Live

This past weekend, I sat surrounded by my children and snack foods of all different varieties while we watched this.  It was wonderful.  I loved every minute of it.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Erik could have been there with us.  But he was off on a little vacation, so it was just me and the kids.

When Erik is home, I rely on him A LOT to help pick up where I fall short.  And by pick up, I am basically saying that he's a single dad.  While I've been in school, I just can't seem to figure out how to be a mom and a daughter, a wife and a friend, and be the kind of student that I feel that I need to be in order to not kill my patients some day (and that day is coming very soon!).

So Erik is the mom and dad- but not this weekend.  I got to be both instead and as you might have guessed, school took the back burner.  And that was my choice.  I chose to sit and listen to inspiring words and visit with my children and remind myself that there is life outside of nursing school.  How I miss that life!

But today, Monday, which is always test day, the reality of nursing school hit me square in the face.  Today was a pharmacology test.  It was on cardiac drugs and drugs of the peripheral nervous system.  Drugs that apparently I should have known a little better than I did when I sat down to take the test.

Today I got to experience what it feels like to be the majority of my fellow class mates.  I'm usually one of  the top scorers on our exams and I get to hear them complain about how hard the test was and how unfair the questions were.

I wasn't complaining about my score though.  I fully expected to do poorly.  And I outdid my expectations.  Quite nicely in fact.  It was bad.  But I felt like it was worth a good test score to spend that quality time with my children. 

The memories we made this weekend are more important to me than how well I know those cardiac drugs.  As nurses, when we have questions about medications, we use a handy tool called Medscape to look them up.  So no worries, I'm not going to kill your mother when she comes to the hospital with heart issues. 

We're all going to be OK. 

A few semesters ago, I think my score today would have made me question whether or not I should be a nurse.  But I realize now that I must have grown up a little bit because it didn't affect me as it probably should have.  This weekend I realized that there is more to nursing school and that every once in a while you have to put it on the back burner and LIVE.

So this weekend, that's what I chose to do.  And it felt so good!

Besides, there's always another Monday and another test.  And Erik will be home tomorrow.  So it's all going to be just fine.