For the record, I have no rap game. Like none. Nada. Wit, once in a rare while, but if were to even attempt to rap I’d sound worse than Vanilla Ice saying Eminem lyrics. Wrapping however-I got mad skills.

Pills, pills, pills. Medication names and side effects and drug interactions, and patient teaching, and drug class, and…… Deep sigh. So. Many. Medications to learn. This on top of everything else. It’s like an endless stream of receipt paper flowing from my head until it piles up and you have to rip it off. Except that you can’t rip it off. You have to retain it for the next section we learn. It continues to pile up and fold on top of itself. That is nursing school.

Tomorrow we have our first clinical rotation at the hospital. I’m excited but nervous but mostly excited about it. Getting to see the things we’re learning and apply it to real-life situations is a bonus. Patient interaction is something I’ve missed greatly. The reality that people are also sick with Covid looms over us but that is what we’re in this for, right? The good, the bad, and the ugly. Nursing is not pretty. People are sick and sometimes they die. Sometimes they suffer a traumatic experience and their lives are changed forever. The way I see it, we have the privilege of being there for that. The privilege to have their health and safety at heart. The privilege to see them through tragedy to recover or the privilege of helping them transition through death.

What we do is a privilege. I can joke about the gowns leaving your backside flapping in the wind, dry turkey sandwiches, and about in-depth discussions about bodily functions all day long. I’ve been a patient enough times to have earned a solid sense of humor about it. But underneath all of that, the reality of why we are there is always at the forefront. Humor is what makes it both relatable and mentally digestible to come back the next day and do it all over again.

This term one of our classes is Health Promotion. Much of nursing is teaching. It’s a pretty cool aspect of the job and although my brain is like a full, overflowing, useless sponge at this point- it’s been really fun to learn to teach patients. Some of the best nurses I had listened to me, talked TO me and taught me. As a CNA2 the good ones were wonderful teachers who explained the whys and hows. Something to aspire to.