Ok, ok, people.... I am officially the worst blogger EVER! Life has been so crazy the past month and a half... so much has been happening and weeks have been so packed that I've barely had time to process everything for myself, let alone make sense of it enough to blog about it. But here we go!
WARNING: this is going to be a total brain dump... it's going to be long and it might not all make sense. But we're going to give it a shot. You've been forewarned, lol :)
To start, in case you haven't read previous posts, I am currently in Tampa, FL at MacDill AFB completing what is known as the Nurse Transition Program (NTP). The program is intended to take brand new nurses from novice nurses to advanced beginners (aka feel comfortable with taking on a full patient load, like 4-5 patients, without failing miserably) before we get to our first duty stations (for me: Lackland AFB, San Antonio, TX). We are working at a civilian hospital called Tampa General Hospital (TGH) - a nationally recognized hospital which is also a Level 1 Trauma Center (aka - we get to see a lot of cool stuff!). We are the first group to go through this program, which has had it's ups and downs:
- Ups: people have been super excited for us to be here! I've had phenomenal nursing experiences throughout the hospital, and all of the staff are constantly looking for a way to help us gain more experience. We've also had several newspapers do articles on us --> Tampa Bay Times (http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/at-tampa-general-hospital-air-force-nurses-prepare-for-duty/1184075) and MacDill AFB website (http://www.macdill.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123267905). We had a special "inaugural" Ribbon Cutting Ceremony with the top leaders of TGH and MacDill AFB a couple weeks ago... I didn't realize until I got down here how big a deal us being here is! TGH is only one of two civilian hospitals chosen to partner with the Air Force in training its nurses... in eternity-perspective I know it's not that big of a deal, but still kind of neat!
Our group (L-R: Sarah, Josh, Falisha, Rebecca, me) with our
course supervisors at the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony!
- Downs: we've hit a lot of snags along the way on the Air Force side with our pay and things like that since we are a brand new program and no one knows exactly what to do with us. It's been extremely stressful in trying to figure that all out, but things seem to be resolving (finally!)
As I said earlier, our schedules here have been absolutely ridiculous... try going from the relaxing of summer and post-graduation to 54 hour work weeks! YIKES! We work 3 twelve-hour shifts a week on a normal medical-surgical (med-surg) floor, 1 twelve-hour shift on a specialty unit (ex: Burn ICU, Neuro ICU, Emergency Room, Rapid Response Team, Wound Care Team, Vascular Access Team), and then an 8-hour classroom day every Thursday... to say I've been tired is the least one could say... more on that later, I suppose.
The best way I can think of breaking this up now is by topic... ok, deep breath, annnnnd go:
WORKING IN THE HOSPITAL:
I have had many fantastic nursing experiences here. The floor I'm working on is a complex medicine floor, and the acuity of the patients really varies from shift to shift. My very first day was practically "baptism by fire" onto the unit. Upon receiving our patients, my preceptor and I found one of the patients to be in desperate in need of going to the ICU (he was crashing quickly with an acute GI bleed and severe metabolic acidosis... aka, NOT.GOOD.). The previous shift had tried to get him to the ICU, but were running into some snags along the way. Immediately our attention had to be on him; however, we still had three other patients who needed to be taken care of. So as my preceptor took on our now ICU patient, I threw the notion of an "easy first day" out the window and went head on into patient care. My goal for the day (quite simply put): don't kill anyone. And I was successful! haha... but seriously, I knew that if God could help me handle being thrown that curveball on my first day as a real RN, I'd be ok. I've now been able to work up to taking on 4 patients (a relatively normal # for nurses) with relative comfort and confidence. Some other interesting experiences I've had include dressing amazing wounds in the Burn ICU, doing real CPR during a Code Blue, and learning all the skills and techniques of the art and science of nursing.
In the Simulation Lab with Falisha and Rebecca!
It's been tough though, real tough... there have been many days (ok, most every day) where I have felt so overwhelmed and so critical of myself because I'm not great at nursing yet. Yes, there, I said it. I felt like I learned so much during nursing school, but yet incorporating all of that in every day practice has been a real challenge for me (which is seriously frustrating). My perfectionistic and people-pleasing struggles have resurfaced all over again, at times leaving me to feel like I never learned anything about them in high school or college in the first place. But God has been teaching me and leading me so much through it. It's been a continuous time of leaning on Him for strength (try doing 5 twelve-hour shifts in a row... yeah...) and knowledge (who knows the human creation better than the Creator?) and above all else, GRACE. Grace which I so often for-go, thinking I should be good enough to not need it. But God is always there to lift my chin up after a long day, when all I feel is failure... always there saying, "My darling, you were great today. I know you don't think so, but I am building you, slowly but surely, into what I have specifically created You to be. Trust in Me... give me your failures, your worries, your stresses, your fears. Let me carry them. All I ask is that you love me and you love my people. The rest will fall into place."
MY FUTURE IN NURSING:
Needless to say, I've been a bit frustrated with nursing, which frustrates me even more when I think about the fact that it is what I will be doing with my life for the next four years. Call me over-dramatic, but there have been moments where I've seriously questioned God on whether or not I'm meant to be a nurse. Because this is so hard right now, I feel other desires welling up within me as a "way out" or as something "easier", but I know that those things would come with their own unique set of challenges. Honestly, I really think the majority of my frustrations come from (a) not giving myself grace to be the newbie, and (b) realizing that the population I'm working with (adults) is not the population God has given me such a passion and a fire for! Which leads me to something that is very exciting:
I found out last Thursday that I am going to be working in Pediatrics at Lackland AFB! This still is just crazy to me... I mean, who would think one could be a pediatric nurse in the Air Force?! I mean, come on!!! But God is so faithful! For those who don't know, I have so deeply desired to do pediatrics even before nursing school. God has engraved the desire to secure and protect the welfare of children around the world into the very fibers of my being... and I feel so incredibly blessed that He is providing a direct way for me to live out those passions! When I joined the Air Force, I was concerned that I wasn't going to be able to ever work with kids (mission work with children in third world countries was/is my dream!) and was something I really struggled through in making my decision. But God has literally moved mountains to get me to where I'm going. The pediatric unit I'm working on is LITERALLY the only floor in the entire Air Force that specializes in pediatrics. THE ONLY ONE. Can I get a PRAISE GOD for that one!!!!!!! Just amazing... I'm still giddy over it :) I feel so personally taken care of by God... I know He has picked this job just for me, and it is such an amazingly special gift. I could go into such detail on this one... but all I will say for now is that God knows the hearts of His children... heck, He created them! And I know God hears our prayers and listens when we ask things of Him. Sometimes, He says no. Sometimes He says not yet. But there will be times, my friends, when He will say YES. And boy, are they so sweet to the soul :)
OK... I have more to talk about, but I'm going to stop here for the evening. To be covered on Friday (my next day off!):
LIFE OUTSIDE OF WORK (ha...)
FAMILY & FRIENDS
MY HEART (ummmm, yeah)
In the meantime, please please please leave comments here or on Facebook or e-mail/text. It's been a very lonely and difficult past couple of weeks... I have made great friends here (I'm so thankful for you four!!!), but I miss you all so very much and deeply wish to be with my family and dear friends from home :( If you get a spare minute, I would love some encouragement or even just an update on how you are doing or how things are going. Thank you to those who have been encouraging me along the way! It means so much to me to hear from you :)
Love always,
Kaitlyn
