Katmanduuu

First, I want to offer you the thought that YOU are the captain of your own ship...not your mother. That said, your post brought back some interesting memories for me. When I told my family that I had signed up for nursing school, I remember my mother telling me, "I don't know why you bother. You'll never finish it. You never finish anything you start!" Yes, that hurt, and it certainly wasn't true, but those words were the 'burr under my saddle' that I needed on those really rough days of clinicals. I was determined to do this and by heaven nothing was going to stop me! Even though I was in my early 30's at that point and knew I'd be 'competing' with all those 'young kids' who were starting just out of high school. It made me nervous and the school even had a name for us "older" students....."Non-traditional Student." (Thanks....just stick us with a label before we even begin! ) On the very first day of classes, they put us in an auditorium and told us to look to our left and to our right. There must have been 300 of us in there. The woman leading that class then said, "Take a hard look at the person to your left and right, because only one of you will make it to graduation." Yikes! I thought they wanted us to succeed....not weed us out with a scythe! I lost track of how many times I said or thought "I can NOT do this!" but I kept going. Frustration, tears, lack of money, no days off for months at a time, working full time and going to school full time, taking classes straight through the summer......none of it stopped me. I saw classmates who had relationships fail and even a couple of divorces from the stress and strain and I still kept going. I had times where I wondered if I'd done the right thing or if I'd just set myself up for failure and often wondered "Am I NUTS?? What was I thinking?? This wasn't in the brochure!!" (I swear that every time I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, it was attached to a really big train!) Some things came to me very easily while others did not. It was a lot of work but I finally got through it. At my pinning ceremony, when I was walking back down from the stage, I briefly stopped to get a hug from one of my classmates. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see my father. He'd walked up to the edge of the stage and gave me a huge hug! Everyone applauded and I had tears in my eyes. He was just beaming with pride! :heartbeat Now, 20 years later, I look back on a great career where I've had the opportunity to help people, save lives and made some incredible friends. I've worked in hospitals ranging from 7 acute beds to over 1000 beds and have done travel nursing, as well. I'm still working in a hospital setting and love what I do. I'm a long way from retirement (I'm a very young 55, now) and am always looking for new things to learn. The moral of the story.....follow your own path, wherever it may lead you. No one can choose that path for you and even if you take a detour now and again (such as the business career you regret) you still are the beneficiary of the knowledge and experience that you gained in the process. You've really lost nothing by that detour. They say that life is not about the destination, it's about the journey. So true! The destination is nice (it's always great to have goals), but don't forget to enjoy the journey, because, unlike life, in nursing the journey is never really over. There's always something new around the corner. And that's the beauty of it! No, nursing isn't for everyone, but I believe that nurses are 'called' to the profession, through many different ways. What triggers that 'call' can be as varied as the types of nursing out there. So many opportunities await you and I wish you the absolute best on your journey. It will never be dull, I guarantee you! Oh....and Mom? Well....she's very proud of me. She's my biggest fan and supporter and she loves to tell people (even perfect strangers!) that her daughter is a Registered Nurse. :thankya:

Where do I get this t-shirt?! I WANT one!!!

Many years ago I had been taking care of a gentleman with severe alcohol induced dementia. During the night, the call light went on from another patient's room and their family member told us that "...there is a man in my son's room!" When I went down to see what was going on, I found my confused patient sitting on the floor, naked as the day he was born, holding the other patient's foley in his hands. He looked up at me and asked, "So how do you get a dial tone on this thing?!" :omy:

Burnout? Amen, brothers and sisters!! I've been a Med-Surg nurse for over 17 years and there are days when all I want is one of those old metal bedpans....filled with water and set in the freezer for a week! (I'll leave it to your wonderful imaginations to come up with it's possible uses.) Seriously, I was recently talking with our Nurse Manager (who was never a Med-Surg nurse but specialized in OB) and she looked at me and said, "I don't know how you guys do this....and I sure don't know why!" Wow....that sure made me think. I'm at a point where I'm counting down the years until I can retire (only 12 to go) but with my luck I'll wind up working until I'm 80. Yeesh! I still love what I do and I love the patients...for the most part...but I'm SO sick of the politics of it all that I just want to jump off a bridge!

You aren't going to believe this, but for over a year I kept a log of all of the bizarre and odd spellings and pronounciations I came across...and there were some real pips! I wound up with three pages worth! I finally gave up out of pure frustration! My personal favorites... "Pt is admitted for a perforated bowl." (In my house, I call that a colander!) :rotfl: "I had a high stair atomy" (Hysterectomy) "She fell on the linoniam and broke her plavis" (Linoleum and Pelvis) "He has prostrate trouble" (What? He can't lie down?) "Grandma has Oldshimers" (Alzheimers) ....and my all-time favorite..... Degenerate Artgrutus......Degenerative Arthritis :roll

Let's see...where to start... Dr Smiley (Dentist) Dr Payne and Dr Panik (Dentists in a joint practice) Dr Slaughter (Not sure of his area of practice, but with a name like that, does it matter??) Dr Heine (Surgeon, not a Proctologist) Dr Butts (Also a Surgeon, but he needs to go into Proctology with Dr Heine) Dr Ruth (Internal Medicine, but you should hear the jokes he gets) Nurse Wise As for patient names, there are just too many funny ones to name but a couple of my permanent favorites are Harry Peters and Harley Wrigglesworth. (The second name just cracks me up for some reason!) They've both been dead for years so I feel safe in naming those.

I've worked with a Dr. Heine (he pronounces it 'heiney') and a Dr. Butts. Fortunately, neither of them were Proctologists! I've also known a Dentist named Dr. Slaughter and another one named Dr. Smiley. I'd go to the second one but no chance for the first! It makes one wonder if they chose their professions based on their names?