I... I will survive. Maybe.

Hello. My name is Amy. I am a student.

I have always heard that the first step towards recovery is to admit to having a problem.

And Boy Howdy... do I~

School is hard. But really its NOT school (so we have been told) its a "Professional Program. " Which I have come to realize means, more work, more expected... like giving up your life, not remembering to eat... forgetting what your kids look like. Running out of gas because you are too busy to remember to fill up the tank, not to mention having tuition costs (as well as NON tuition but still education related expenses) that keep you from ever wanting to look at your bank account - ever again. No sleep, full on stress about whats going on tomorrow (you can't begin to wrap your over worked mind about anything past tomorrow!) Never being able to "turn your brain off" and second guessing EVERY little tiny thing you do. Is this thinking critically? Did I remember all the steps? Remembering that taking someones vitals DOES NOT counting YOUR pulse rate when you are trying to check someone elses.

I tend to multi task and have the distant pleasure of typically counting BOTH the victim (I meant patient!!! PATIENT!) and my own. Mine is fine in practice, but get an instructor there to check me off- MY half of my the double pulse is usually higher :)

Honestly, I am not a completely inept air head, I just have senior moments "RELATED TO" increased stress, and lack of sleep. Food. sanity.

Exhausted, doesn't begin to cover it. The stress of the "unknown" isn't helping. Doing this mom thing on my own while Daddy-o is off workin' is definitely taking its toll on me. I am here physically, with them... but that is usually the time they are supposed to be sleeping. Heck, they don't even remember what dinner is SUPPOSED to be like, and have starting asking "which box is for dinner" rather than an actual food. And Pizza Hut and I are starting an affair- They deliver. Not that I have "forgotten" that the fridge is empty, or that I ate the last frozen chunk of Totinos in a middle of the night study/ scarf fest....

Is it NORMAL (YES, I know that normal is relative to the baseline...) to forget to eat? Not sleep because you have WAC and RCW statues running through your mind? Or waking up, after drooling all over your lap top... to realize that you have been trying to figure out a nursing diagnosis for Sponge Bobs case if The Suds?!

I tell ya, if they still had a bar across the campus, it would have nursing students living there.

But, scary as it seems, there are moments where I feel like I can actually pull this off. Maybe. There are seconds where this feels like I have been waiting my whole life to feel like I was actually going to be doing something that other people valued, and respected. That when I get old and have to fill out admit paperwork...I will have something to write into the box of "what was your greatest accomplishment." I just want to matter, make a difference... and this feels like the right path. Like this is what I have been supposed to do, and I just figured that out.

I get the bad, the hard, the mind numbing-ness of this program, and as hard as it is (and damn skippy I will be complaining) but the brief flashes of AHHhhh YEA! are amazing. Not quite as invigorating, energizing, or often as I would like...yet... they still show enough glimmer, to tease me just enough, to keep it up.

As long as I can keep my eyes open anyway!