RustyS

Hi everyone. I was wondering if y'all would be willing to give me some advice. I'm looking at a career in nursing; my ideal job would be doing ambulatory surgery. I think I'd be good there because I'm capable of great focus, have a high tolerance for blood, guts, etc., and have good fine-motor skills (if I get to be a First Assist). I've always tried to anticipate what my coworkers might need and be a "team player," and am actually pretty eager-to-please. However, I wonder if I can get to that point. While I'm quite good at school stuff (96 TEAS, 4.0 in all nursing prerequisites), I have Asperger's. For me, it means I have trouble reading and relating to people. I've functioned in customer service jobs in the past, and "faking it" helps maintain what social skills I have, but I was happier when I worked with plants, animals, and water systems. The thing is, I'm nearly 30 and have no savings because those jobs don't pay well enough for me to save a decent amount. Thus turning to nursing, which (a) I'm good at the schooling for, (b) pays sufficient that I can save up to take care of my parents in old age [unlike previous jobs], © cannot be outsourced abroad [unlike engineering, which was something else I considered], and (d) the education for which won't put me into debt. OTOH, I started a job as a CNA on days at in long-term care yesterday, and it's possibly an alternative form of hell for me. People say, "Just treat residents as you'd want to be treated," but I know that's an inaccurate assumption and I try to treat people like my mom would want to be treated. Yet I still can't relate to the residents, I have no idea how to encourage the uncooperative ones to be more cooperative, and I don't know how to pull away without being rude when they want to tell me their life story or rant about other staff, even if I'm behind in my work. I want their lives to be better because everyone deserves that, but TBH, I'm not sure I care about them as individuals the way I should. I think I'd do better in the more task-oriented OR, but don't know if I can get there without other nursing or nursing-adjacent experience, and the program I was accepted to is only an ADN, not a BSN, which would make it that much more difficult. (I was planning on RN to BSN after I began working.) Should I even be considering nursing? If not, do you have alternative ideas?