Hello all female and male nurses out there,
Before coming to the conclusion that I wanted to become a Nurse I was working full-time as a firefighter/EMT. I would not say I loved my job but I did love running medical calls. The fire side of calls never really amused or thrilled me like the medical side did. Its pretty twisted of me to say but I used to always love running real emergency calls like Cardiac arrests cause I always learned a lot from the paramedics. Fast forward about a year and a half into the job, I decided I wanted to pursue a nursing degree cause working as an EMT felt like advancing in the field was something I needed to do and belonged.
A little background about me before I became a firefighter and really started working. Back during my middle school and high school years I would have to take an elective called health class which I am pretty sure everyone had to do at some point in there schooling careers. These years for me were the toughest cause of my anxiety. I was never able to explain and I still cannot explain it today but I used to always faint and throw up in my health class. Now it was not on every subject, reproductive system and sometimes talking about certain injections like blood dooping and bodybuilders always for some reason made my body feel really weak, numb and tingly. I would start to feel a hot sweat and my body would really feel like it was shutting down. On top of all that I would get heart palpations and eventually once I stood up to go to the bathroom I would throw up and then faint. Basically my body went into overload and shut itself down to restart. This was terrifying to me cause I never understood why my body did this to me and never happened to anyone else. Till this day I do not understand but anyways I wanted to get to the real issue here.
When I decided to become a nurse I never thought these issues would come back cause working as an EMT and seeing blood non stop never even phased me. I was able to help the paramedics push drugs, see patients get intubated, suctioned and so forth would no issues at all. Hell I was able to deal with cardiac patients who released there bowl movements and had throw up come up. This stuff obviously smelled horrible but I was able to deal with it no problem. During my first semester of pre reqs and taking anatomy and physiology part one I had no issues at all and loved learning about it. Now that I am in AP2 its a whole different story. I am worried that I am making a horrible choice for these reasons. There are some days we talk about certain blood conditions or blood dooping and it makes me feel sick but other days we can talk about disease and all kinds of conditions that do not affect me. Its only certain things. Like for some reason the idea of sticking myself makes me queasy and want to throw up but I have no issues sticking someone else. For some reason I always enjoyed doing it when I was working as an EMT. I think since my uncle recently died at the age of 79 from CHF and my grandpa came down with alzheimer's recently and strokes it has been stressing me out more. Nursing is a great field do not misunderstand me here but I feel like this field is causing me severe health anxiety. Ever since I started learning about all heart conditions, my heart palpations always make me feel like I am going to have a heart attack or die from a serious heart condition. I'm worried that the further I go into the nursing profession the worse it may become but at the same time there is no other fields I can see myself doing.
I wanted to become a PT but did not see myself going to school for a doctorate to just start working as a PT. I also thought about dietitian but they do not make that much money and I do not see it worth. I love fitness and love being around that aspect which is why I wanted to pursue a degree in NP working in sports medicine but if I cannot even making it then whats the point? Like I heard stories about nursing school and we having to stick each other and draw blood and all these stuff. This worries me cause I'm not good with someone new practicing on me.
What I wanted to know was does any other nurses ever struggle with this? Did you ever develop health anxiety from nursing school? For some reason I never had these issues until I started school to become a nurse. Seeing a dialysis patient now makes me feel sick cause I see the machines they are on and how that blood gets circulated which grosses me out but if you put me in a pulmonary unit then I would love it cause I love the lungs and learning about them. Im sorry if this is all a sob story but I am worried that I could be very well making a bad choice. Thank you to anyone who actually read this.
