Things I am currently thankful for:

• fantastic friends
• an absolutely epic birthday weekend
• my birthday crown
  
• my camera for capturing the last 2 nights and allowing me to piece together my weekend
• Matt's photography skills
  
• ADVIL/gatorade/water/any other hangover cure
• dance party
• naps
  
• having today off

Reasons today rocked

• Bacon egg and cheese on a croissant + coffee
  
• I precepted today so basically I made H. do all the work :)
  
• Quality time with K.
• Teamwork --> prepped a patient for the OR in about 15 minutes
• We got our resident to take vital signs for our patients

That last one is pretty bombass. :)

insomnia

I am awake at 12:45am and I have to be at work in 6 hours. Lately I either barely get any sleep (usually nights/days immediately before a shift) or I sleep 13 hours. I'm not really sure what my deal is, but I guess I'm just kinda stressed about what I want to do with my life. I know, I know. I'm a nurse and I love it and that is absolutely what I want to do in life. Even after some of the shittiest days, when it comes down to it, there really isnt anything else I could picture myself doing. BUT, I do know that I want to go back to school eventually. I dont think I want to be a floor nurse for the rest of my life. I just dont know which direction I want to take my nursing career. As much as I love teaching I dont want to be a nurse educator or a professor; I'd rather be a clinical instructor or something more hands-on, but you cant really make a career out of being an instructor. And I'm not sure I really see myself as a nurse practitioner... maybe... I just don't know. I think the issue is that I still really enjoy floor nursing. I'm not jaded and over-worked yet, so I dont feel the need to find something new. And even if I do reach that point, there's always the option to go to a different unit - another med-surg unit, the PACU, ICU, anything. (Although I dont think I want to be an ICU nurse. I want the knowledge but not the job.) There's so much you can do as an RN. The problem is most Masters programs are being phased out and becoming a Doctorate program. So for example, if I wanted to be come a nurse practitioner (NP) I would be required to have a PhD, not just a Masters. Now, if I graduate with my Masters and become an NP before 2015, I can just be grandfathered in and not have to do the DNP program. Yes, 2015 is still a ways away, but in order to get the hospital to pay for my graduate education, I would have to go to school part-time and work full-time. The NP program is 3 years if its done part-time. So, that significantly decreases the time I have to figure life out. That also would mean I would have to stay at Georgetown for another 3 years, which I'm not opposed to, I just dont know if I want to try someplace else- a different hospital? a different city perhaps?

Anyway, it's now 1am and my alarm will go off in less than 5 hours, so I should stop rambling on and try to get some sleep...

Life Update

It's been awhile since I last wrote so I suppose it's about time to post an update... Lets see, August was filled with birthdays (my roommate's and DJ's) and weekend trips. Of course, it started out with my road trip to SC, which apparently I'm going to have to do again soon seeing as 2 of the Ocho now live there!! Woot! The weekend after was my roommate's bday, which was properly celebrated in a drunken state down in Adam's Morgan. The following weekend, C., L., and I flew up to Boston for the weekend. I went to Fenway for the first time (YAY!) which was everything I imagined it would be. Greatest place on earth. :) We went shopping downtown and saw a man shooting up in the street (literally - needle in his arm.) Went to the Harpoon brewery, an improv show down at the north end, Faniuel Hall and Quincy Market. It was fantastic. But I think I'm over the whole 'I totally want to live in Boston for a few years' phase. Dont get me wrong, I loved it and its a great city -- to visit. Being there just made me realize that if I'm going to live in a major city I think it's gonna have to be DC.

Work is going really well. There are definitely still days when all I want to do is cry and/or punch my patients in the face, but I guess that's all part of the job. :-P I had my annual evaluation (my first as a nurse) and everything was really really good. My manager said I'm doing a great job and that I had a really good first year! So yay! :) I am charge nurse capable now, which is pretty exciting. It's kind of nerve-wracking to think that during those shifts I'm suppose to know what to do; I'm the one people will turn to for help/advice. As scary as that may be, I think the hardest part about being Charge is having to diffuse situations and deal with angry, irrational patients/family members. Its so hard to advocate for a patient when they're screaming at you because of a situation you had no control over. Oh well. I am also precepting a new staff nurse, which is also kind of scary to know that I am responsible for teaching this person how to be a good transplant nurse. It's my job to make sure she can realize what's important, knows how to respond to certain situations, anticipate what to do next, and of course make sure the doctors are ordering the appropriate things. But its been a really good experience. You never know how much you know until you have to teach it. Plus I've realized that I LOVE teaching. So we'll see if maybe teaching will have a role later on in my career.