A little over 3 months ago, I switched from working at an LTAC, long term acute care, hospital to working in the emergency department. The LTAC was my first job after nursing school, and it was grueling, exhausting, and often very trying. It was no stretch to say that I was kind of miserable a lot of the time. When my contract was up, I was hopeful that I would be able to move to a new area of nursing specialty at the hospital, because I really liked working for this hospital, and I was delighted when I interviewed and was hired to work in the ED. While I was excited, I was also terrified; I had been told by a lot of nursing instructors that I would love the ED, but I was still pretty nervous (especially given my experience in nursing so far), because if this was a bust, what the hell was I going to do?
With that being said, I started on nights, and I really started to enjoy my job. I liked the people working on nights, and actually found that I was getting a lot more satisfaction out of my job; more so than I ever had before. Additionally, I found that I was less unhappy when I wasn’t at work, and I didn’t dread going to work anymore. I think it really hit home, when James mentioned that he noticed I didn’t really complain about work anymore; which is something I was really happy to hear.
As I was hired with the intention of going to day shift, the time came recently for me to go to days, and again, I found myself very nervous. When I switched over to days a couple weeks ago, I was really nervous not only because I had gotten to like working with the night time crew, but also, because I was worried that I was going to dislike anything about days. This had a lot to do with the fact that I had finally found a place I felt like I fit in within nursing. Well, I can certainly say, that while I miss my night time comrades, I find that I have been enjoying working days as well; and a bonus is I don’t have to deal with the fucked up sleeping schedule.
I am pleased that I have found a place in nursing that I actually love, and even more so, that I can actually say that I love being a nurse (most of the time… after all, there are parts none of us nurses like!). That just makes me really, really happy. Things are kinda good, and I am okay with that!