It's only life

Warning: the following post is a ramble of thoughts for yours truly, feel free to ignore the mushiness and move on the next post : )

Motivational speakers? whoever thought of the idea anyways. let's just call in someone to attempt to come into a room and talk to people who probably couldn't care less about what they have to say and attempt to get them pumped up. I usually roll my eyes at this attempt, and almost always day dream during these "motivational" talks, with the exception of the motivational speech I got yesterday that I really needed to hear.


It was a mandatory luncheon for all the nursing students (levels 1-4) so we weren't to excited of giving up our only 1 hour break on Thursday to nursing but the food was actually really good and the speaker was a nurse from DRMC cath lab, and he was amazing! not only was he hilarious but he had a really good point. He talked about Florence Nightingale and how she was remarkable for realizing humans needs outside the medical side of nursing, then he went on to talk about all his personal experiences in the hospital with different problems including transplants and such. I won't list the details of his experiences but I really teared up listening to him talk about how scary it was to be such a young age, and to have so many things going wrong and not understanding it all, etc... He told of nurses that had a huge impact on his life for paying attention to him outside of giving him his medicine but for being the one to look to and confide in for example: one day he was feeling as if he had forgotten what he was fighting so hard to live for until the nurse unhooked all the tubes and had his dad take him outside for an hour to feel again.

Needless to say, after all these experiences he ended up getting better and getting a job at the hospital as a tech where others influenced him and talked him into going to nursing school. As he was sharing his experiences of nursing school with us as well as the past couple years as a nurse in the cath lab he started talking about defining moments of nursing and as to why he chose nursing.

As he talked about his experiences and I got near tears as he re-lived them for us as well as I began to think about my own past experiences as a patient, I began to think about my defining moments and why I went in to nursing.

I have never wanted to be, or ever imagined being anything else besides a nurse. However, for me it wasn't because all the women are nurses in my family and that's just what we do, but it was because I like helping people, I like making a difference and a change for the better with people and that seemed to be the best profession to do so, but I never thought I could do it due to my weird and insanely embarrassing fear/hatred of throw-up. I wanted to be a nurse for many personal reasons I experienced as a little girl but a big influence came from when I got my CNA in high school, where I almost quit after the very first day of class (thank goodness I have an amazing mom who taught and told me otherwise), all the while thinking it would be a great thing to put on my resume and not really continue on or do anything with it afterwards. BUT on my first 3 hr clinical at one of the many nursing homes in utah county I was assigned to help feed 5 residents before we left for the day. I did that and as I was saying goodbye to those I had helped one sweet lady whose face I'll never forget reached up and grabbed my hand saying to me " Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you for spending time and for helping me. I appreciate it so much, thank you for making a difference today." I almost cried on the spot,I had made a total strangers day, I had helped someone! also because I knew right then that I wasn't just supposed to cruise through the CNA class and move on and find something else to do in life but I was supposed to pursue nursing like I thought I would all along.

I finished the class passed both tests and began working at a nursing home and now 4 years later I've worked as a CNA in 3 different nursing homes as well as 2 assisted living facilities. Hard job doing all the grunt work but I wouldn't take any of it back because as I listened to my motivational speaker talk about defining moments, all of mine have been during the past 4 years. I have met so many amazing people in this job/profession from my patients and residents to family and co-workers who have influenced me in so many ways and I am so grateful for those experiences. One experience is life, I've only had the opportunity to witness life enter the world twice, but I've had countless experiences of being there when life is lost, when family lose their loved ones and I lost someone I'd come to love and adopted as my own family. Crazy experiences that make you think about what really matters in life as well as makes me love my job.

All of this ramble and bamble is why I needed to hear this motivational speaker, I have been and continue to get caught up in nursing school and the stress of it with papers, tests, projects, presentations, and clinicals coming out of my ears I have gotten to where it's not fun anymore and I'm exhausted all the time. Instead of focusing on the long run and looking for the light at the end of the tunnel by thinking and reminding myself why I am putting myself through this torture I dread it, hate it, and wish it away dwelling on the miserable things that come out of it like stress, illness(shingles, sinus infections), and severe sleep deprivation. I've been so grumpy and this attitude has also made me so down on myself so I really needed this motivational speaker to put everything back into perspective for me, even though I'm sure I'm going to complain for the last 3 weeks of the second semester I have left, I'm remembering the reason why I chose this, and why I continue to do this. so today instead of snoozing, I say god bless you motivational speaker, thank you for coming and for saying what to did to make my insane day and week better.