One Year of Service

A year ago this week was my very first week as an RN. I was no longer a student and the responsibilities of a nurse were all on me! I remember starting out and feeling so lost. I felt like I didn't know anything. I would hear report in the morning and people would say things like left heart cath with hematoma but no signs of a pseudo; or patient is a CABG x4 with right vaso view, POD#2 with two A's and two V's capped and taped; or left VATS with chest tube to -20 of suction, and the terms go on and on and on. These things sounded so foreign, even to me who had been in school so long and learned all about this stuff (I can only imagine what this sounds like to someone with NO medical experience!). All of these phrases now paint a very clear picture to me and I know exactly what is going on and what to expect about a patient's condition. I now speak in these same terms. But my first few days I would look at my preceptor and say "ok so what is all of that and what does that mean?" And the biggest question was what am I supposed to do with this patient? I never imagined that I would learn so much in just one year, but I truly have. There are things that I now just know like the back of my hand. However, I learn something new every single day....well actually more than one thing. But that is the good thing about nursing, there is so much new information to grasp everyday. I still have a lot to learn, and there are still times that I feel like I'm not really sure of what I am doing. That is when you look things up and ask for advice and second opinions from everyone around you.

The really crazy thing is that they just asked me to be a preceptor at work. ME! I am going to be teaching a new graduate nurse about being a cardiac nurse. Really? This should be interesting! Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered that I was even asked, I guess I must be doing something right, right? Although I still have many of moments when I get very frustrated and just cry. Crying is how I deal with my anxiety and frustrations (in all areas of life, not just work), which is good to some extent, but not when you have to do patient care with red puffy eyes (it doesn't look very good to the patients). I just gotta learn to keep myself together a little better when things get crazy, I can't be teaching someone when I'm crying....I must work on that for the next few weeks.

Wish me luck!

Love ya,

Maggie