It is official. I am a licensed Registered Nurse. It feels so incredible to say that I am done with school ( for the time being), and I am official. I am legally ready to take care of others and provide them with the service they need to make their life a little bit better.
Last Thursday, on June 24, I went to take my NCLEX, my state boards. I have been studying like crazy for the past 3 weeks prior to the test. I would meet with friends almost every day in the morning and go at it. We would mostly go over questions and learn how to answer them, look at different techniques. This was especially helpful for the topics or medications that I had no idea what they were. There is no way to study for this test. There is so much information. My school had a NCLEX review course that was available for 3 days right after graduation. I found that class to be helpful because the instructor had a great workbook/studybook given to us to take notes on, and this book had all the key points to each topic. I mostly studied that, and did questions from one of my NCLEX book CD's.
The night before the test I had my dad give me a blessing since my husband was out of town on work. I felt at peace after my dad gave me that blessing. I did not fret ( not that I was freaking out much before) but I just felt calm. My sister spent the night that night, so I would be able to make it to the testing center on time without any worries. My test was at 8 AM. This place asks for you ID, they take palm prints, finger prints, and take your picture! They make you pat yourself down, show your ID again, and show your ears. ( to make sure you're not wearing a bluetooth). They video and audio record you too. So you're sitting in your little booth, with a big window behind you with people watching you. I don't know what people did in the past, but someone must have cheated big time for all of this. It was crazy. Well I was the 4th person to enter the room, which they take you in one by one. With the NCLEX you can get anywhere from 75-265 questions. Some of my friends already took there's and one got 156 Q's while another got only 75. As I was going along the test, I had many select all that apply questions- where more than one answer is correct. We were told in our review class that if you get a lot of those, you're doing well, so I was actually happy to get a few in a row. When I wouldn't get one, I would think to myself "crap, I missed that one." I got plenty of priority questions and just basic stuff. I can't even tell you what was on it. One we're not allowed by law to mention what was on the test, but everyone knows there there's select all that apply and priority ones. I had some medications.. not too many though which I was happy with. I only recognized maybe 2. Anyway, when I hit question 74, my heart started racing, then 75. As I hit submit for the 75th question, I just said over and over again in my head, " please turn off, please turn off, please turn off." And... It DID!! I was so relieved!! I was the first one out of there too. I did my test in one hour and that included the tutorial stuff at the beginning. I am a fast test taker. I always have been. I was one of the first ones done with the tests even in school.
So that day I to get my mind off of the waiting game, since it takes 24 hours to get the results back from AZBN, I decided to take Kody swimming at my brother's. We had so much fun. My sister Kelli joined us and the 3 of us taught Kody how to swim doggy style. She did such a good job and since then I've taken her a few times and she is becoming more confident with it. I am so proud of her. I don't know how to post videos on here, so there's nothing to see, but it is darn cute.
Anyway, the next morning at 830, I received my results that I passed my state boards! Whoo hoo!! It feels good to be done. I threw away all of my notes. If I need to reference anything, I can always use my books. :) Now onto the hard part... finding a job. And I will say that finding a job is not as easy as once before. Everyone wants someone with experience, but guess what?! If no one hires... I'm probably not going to get much experience. And while they're not hiring, I'm losing my skills. It's so frustrating. And I think they should hire new grads now because by the time the snow birds come back, we'll be trained and ready, but whatever. I just gotta keep looking.
