting my license I started applying for nursing jobs daily. In the mean time, I worked as a waitress at Outback Steakhouse.
I probably applied to over 200 jobs over the course of a year. The amount of applications per day that I was submitting would wax and wane depending on how I was feeling. After months of applying for nursing jobs, and not hearing back from any of them, I got really depressed. No one wanted to hire me; I was living in my parents' house, working a job I could have gotten out of high school, and realizing everything I learned as a kid was a lie.
I didn't understand why nobody wanted to hire me; I graduated cum laude, did extra projects, and even had a job working as a student aid in the nursing sim-lab. How was I not a prime candidate? What's so awful about me that you can't even give me the time of day to respond to my email?
I often glorified the past in my mind; I missed college, when everything was exciting and challenging, and now that was all gone. I was at a stand-still. I realized I was never going to get a nursing job in California; not as a new grad anyways. This was my defining "now what?" moment.
My friend, Colleen, who I went to nursing school with, was living in Hawaii, and she had just gotten a job in a new-grad nursing program at Hilo Medical Center. I saw this as my opportunity to get out, even if I couldn't get a job at the hospital right away, at least I knew they were hiring nurses in Hawaii. And on top of that I was tired of waiting around in California for "my life to start." So I dropped everything, and bought a one-way ticket.
When I first got to Hawaii, I got a job as a waitress at a local restaurant called Cronies. Even though I didn't have a nursing job yet, the change of scenery made me happy; I had minimal responsibilities, no one to call home to, and plenty of time to spend on the beach.
After about a month I got hired at a clinic, it wasn't the ideal nursing job, but beggars can't be choosers right? The job was only going to be part time, so I kept my job at Cronies. And thank the flying spaghetti monster* I did, because I actually only ended up working at the clinic for about a week. I got hired on Monday and fired on Friday. They gave me a lot of silly reasons why they fired me that mostly added up to "people don't like you." It hurt my feelings that people didn't like me, but it hurt even more to think that if I couldn't even keep a stupid clinic job, how was I gonna keep an acute care job? It was worse than if they had not hired me at all.
Once again I felt like a failure, I felt incompetent, stupid, not-worthy and I was a stranger in a strange land. I felt so bad I was paralyzed; I couldn't get myself to open a computer and look at a job application for months. When I finally did, I got hired at a long term care facility. Four months later I got hired at Hilo Medical Center in their new-grad nurse program.
I have now been living in Hawaii for over 2 years, and I just completed my first year of acute care nursing. The most important thing I learned during this time was that failure is an option, in fact it's likely, but I also learned that I have the strength to get back on the horse and try again, bruised and battered as I may be.
