The new plan

Alright I'll admit it, I've gotten in the habit of skipping Friday nights. It's less about me feeling uncool sitting at home, writing a blog post on a Friday night and more about the fact that I'm almost always too exhausted so I declare that night my official break.

Continuing with a theme of exhaustion, I have decided for the first time in my 10+ years of college (5 for my first degree, 2 for my ADN, 2 for my BSN, and another 1+ for my MSN) that I need to drop/withdraw from a class. I gave it a couple days thought, but honestly I was struggling to keep up with everything. I've been going to school full-time through all of this and I really am exhausted.

I didn't want to drop any courses mostly because it meant delaying "Clinical Bound." CB is a one week intensive training that my school requires us to do before starting our clinical training. I was scheduled to go to CB in this upcoming January. I had most everything worked out. I was carpooling with someone else that goes to my school from MN. We were going to pick up another midwifery student/friend in Indianapolis and then the 3 of us would drive to our school in Kentucky together.

My friend from Indy has been an instrumental support through much of my cancer treatment (she and her husband have even driven to come to visit us/cheer us up) and I wanted to go to CB with her more than anything. I knew she would understand, but I still feel like I'm letting her down. In addition to her, I have a Nurse Practitioner classmate that was also going to be at CB at the same time. She also has been a major support for me. She has even sent cheer-leading/support cards to Geoff. Now I won't get to see her either (though I have promised her that I will see her at some point...I owe her many hugs).

I found all of this to be extremely depressing. For the longest time I wouldn't consider slowing my education down for these reasons. At the same time, I feel like I'm drowning and I was having visions of getting back to my hospital room after surgery and having to try to write a paper or read some journal article. Originally I asked my instructor if we could work something out, but when she called me to talk about it, I realized I just wanted to drop the course. Otherwise in the next 5 or 6 weeks I still had 3 more exams, a case study, multiple forum posts and to review someone else's case study.

As soon as I gave consideration to dropping the class, I felt like a better mother, wife, student and I realized I could take so much better care of myself. This means I can sleep. It also means that next term I really only have to take one class, though we'll see about that...

As far as the missing out on being with my friends...I looked up the April CB dates to see when they are and who was going. I realized another couple of my friends were scheduled to go in April, but on different dates. At first I was torn, then I decided to be completely selfish and send them messages to see if anyone would consider switching so we could all go together. Within hours, both of them had replied and now we are all tentatively going together April 18th-25th (don't tell anyone the last day is my birthday). I'm really excited!

Finally as a solution to not getting to go to CB as planned, I've decided to try to make sure my clinicals still work out so I am able to attend graduation next October. Some of the midwifery students I should get to see at the American College of Nurse Midwives conference in Nashville next summer, but I want to ensure that I get to see everyone. I have no control over how many babies will be born when or who/what my office visits will be, but I'm going to do whatever I can to still finish by next October.

One last note...all of my instructors have been amazing through all of this. At the same time, they are constantly encouraging me to take an emergency academic hiatus. I've reassured them (hopefully adequately this time) that I haven't ruled the possibility out, but I am not interested in doing so at right now (just as I did last term). I was talking about this with one of my old roommates today and she laughed and asked "Do you need me to call them and explain how you work?" It's true. I keep telling them that this is what gives me focus and drive, but they don't get it. This is how I work. I thrive on having a full plate, though I am looking forward to slowing down in a few years (probably after I'm done getting my family practice NP and my DNP...about another 2 years total). Afterall, we aren't going to be having anymore kids now.