No More Nursing My Nursing Career

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted-"

It was all I had to read before I relieved myself with a heavy sigh. My mother, standing beside me, read the words aloud to the attentive and half-drunken family members. Together, they yipped and yowled uproariously, eager to show their excitement that I had been accepted into nursing school. I thought it was the best day of my life, to feel, without a shadow of doubt, that my life was going somewhere.

Two years later, almost to the day, the family crowded around me with their daiquiris in hand and prayers on their breath as I anxiously opened another letter. Again, I clutched the letter in my hands so tightly that the delicate paper began to crumple between my fingers. My mother took the sheet of paper from my trembling hands and read aloud as she had done so well two years before:

"We are pleased to inform you that you have passed-"

Everyone cheered before she could finish. The enthusiasm this year was much greater than before. I was graduating from nursing school. Like before, the feeling of accomplishment came over me.

When I passed my nursing boards, I immediately began working at a hospital on the telemetry floor (that's dealing with cardiac patients and, occasionally, we would receive renal patients as well). The job was not what I thought it to be but I kept to it because I had devoted two years of my life to school and nothing was ever as bad as it seemed- or so I thought.

The day I quit my first job was the day I walked onto the telemetry floor, tired and exasperated from two previous 12-hour shifts.