Did you *know* you were going to be a nurse all your life? Or did you come upon nursing in a way that surprised you and your family?
I have always loved writing, so I majored in journalism in college 12 years ago. Everyone always told me that I was a great writer, so I chose journalism as my major. No one ever really mentioned nursing as a career to me.
Fast forward 8 years after college graduation ... I have gone through a few journalism-related jobs and one boring secretarial job when I become interested in nursing ... I am attracted to the fulfilling aspect of the job, the decent pay, the security, and the variety it offers. There are six nurses and a CRNA in my immediate family ... and all of them love their jobs. I realized that I have been longing for a career that is rewarding and pays well. I want to feel like I've made a true difference at the end of the day, and I do not want to sit at a cubicle all day.
So ... after pondering it for about two years, I decide to pursue my ADN. Now that I've made this decision, my family tells me that I would be a good nurse and that I would enjoy nursing as a career much more than journalism. But I can tell you that I *never* thought I would pursue nursing! It is strange for me to hear people say that they "always knew" they wanted to be a nurse. I mean, here I am ... a writer-turned-nursing student ... it's so crazy! And yet I'm even *more* excited than I was when I started journalism school. I think having "RN" beside my name one day will fascinate me for the rest of my life, simply because I never thought I'd go down this path.
Anyway, I'd love to hear any other stories about how and why you chose nursing! There's got to be some really interesting stories out there!
What I also found interesting is how long it took me to begin to "feel" like a nurse. It took me over a year to not feel like an imposter-not an inexperienced nurse but an outright fake.
I can completely relate. Put all this planning and work into school, tons of studying, NCLEX, licensure apps - yet, now even a few months in as a nurse, I sometimes look at the RN on my signature and say, 'Holy cow. How in the world did that happen?' Sometimes when a parent or a physician asks to speak to a nurse, I have to fight the urge to look around for one. :)
Hello, well I have always wanted to be a nurse as far as I can remember. I know as a child when my mother said we had to go visit someone in the hospital I got all excited. Weird huh? I always wanted to go to the baby floor as I called it.. I loved to watch the nurses rocking the babies. Anyway, When I was in 11th grade, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. It was a long 4 year battle. In the late stages of cancer,hospice had to come in and teach me and my father how to care for her when they werent there. It was a very humbling experience for me. I was then 20 at this point. I thought if I can do this with my own mother I can do this with anyone. Watching your own mother deteriorate day to day was very stressful.
I moved away from home a year after her death and worked in home health agency in the billing dept. (Boring) I couldnt afford to go to school. I was living on my own and had to work. 4 years later I met my husband who is active duty military. I worked at a local hospital where we were stationed in the billing dept, again (boring). We had a child and then bam we got orders to Germany. While in Germany I had another daughter..
My neighbor was going to school and said hey why dont you go back. I thought why not. So I enrolled in one class at a time. Took all my sciences in Germany at the college on base. Then we finally got orders back to the states. I took my chance and applied to the ADN program and I got my acceptance letter for this fall. I was so shocked that I have put this off for so many years. I have learned alot of adminstrative and office side of hospitals but always admired the girls in the cafeteria at lunch in scrubs. I thought, it has to be so rewarding and never gets dull and boring. So we will see what this road leads too. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I finally made it happen.
Hello, well I have always wanted to be a nurse as far as I can remember. I know as a child when my mother said we had to go visit someone in the hospital I got all excited. Weird huh? I always wanted to go to the baby floor as I called it.. I loved to watch the nurses rocking the babies. Anyway, When I was in 11th grade, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. It was a long 4 year battle. In the late stages of cancer,hospice had to come in and teach me and my father how to care for her when they werent there. It was a very humbling experience for me. I was then 20 at this point. I thought if I can do this with my own mother I can do this with anyone. Watching your own mother deteriorate day to day was very stressful.
I moved away from home a year after her death and worked in home health agency in the billing dept. (Boring) I couldnt afford to go to school. I was living on my own and had to work. 4 years later I met my husband who is active duty military. I worked at a local hospital where we were stationed in the billing dept, again (boring). We had a child and then bam we got orders to Germany. While in Germany I had another daughter..
My neighbor was going to school and said hey why dont you go back. I thought why not. So I enrolled in one class at a time. Took all my sciences in Germany at the college on base. Then we finally got orders back to the states. I took my chance and applied to the ADN program and I got my acceptance letter for this fall. I was so shocked that I have put this off for so many years. I have learned alot of adminstrative and office side of hospitals but always admired the girls in the cafeteria at lunch in scrubs. I thought, it has to be so rewarding and never gets dull and boring. So we will see what this road leads too. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I finally made it happen.
Lovely story I wish you every success-I have a feeling you'll do well
I apparently wanted to become a doctor since I could talk. I then got a music education degree. I don't remember nursing having the same PR as medicine when I was growing up. It was just never brought up as an option to me until I had finished all of my premed classes and began volunteering at clinics for med school application credit. I realized that nurses are smart, skilled, and often get to do the bulk of patient care- which were my healthcare goals anyway :)
I always knew I wanted to be in a career that helped people. I went to MUW right after high school but I was young 18 had a child and couldn't really afford it and at that time I didn't have the backing and support so I dropped out and said Hi to Uncle Sam but I kept my eye on the prize. It took me 7 yrs and some trials and tribulations. But here I am in my 2nd semester for my BSN. For one moment I thought about pharmacy but when I saw the curriculm (all that math) I quickly changed my mind back
So I guess I fall in line w/ the others and have to say I never thought I'd be doing this. I wanted to teach ever since I can remember. I graduated w/ my psych degree and got my elem. edu cert. I substitute taught for two yrs and decided I didn't want to wait any more for a job.
So, I did what any othe 23 yr old would do, I told my parents I was gonna stick around for another year or two and am going for another degree.
They were shocked, but here I am, about to start Drexel's ACE program this fall.
i never, never, ever thought i would want to be a nurse. i worked in a hospital when i was 17, an nursing home when i was 18, worked in the nursing department of my college for the 4 semesters i was there, and swore that being a nurse wasnot what i wanted to do. i didn't know what i wanted to do, but being a nurse wasn't it.
fast forward a couple of years. i spent 2 more semesters in school, still having an undeclared major, and about to completely drop out. i figured i would build on the office experience i have. i looked for a job for six months, nothing!!! interviews almost 5 days a week, but somebody more qualified always got the job.
i went to my bf's brother's house one day, and the brother's dil (my bf is quite a bit older than me...but that's another story) was studying her pre-reqs for rn. she has 3 kids, i have two. i always used the excuse that i wouldn't have enough time to study with 2 kids, but here she is, studying away with all 3 of her kids running around the house!!! so i figured i was just trying to talk myself out of it....because heaven forbid i actually apply myself in college (lord knows i didn't in high school!!!!). lol :chuckle
anyway, long story short, when school starts, i too will be starting my pre-reqs. although mine will be for the lvn program, i still feel that is where i should be at this point in time. i'll probably go back later for my rn....but i have one year of school and then at least a year working before i can bridge over to think about it.
sorry post so long....just thought i would share my story. :typing
It's funny the split, some always knew, others never considered it. I think I always knew, but didn't realize it until my mid 20's. When I was 3or4 years old I would tell my grandma and aunties when I grew up I would be there nurse and take care of them. I thought I'd go straight to nursing school after h.s. then someone(who I really looked up to)told me how nursing was nothing but changing dirty bed pans and they didn't make any money. Being impressionable and naive I thought ewww, I don't want that. It wasn't until my cousin had a very sick baby who needed around the clock home care that I revisited my desire to be a nurse. There weren't enough nurses available for my cousin so I began going over to her house regularly to help change her trach, feed her through the feeding tube, etc. My sister had to leave the room while we would do these things. I knew then that nursing wasn't for everyone, but I could do it, and loved it. Being older and wiser I realize that there will be some, probably lots of things I won't like doing, but there are also many rewards and the pay isn't really that bad. I am reminded everytime I am with my aunts and grandma that I am finally following my dream I had since I was three.
It never crossed my mind to become a nurse until I needed several surgeries in a row (5 in the course of 18 months) as I hit my 40's as result of the natural "falling apart" like an old car I also had a serious illness in 2001 (meningitis) which almost killed me.
Here I am taking prerequisites despite being left with a learning disability from the meningitis....but I am getting better and these hard science classes force my brain to develop new pathways. Persuiing nursing is actually therapy for me. I applied to ADN program yesterday. Keep me in your prayers.
When I got out of high school, I had no clue what I was wanting to do as far as what career I wanted. I just knew I wanted to marry my, now, husband. A month after getting married, I got pregnant with our first child. At 32 weeks along in the pregnancy, I had a placental abruption and lost our son. I nearly died as well. Then I had a daughter about a year later. Then I had my second daughter. She was 6 weeks premature and had multiple health issues. She had severe reflex and aspirated some which damaged the base of her lungs. So she required oxygen until around 14 months old. She also had severe sleep apnea. So she remained on an apnea monitor for quite a long time as well. Not to mention the special formula, breathing treatments, and reflux medications. With being her full time nurse, and having the experience of losing a child, I had in mind becoming a nurse in the NICU. I feel that I may be able to relate to the parents of the children there. I still worry that I may not have "what it takes" to work in that particular field, but I believe that may be where my life experience is leading me.
When I got out of high school, I had no clue what I was wanting to do as far as what career I wanted. I just knew I wanted to marry my, now, husband. A month after getting married, I got pregnant with our first child. At 32 weeks along in the pregnancy, I had a placental abruption and lost our son. I nearly died as well. Then I had a daughter about a year later. Then I had my second daughter. She was 6 weeks premature and had multiple health issues. She had severe reflex and aspirated some which damaged the base of her lungs. So she required oxygen until around 14 months old. She also had severe sleep apnea. So she remained on an apnea monitor for quite a long time as well. Not to mention the special formula, breathing treatments, and reflux medications. With being her full time nurse, and having the experience of losing a child, I had in mind becoming a nurse in the NICU. I feel that I may be able to relate to the parents of the children there. I still worry that I may not have "what it takes" to work in that particular field, but I believe that may be where my life experience is leading me.
Sorry about everything you had to go through. You will be perfect for the job and able to help a lot of people.
Like many others, I too had never thought about nursing. I studied Neuroscience in college, briefly entertained and then dismissed the thoughts of either a PhD (couldn't stomach animal research) or an MD, then went into medical writing instead. The whole time, though, I've felt like I wasn't finished "finding" what I wanted. In the past couple of years, especially, I felt restless, like my job was meaningless and there was no reason to get out of bed in the morning (not depression, just severe lack of motivation -- note that this feeling only came on work days!). I liked my job and my coworkers, but I was also volunteering at a crisis hotline and a hospice and wishing that I had more time to devote to those enterprises, since I felt that my actions actually counted for something real, rather than helping the shareholders get rich. The preciousness of time was weighing more and more on my mind, as was the importance of spending the time that we have here on earth in the most helpful, beneficial, and productive, way possible.
It sounds corny, but it was when Hurricane Katrine hit that it finally crystallized for me. Whenever I would read of disasters in the news, I would have a frustrated feeling of wishing I could do something to help the people affected, but knowing that since I have no skills, if I showed up as a volunteer, all I'd really be able to do is get in the way of the real aid workers. I began thinking about what people need on the most fundamental level -- food, shelter, medical attention -- and how I could contribute to providing those needs. Finally the epiphany illuminated my mind. Nursing! It was almost like divine revelation, almost like "Well, DUH!" Part of me can't believe that it took me this long to realize that this is what I want to do. But the rest of me is so relieved to know. It just FEELS right.
Of course, a tiny part of me is also scared that I'm WRONG and that nursing isn't for me. Time will tell. At the moment I'm just thrilled to be on the road. I never thought it could happen this fast, either; it was just one year ago that the concrete goal of NURSE became solidified, and here I am a few short weeks away from the beginning of my direct-entry NP program. It's been a whirlwind of GRE studying and prerequisite cramming and school applications... I didn't even tell anyone (except my boyfriend and the people I asked to write my letters of referene) that I was applying because I didn't think I'd be able to pull it off... but here I am!! My bp cuff and white Birkenstocks arrived in the mail yesterday... my stethoscope and scrubs are on the way... my textbooks are bending my bookshelves with their weight. The thought of my first day of clinicals makes me a bit giddy -- with nerves and excitement!
I also had a serious illness in 2001 (meningitis) which almost killed me.
EricJRN, MSN, RN
1 Article; 6,683 Posts
I can completely relate. Put all this planning and work into school, tons of studying, NCLEX, licensure apps - yet, now even a few months in as a nurse, I sometimes look at the RN on my signature and say, 'Holy cow. How in the world did that happen?' Sometimes when a parent or a physician asks to speak to a nurse, I have to fight the urge to look around for one. :)