work, school, and chickens.

I really shouldn’t be blogging right now. But so much has been happening over the past few weeks, and I’m pretty sure if I wait for a day where I can “find time” to blog, it may be June before I return here. So. I am going to give you a real quick rundown of what’s been happening around these parts lately.

First big piece of news: I quit my job at Northwestern. And let me tell you. IT FEELS GOOD. Leaving was a little bittersweet, because I really worked with some great people there, enjoyed my patients, and had a lot of autonomy in a setting I knew very well. Instead, I am now working at an agency, which means I spend my shifts working in different ICUs across Chicago. Why the switch? Many reasons, including increased flexibility and a 90% pay increase (maximizing my limited hours working). I think the best part of quitting my job at Northwestern was just taking something off my plate. My working hours haven’t decreased (in fact, they’ve increased), but for at least a few days, I was able to tell myself, “BREATHE. ONE LESS THING TAKING UP PRECIOUS MENTAL SPACE.”

School is TRYING TO CONSUME MY LIFE. I suppose that’s appropriate, considering I plan to graduate with a masters next summer. A few weeks ago, I pulled my first grad school all nighter (impressive, actually, considering it’s my third quarter) and spent every other day of that week sleeping an average of five to six hours. I remember telling myself, “I just have to get through these three exams, this research paper, and these two projects, and I’ll be able to breathe again.” When the madness of that week was finally over, I realized I had another two weeks of exams, projects, and NOT A LOT OF SLEEP ahead. Shoot. So it began to look like there was going to be no break before the end of the quarter in five weeks. And since that realization I’ve come to discover three things:

1. I DESPERATELY WANT A TROPICAL VACATION.

2. EVERY WEEK IS FINALS WEEK.

3. SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO JUST ACT LIKE YOU’RE ON VACATION WHEN YOU ARE SO NOT ON VACATION.

And so. This weekend, before my week of two more major exams and project deadlines looming closely, I acted like I was on vacation. Because WEDNESDAY I WORKED 14 HOURS, THURSDAY was HAVE-YOUR-NEAR-PANIC-ATTACK-DAY, as always, and FRIDAY I had to go to the doctor to get a CAMERA STUCK UP MY NOSE. So yeah, I thought this seemed like a good weekend for a vacation.

It was lovely. Friday evening I actually SAW my husband. Woot! Saturday a bunch of KICK A. women from my church came to my house to eat quiche and drink mimosas and RELAX together. It was the best. Then I hung out with my husband AGAIN (what!). We made dinner and watched A WEBISODE that night. YES! Sunday, after all the regular lovely things we get to do from 8am to 2pm, WE GOT CHICKENS. REAL. LIVE. FLUFFY. EGG-LAYING CHICKENS. Here’s one:

They’re silkies (you can read about them on wikipedia), a little over one year old. And let me tell you. They are a HOOT. I feel like such a farm person. Trudging through the mud in our backyard making it chicken-ready was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Ok. Well I should really get off to studying for these exams. UNTIL NEXT TIME.

the week in review

It’s amazing how exhausting a day full of checking off peripheral to-do’s can be. It’s my first week of school and I’ve been itching to get to work on all my coursework, but after a morning and afternoon of working hard on other things, I can’t quite bring myself to jump into my work. I’ve already perused my regularly-visited blogs, caught up on emails, and I’m not supposed to watch TV in the middle of the day (self-imposed rule), so here I am. Back at my wordpress with a cup of afternoon joe and my laptop, wearing my favorite boots.

As I mentioned, this week has been back-to-school week, and I am still in a bit of shock over the classes they’re letting me take this quarter: Physical Diagnosis through Examination and Assessment (did you catch that? This means SEEING PATIENTS AND KNOWING WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM), Diagnostics for the Advanced Practice Nurse (aka MAKING DIAGNOSES AND KNOWING WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM), Pharmacotherapeutics in Primary Care (which translates into KNOWING ALL THE MEDICATIONS THAT CAN HELP YOUR PATIENTS AND WHEN/HOW TO USE THEM), and Major Psychological Disorders (ok, no surprises here. This is really just your basic psych course for APNs).

It’s insane. I don’t know why I keep thinking NP school is going to just be RN school on steroids. It’s not. IT’S JUST LIKE DOCTOR SCHOOL (maybe toned down a little?). The thing is I LOVE IT. I am SO pumped about my classes this quarter. I actually can’t believe I didn’t know I wanted to be a Nurse Practitioner all along. Because let me tell you working through a case study, figuring out what could be wrong with the (fake) patient, and making real(ish, considering the patient is fake) decisions is FUN. I am being serious when I say I’ve spent the entire week itching to do school work. Instead, I have mostly not done any real schoolwork.

Since I’ve been MIA for so long, I’m giving you a detailed week in review. Boom:

Monday we drive home from (a glorious weekend in) Minneapolis. I spend the evening trying to get semi-organized for my first class on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday quickly becomes the worst day of the week (and the worst day in a while too, I think). Class is from 8am-noon, which goes well enough, except that I find out the incredible woman giving our lecture has Lou Gehrig’s disease and is now losing her voice as a result. She is unable to finish the lecture, and I nearly start crying right there in class. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to divulge this, but I was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease 6 months ago. I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to do this today.” She is retired and has spent her entire career helping women (and men) fight breast cancer. She apologizes profusely and leaves. On my way home I am bothered by two old (maybe not of sound mind) men at the L stop, who feel the need to tell me all about how “hot” my “shape” is. I tell them not to be disrespectful. The train finally comes, and just before getting on, one of them says “If I was yo age, I’d knock you. And that’s not bein’ disrespectful.” I get on the train, sit down, and spend half the train ride home crying and staring at my phone. My afternoon is equally discouraging and not very productive, but evening eventually arrives, and the glorious bi-weekly tradition of House Dinner is upon us. I eat Mexicanish food and drink boxed wine with my friends and we talk about politics, NPR, The Hunger Games, and things that make everyone laugh. I am reminded that my life is really wonderful, everything is going to be ok, and I am living with some of the best people on Earth.

Wednesday is such a wonderful and satisfying day, it makes Tuesday seem like it never happened. I spend the morning eating blueberry pancakes and drinking tea with my dear friend Elsbeth, who has brought her award-winningly adorable daughter Madeline. We talk and listen and take turns holding the babe and by the time she leaves my soul is full and I am ready to tackle the day. I spend the day making phonecalls, running errands, and going over the responsibilities for my classes. I buy a 3-hole-punch, make folders, and fill my calendar with due dates and exams and academic commitments. I “attend” an online webinar by the National Health Service Corps that goes over most of what I need to know about where I’ll work when I graduate.

Thursday I have my physical assessment class from 8am-noon. I think it is awesome and can’t believe how much I am going to learn through it. At noon I attend a 45-minute mandatory meeting that outlines what my clinical experience will be like throughout the rest of my program. Expectations, requirements, information, dates, meetings. I find out I walk at graduation the first weekend of June 2013. Ah! This feels crazy soon and comes as a surprise, because my clinical residency runs through the end of August and I figured graduation would be at the end of summer. After a 4-hour lab I hurry home and force myself to squeeze in some piano practice before my husband gets home. We make and scarf some super-fast dinner and go on a date see The Hunger Games. It is (for the most part), worth all the hype.

Friday (today) Jeremy drives me downtown early so that I can square away some documentation at Northwestern. I take the blue line out to the far west loop for an interview at a nursing agency. I get there early so I spend a little time drinking coffee and catching up on my Bible reading in a cafe. I practice piano when I get home and then have yet another lesson that exceeds my expectations. My teacher helps me work through a section of Fur Elise that I am just NOT getting, and she’s very encouraging.

It was so lovely to be on Spring Break, but it is also so nice to be back in school again. This quarter is going to be far busier and far more stressful than last, but I feel more invested. It’s a unique season of life, and I want to make the most of it.

[My apologies for being away so long. If you're thinking back to my New Years Resolutions, wondering if I fell off the wagon on any others, I am proud to say I was mighty behind on the Bible-in-a-year plan but am back on track as of this morning. (I'm afraid the running has been a bit more spotty.)]

Piano Power

Officially, I am for reals no joke actually starting piano lessons. This is how I feel:

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEsssshhhhhhhooooooooot I need to PRACTICE!!!

I thrive with a busy schedule and lots of things to do. Or, that’s what I tell myself. It seems true, most of the time (it seems the most true when I am not busy). I suffer from MAJOR-TIME-WASTER Syndrome and staying busy has proved to be my most effective form of therapy. The thing is, I also have a policy against STRESS. And having a policy against stress can be very difficult when you have a syndrome that requires you to take on things upon things to keep you on track.

This quarter has not been so busy, which is a major change from the INSANITY of starting grad school with 13 credits, a full-time job, and NO RECOLLECTION of how to be a student. I guess this quarter has finally picked up its pace, because (with all the extra extracurriculars of 2012) I’m finally starting to feel a bit squished.

It’s a good feeling, I suppose. But the more squished you get, the more STRESS feels fine and comfy pulling up a chair and settling into your personal space on a regular basis. I don’t want to let this happen.

Everything seems like such a big deal when you’re in it. And then when you’re out of it, it seems like the weirdest thing in the world what a big deal you thought it was. I guess that’s one reason I think it’s so important to maintain a balanced life. I’m in NP school (and I love it, mind you), but I don’t want it to consume my life. I want to make time for reading and serving and spending time with friends and playing the piano.

So I signed up for piano lessons. Actually my husband signed me up for piano lessons. My teacher’s name is Lauren and she is awesome (just what I need, I think). I’m practicing scales, which I get an insane amount of enjoyment from. Lauren is an instructor at Piano Power, which is really official and organized; the kind of place you pay for multiple lessons at once. I couldn’t be more excited about it. I think it will be a wonderful discipline, a good break from sorting through complex science and multiple-choice exam prep. I’ll let you know how it goes.

someday I WILL be an NP

Whoever said grad school was easier than undergrad was not in NP school. My program is seriously kicking me in the pants.

I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting. Of course becoming a nurse practitioner would be difficult. It makes perfect sense. I suppose it’s mostly that I wasn’t expecting at all. I worked hard to apply to grad school and really hard to earn a hefty scholarship as well, but my actual coursework was apparently far from the front of my mind.

Now I’m up to my eyes in the most difficult exams of my life with far less time for school than I ever had as an undergrad. My professors give out A’s, B’s, and F’s, which means I’m doing all I can to keep my head above water, praying that somehow I will make passing grades in all my classes.

Although it’s difficult to shake the nagging feeling that failure is within the realm of real possibility, this weekend has been a bit of a breath of fresh air for me. I’m in New Orleans at a conference put on by the National Health Service Corps (those folks who gave me the hefty scholarship), an organization committed to bringing Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, and other clinicians to areas where access to healthcare is extremely limited. The corps is made up of recent graduates of medical, dental, PA and NP schools who have committed to spending a minimum of two years serving in low-income, underserved communities in the US. Over the past forty years over 41,000 clinicians have served in the corps. Currently over 10,000 current NHSC members are providing healthcare to more than 10.5 million people in Health Professional Shortage Areas across the nation.

The weekend has been filled with stories of communities being transformed by committed, dynamic primary care practitioners who are passionate about the underserved. They serve as a powerful reminder that the work I do even now is not about me.

School is still hard and still will be hard for the next couple years. But for now I’m reminded why it’s so important to faithfully persevere. I only pray I can do as much.

Study Time

It’s risky business blogging without a plan, but here I am. And here you are.

I’m sitting inside Letizia’s Bakery on Division PREPPING FOR THE GRE, of all things (!).

When I tell people I’m thinking about going back to school, I get this a lot: “You’re changing careers already? I thought you liked nursing.” Some of you may be thinking this very thing at this very moment. I’m not offended, but you should know there are many many post-baccalaureate Masters and even PhD programs for nurses.

I myself am looking into NP (Nurse Practitioner) programs. This means roughly three or four years getting a Masters or DNP (Doctorate of Nursing Practice). Programs start next fall, which means applications are due early next year. So here I am, studying for the GRE which I’ll take mid December.

I have to say, while taking the GRE seems a bit daunting, I found myself getting pretty excited about making color-coordinated flashcards for prefixes and suffixes. I guess that’s a good sign I really am getting ready to go back to school. Sure, I only have about a year of experience under my belt, but in the nursing world, one year can make a huge difference. And since being at Northwestern, I feel like I’m getting experience at turbo-speed.

Today I can honestly say I enjoy my job. I think I can even say I love it. I could not have said those things two and a half months ago. What an adjustment it’s been to move from UCLA to NMH. Who would have thought moving from one CTICU to another would bring so many new challenges and difficulties? It’s great to finally feel like I’m on the other side, once again enjoying being a nurse. I like my co-workers and really respect them. I’m being challenged and stretched as a nurse, and am beginning to have a confidence that I have learned some things and my experience is significant. I’m really thankful for this, and encouraged to feel like approaching grad school is actually a pretty good option for the next few years.

I’m still not sure which program or specialty is going to be best suited for my interests and goals, but I’m excited about moving ahead. I’ll keep you posted.