monkeymind

jerseyRN, Exactly, I was stunned into silence. Your response would have been much better:bow: Hopefully I can be as eloquent as you the next time the topic comes up.

I'm brand new to hospice, been in orientation for 6 weeks with a stellar organization. I love my job!!! Everyone I work with is the epitome of compassion and caring. I went on an admission visit with another nurse and the patient's adult granddaughter commented "Not many people could do your job.... most people don't have a heart of stone to deal with death like you do." We were both left speechless!!!

Hi Bosongirl, I also have suffered from migraines for 10+ years (probably closer to 15 by now). Just to give you a little background, I generally have headaches from 1-4 times per week with sometimes stretches of weeks of headaches. I graduated from an accelerated nursing program in Aug '05 and have been an MICU nurse for 2 1/2 years. I won't say that nursing school and working are not a challenge when you suffer from migraines, but I can say without reservation that it is doable and worth it to me. I think that you have to be strong willed and have some ability to suffer. During school, there were papers to write and projects to complete whether I had a headache or not. Now that I work, there are days that I think my head might explode during a shift and I simply can not stop working. There are days when I wake up at 3am with a headache knowing that I can't call off from work in the morning. There really are times when I must work when I truly don't think that I can. Do you think you can do that? I love my job. I work the MICU in the major teaching hospital in my city. We take the sickest of the sick that other hospitals can't take care of. We deal with matters of life and death ALOT. Our staffing is tight (as it is everywhere I suppose) I think my job is probably high on the list of stressful nursing jobs and I can do it and I love it. There is such a wide range of nursing jobs available in this country too. While mine is currently at the hard end of the scale, there are also plenty of less demanding possibilities out there. Truth be told, I am beginning to look at other job options, but this is because I am moving quite a distance from my current location and a new job gives me the opportunity to try something new and different. I also plan to go to grad school (probably for ANP) starting either this September or next (life circumstance permitting). Only you can know if you can do this. But I am here to tell you that it can be done. If you need a cheerleader, I'll root for you. If you have questions about school/nursing with migraines, I might be able to help you answer them. Whatever you decide, best wishes to you in your endeavors. Monkeymind

University Hospital starts at $20.55 for new nurses. Hope this helps. Good luck with your search.