One week left to go as an RN-in-training before this little bluebird will be pushed from the nest and take flight~ or at least hopefully flutter her little wings hard enough that it will be a pseudo-soft landing at the bottom. This week we had our last day of class. It began with an "RN Transition Panel Discussion" where five women who have been nurses from anywhere between 1-20 years shared their harrowing tales of medication errors, treatments that unintentionally led to patient harm, disgruntled residents screaming on the other end of the phone at 3 am, "tanking" patients, and my favorite~ the consensus that the overwhelming nausea felt on the drive to work every day should subside... in a year. A YEAR! That is how long the average RN says it takes before they stop fearing utter failure at work
(others say it took them 2-3 years).
So now I feel all I can do is anticipate the many bizarre dreams that will come my way. And trust me, they will. Since graduating nursing school I have had three nurse-related dreams. The first dream involved be being at Target where I provided the cashier with an SBARQ [nurses use SBARQs when communicating changes in patient conditions to other health care providers; it stands for
Situation,
Background,
Assessment,
Recommendations,
Questions]. So there I am, with my shopping list, explaining to the cashier (who is now behind a plated glass window... because that's normal) that situation: I don't have these items, background: these are items I typically like to have, assessment: I would like to purchase these items because I think they are good in quality... and so on. When I awoke from this dream, I just chuckled, thinking, "here it begins".
In the beginning of the RN-training program I felt overwhelmed with the class schedule~ not so much the material covered~ but the "where's and when's" which seemed to be all over the place... including other hospital locations. So dream #2's theme was that of desperation. In the dream I am trying to get to work, but can't seem to find anything I need: name badge, stethoscope, keys, pants. I seem to find everything... but the pants. I end up heading off to work, wearing my scrub top, socks, shoes, and... no pants. I should also mention that I am
riding my bike in the dream. So there I am, huffing and puffing up hills and over bridges, trying desperately to get to work. I never actually make it to work (nor do I ever
find pants). I wake up to my alarm and frantically check the schedule to see where I should be that morning... and then I
drive to work.
Dream #3 didn't involve nudity, but had the same "no time left, what the hell have I been doing" feeling. I arrive to work and am told I will be floating to another pediatric unit. Time seems to be quickly ticking by. It is suddenly 1:30pm and I have not assessed a single patient, given a single medication and have somehow forgotten to even add my fourth patient (and all of their relevant information) to my list. As I'm roaming the halls, another RN who appears very frustrated with me, asks where I have been and what I've possibly been doing this whole time, to which I meekly reply, "I have no idea.". I am just as flabbergasted by my total disregard and ineptness as she is... because between the two of us, we can not find a logical reason as to why this is happening and where I have been.
I know these dreams have been very mild in intensity, but I also fear this is just the beginning. Throughout college I had dreams that my father had died. The dreams seemed so real and disheartening, that I could hardly shake them when I woke. They also came with such frequency that I ended up calling my parents house at 6am one morning just to make sure my father was okay. My dreams had become so vivid, that during my sophomore year of college I decided to see a college counselor that claimed to specialize in dream analysis. She was a quiet, yet eccentric woman. Her hair was trimmed like that of a man and had salt-and-pepper flecks throughout. She wore a silver feather "dangly" earring in one ear and a red ball stud in the other. Yes, she was a lesbian. At first, I really liked her. I appreciated the calm of the room, the lit candles, and enjoyed the trite African and Asian art on the walls. During our first session, she seemed dead on in her analysis of my dreams and their hidden messages and meanings. And then, after a few sessions, she started falling asleep. Yes, my hippie-dippy dream analysis counselor would
fall asleep during our sessions. The first time it happened I politely cleared my throat to wake her and then awkwardly finished my story, pretending it never happened. Other times I would just sit and observe her blatant disregard for why my first grade teacher was rollerskating with my dog outside of my college dorm. Were my dreams boring her? Was this part of her practice? Does dream analysis mean something different than I had interpreted? Needless to say, I stopped seeing her. [During my senior year of college, I shared this story with my roommate Tori, who expressed -over wine and much needed laughter- that this exact situation happened to her as well!]
On a positive spin, my neuroses force me to be proactive. I check my schedule before bed every evening, I lay out my outfit for the next day (or at least the pants), and I have a special drawer where I keep all of my work items. But I still manage to fret on my way to work... going over what assessments I will make and how I will be an advocate for my patients (this is hard to do... as I have no idea who I will even be assigned to that night and what their diagnosis will even be). I have no doubt that the bizarre dreams will keep coming and that I too will have fears about being an inadequate nurse, but I also believe that if I keep on top of my schedule, know where my stethoscope is, and if nothing else, put pants on before I leave for work I will have a fighting chance.
~30's the new 20!
