#nursingschoolstress

[lostdreamsandwishes]

Much Needed Rant

I’ve never done anything like vent online before, but my one best friend and I are in abit of a fight today. I don’t know what to say... i guess a quick “get to know me” would help to fully understand the story.  

First things first, I am very bad at finding the right the words when trying to express my feelings and thoughts so please bear with me (yes as a 20 something adult who grew up knowing english I am not eloquent at all).  

My best friend, A, is someone who i’ve been with for almost 5 years, he and I met online.  He is the first person I think of when I wake up and the last person I think of at night, he lives with his parents and so do i.  He and I are pretty similar and we have friends, but mainly just stick to the two of us.  We don’t text our friends often and are pretty bad at keeping up in people’s lives. I am currently in nursing school and he works at the same hospital I work at.  He is a security officer and is expected to do 16 hour shifts if someone from the next shift calls in.  Nursing school is very stressful and I am just about to finish my first semester.  

The other day I was at school trying to practice some nursing skills at the school practice lab since I had a skills validation the next day.  It was very stressful since the skills I needed to know were quite alot and were very detailed.  I always study with my nursing buddy, M, she and I practiced for a few hours and decided to go to the computer lab to work on other assignments.  

For the past few days A and I have been sick with a sinus infection, where it has affected us differently.  For A he is completely exhausted, congested, weak, and doesn’t have an appetite.  For me my left ear feels clogged, making it difficult to hear, congested, sore throat, and headaches at the most random times.  

A has been going to work sick and I have been going to school sick also. So as I was at school texting A, he finds out that he has to do an unscheduled 16 hour shift since someone from the night shift had called in (A works 3pm to 11pm typically).  This had made him frustrated and the little energy he had meant he needed to conserve until 7am, that is if his shift ran smoothly.   After finding out about the long shift I offered to bring him food. 

A few days ago my dryer at home broke, which meant I needed to take all of the laundry at home to the laundromat.  However due to a busy weekend I couldn’t do it til that day.  M and I were at school studying until 6:30 in the evening and we parted ways.  I rushed to the laundromat since I needed to get 2 large bins of clothes done and make time to study still.  Doing this, I completely forgot about my promise to A and had to tell him that I can no longer bring him food because of all of the things I needed to get done.  He was basically let down that I couldn’t bring him food, but ordered something before it got late.  We argued about me bringing him food, I felt like he was trying to make me feel bad for not doing that for him.  It wasn’t like he ever asked about how my day was going and the only thing we spoke about that day was about him.  I didn’t want to push him since I knew he was frustrated, but there was a point where I just snapped and was like “I’ve had a hard day too, stop making me feel bad about this.  I just want to go home and rest because I need to wake up early for school the next day.”  It seemed like it made him see my perspective since he dropped the topic and tried to make a joke about something else.

 After spending a few hours at the laundromat I went home and ended up crashing til 3am where I felt absolutely horrible.  I had a splitting headache and I knew that today was going to be a bad day.  I popped 2 ibuprofen and went back to sleep for another 2 hours.  I then got ready for school and arrived to school at 7:20 am.  The day was long day where I had trouble hearing from my left ear, had major stress from my skills validation and a presentation that I needed to give for my fundamentals class.  M and I ate a sandwich for lunch, she had tuna and I had chicken.  M then got a bad case of food poisoning and we went to another nursing buddy of ours’ house ,B.  I drove the three of us to B’s house in M’s car.  M was nauseous and ready to throw up any second.  The moment we arrived to B’s house, M was throwing up.  B and I took care of her unitl she decided to rest. 

 During the chaos, A was texting me asking me what I was doing and where I was.  I didn’t get the chance to reply quickly, but once I replied I told him I was at B’s house studying.  

This is where it begins...

A was then confused and said that I was being inconsiderate for not even calling him before he goes to work.  That hes tired from working 16 hours, only sleeping for a few hours and having to go to work at 3, that it would have been nice if he and I could have talked even if it was just for 5 minutes.  I explained to him that M was not feeling well and I assumed he would just understand and back off.  I was wrong. He and I began to argue, I explained what happened and said how I was helping M with B.  A then said that if B was helping her I didnt need to help and I should have studied or try to rest .  I didn’t understand why he was being like this.  M was the one person this semester who was the one I can rely on and helped me the most, so me helping her when she is sick is nothing.  Now here I am frustrated that he is the one being inconsiderate and is upset that I would help someone.  Its not like I dropped everything and decided to go have fun.  I still tried to study after everything that happened.  

I’m used to giving in and just apologize so that we don’t argue, but I felt really wronged this time and i didn’t want to take it lying down.  I got home around 5:30 pm and was trying to wind down from the day before getting back to study.  Eventually I fell asleep and woke up from a phone call from the hospital, it was A.  Groggy and disoriented I answered the call and once I gathered my bearings we spoke about what happened.  I guess I was hoping it was some sort of misunderstanding on one of our parts, but really he just wanted me to look out for myself and not worry for others.  i understand that, but M isn’t just anybody.  She was the person who helped me study for my exams, she is the only person I really meet up with outside of school and is someone I’ve been very close with in the past 4 months.  A and I argued over the phone to the point where we were both too stubborn to give in and we just ended the phone call.  Now its been hours since our argument and  I am still frustrated over what happened.  I wanted to get a few things off my chest and figured that since no one knows of my tumblr i could rant freely. Was I wrong? Did i misunderstand? Did he just misunderstand? Is he only acting like this from the lack of sleep + him being sick?  I am tired and on the verge of  a breakdown.  

[swimmiey]

I’m really struggling at the moment to finish my last 4 essays of nursing school/clinicals. It just feels like they are never good enough to hand in. Ever since I became ill, the quality of my essays just aren’t the same as they were used to. I can’t live up those standards anymore after my sinus thrombosis and later IIH and having acquired brain injury. And because it feels like it’s never good enough I notice I’ll just keep pushing it forward, but never actually start them. Tomorrow and Wednesday I made myself promise to myself to finish at least one of them before I’ll go into surgery on Thursday. I have to if I want to finish nursing school by January 22nd like we’ve planned to. Being a perfectionist doesn't help either. Perfectionists tend to be harsh critics of themselves when they fail to meet their standards. I just have to keep reminding myself it is good enough and that I can do this. I know I can. --------------------------------------- #chronicillness #invisibleillness #acquiredbraininjury #iihsucks #iih #intracranialhypertension #brainsurgerysurvivor #brainsurgery #nursingstudent #nursingschool #futurenurse #perfectionist #shuntlife #shuntproblems #shuntrevision #chronicillnurse #spoonienurse #spoonienursingstudent #nursingschoolstress #nursingschoolproblems #sickandtiredofbeingsickandtired #sickbutstrong #sinusthrombosis #butyoudontlooksick #icandothis #ineedanap #totiredtofunction #headachefromhell #nevergoodenough #shuntfailure