It's like the first day of kindergarden!

Today was the first day of my new job, and it was just like kindergarten! No, really, it was. We sat in groups around circular tables, wrote our names in giant letters for other people to see, played bingo, and were given cookies for a mid-morning snack. I'm telling you, despite our age, post-secondary education, and role as health care professionals, we are all just really big children. It was exactly like kindergarten.

I'll let you in on a secret: when I was little I thought kindergarten was actually a garden where children were grown, kind of like cabbages or brussel sprouts. I was an odd child...

Okay, being serious for a second now - it wasn't really like kindergarten; some aspects just reminded me of it  and I really liked the comparison. We talked about a lot of serious, albeit boring to the point of yawn-inducing things, like work place safety and issues of privacy and confidentiality. Today went really well. I am exhausted and my leg hurts so much (I'm starting to run out of descriptors to attach to the pain. I can't keep living like this), but it went well. I thought I would feel as insecure and self-conscious as I normally do, but today I felt like a professional. I feel like I am ready for this job and to take on all the responsibilities it requires and the challenges it throws my way. Maybe feeling this way is how I know I have become an adult. I'm excited to go back for more tomorrow (knowing that I'm earning good money doesn't hurt either!) and even more excited for the medical/surgical/critical care training to be done and my actual on unit orientation to begin on the fifth of September.

One thing that I found really interesting was that I was the only registered practical nurse there. All the other new nurses are registered nurses. There must have been around fifteen-twenty of them there. And I was the only RPN. Not once did I feel inferior or that I didn't belong there. I know that there is sometimes a lot of animosity between RNs and RPNs, and even feelings of superiority/inferiority, but I felt none of that today. I feel like I have earned my position as a nurse at the hospital just as much as all the RNs that were in that room today. We all go through different things in life and come out the other end of all the messy things life throws at us in different ways and at different times. I have lived with a chronic bone infection for almost ten years, been pumped full of more potent antibiotics (both oral and IV) than all the RNs present in that room today probably have been combined, been to the operating room nine times to try to sort my leg out, lost and re-grown almost seven centimeters of my tibia, and had to learn how to walk again. Despite all of that, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History, completed the two year RPN program, and got an offer for a nursing job in a hospital without handing out a single resume. And on top of that, I'm still smiling. I deserve this really good, wonderful thing in my life and I feel like I am ready and capable for it. =)

Here I am at home, trying on my uniform and wearing my I.D. badge. It's been a good day.

The pant are so comfortable, but they aren't very flattering. Thinking about getting different ones. Or keeping them because omg, so comfy! I definitely need to hem them.

Oh, and the kindergartner within me is proud that I won the bingo game (based on different facts and statistics about the hospital) during today's orientation session! XD

P.S. I know I'll never be considered the hot, sexy nurse, or the drop dead gorgeous one (which you can actually do in the hospital because we all know CPR and the more experienced nurses already know what to do in the event of a code blue), but I'm down with being the cute as a button, biggest sweat heart of all nurse! =)