ADVENTURES IN NURSING

DAY FIVE OF NURSING SCHOOL

Look at us!  We made it to day five.  Now, let’s just see if we can make it THROUGH day five.  Oh, my – it looks like a few more folks have fallen by the wayside.  Ms. Hiccup is still here, as are most of the other high-schoolers.  They’re a hardy lot!

Per usual, we get yesterday’s quizzes back from both Mrs. B’s.  I haven’t failed one since that second day, and no matter how hard I study, B always gets a higher score than I do.  What’s her secret?  Being 12 years younger than me?  Being smarter than me?  Having a better memory?  She and I will have to talk.

Today’s lectures are finishing up with chapter one of A & P from B-1, and more fascinating stories from B-2, with a few nuggets of actual nursing information thrown in.  Keep those prefixes and suffixes coming.  I just can’t get enough of ‘em!

More good news!  We’ll have our first actual TEST on Monday from B-1 AND B-2.  Well, so much for enjoying our weekend, right?  Do these ladies even have hearts?  Probably.  Do they have lives?  Most definitely, ‘cause they’re not learning all this crap anew.  They’ve already been through that and obviously, we are to suffer as they did. 

They’re not much interested in any plans we may have had for the weekend, or the fact that some of us have kids, and responsibilities, and chores, and OTHER homework, in the case of the high-schoolers.  This is NURSING SCHOOL and we’d better just get used to it.  What’s that sound?  Thirty-plus nursing students groaning!  B-1 fakes a yawn.  B-2 just grins.  Hey, wait a minute.  Are they ENJOYING this?

B and I ride home in the near silence of exhaustion.  Later, she gathers up her children and is off to her sister’s house for the weekend.  She can’t get out of the house fast enough, as if that’s where all the evil lives.  Ha!  She can’t escape it.  It travels with her in the form of the five-pound A & P book, and all the notes from B-2.  Life is changing.

And that’s just week one of nursing school.  Even though it happened so many years ago, the memories are burned into my brain.  In retrospect, I suppose I could say it was the wake-up call I needed.  I tried to deny it but alas, there’s no room or time for denial when you’re a nursing student.  You either keep your feet in the stirrups, or you get thrown off the horse.  That’s the reality, and it was time to face it.  There really were no other options.  You just can’t fake your way through.

That night, after the kids were in bed, and I nodded off wearily over A & P, I kept reminding myself that “I can do this,” and “This is good for me,” I thought of all the nurses out there on the planet, and wondered HOW they did it, and was it REALLY good for me.  Hopefully, the answer to those questions, and more, would eventually be revealed.

Please be assured that I’m not gonna take you through each and every painful day one by one.  Future blogs will just hit the highlights and the memories that still stand out to this day.  There were good times and bad.  There were even a few times when we actually had fun, but the Mrs. B’s did try to limit that, lest we get spoiled by all the frivolity.  Nobody said nursing was fun.