Need help with coping with family emergency while in nursing school

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I am currently in an accelerated BSN program that's full time and after dropping my work hours to registry at the hospital I work at after struggling to keep up. My aunt who lives with me had a stroke over the weekend. It was minor compared to what could have been but because she doesn't have insurance and her personal circumferences bar her from options to get any insurance. The hospital discharged her to my care and I am afraid to go to class or clinical and leave her alone with the dogs.

This BSN program is everything I have been working for over two years to start and now that I am barely in the middle of it, I feel that it is slipping away. I don't know what to do.

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Specializes in Medsurg.

Wow that sucks. Do you have any other family that could step in and help her? Nursing school is quite draining...im worried its gonna be hard for you being drained from two avenues.

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Specializes in mental health / psychiatic nursing.

Contact your school/adviser ASAP and let them know what is going on. Accommodations may be able to be made (e.g. extensions on assignment or even a leave of absence), but only if the program knows that you need them.

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Does she qualify for medicaid?

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My mom passed away suddenly from colon cancer during my second block of my 4 block RN program and I had to withdraw from my program to spend her last 2 weeks with her. It was really difficult because we didn’t know all the details at the time I withdrew but just that her surgeon across country really stressed it was important I return to my home state of PA. I withdrew in October last year from my AZ program and returned to repeat block 2 this spring, almost done with this block. :)

At the time it felt like my whole world was collapsing my mom was sick, my program wouldn’t give me the time to go be with her, but in the end I’m still on my way to be an RN and redoing this semester of my med surg content has me at a 95% grade with a stellar foundation of med surg nursing that will always give me an advantage.

Is your aunt emotionally close to you? Is being there for her more important than this semester? If not that’s okay too, you have to decide but sometimes you just can’t do it all. You can also call the local area on agency and see if they can have an agency stop by during the day since she has no insurance, You would be surprised the services available through places like that

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