Chasing Nightingale

“I want to take up nursing because my mom inspired me to become one someday.”  This is what the overweight 'probinsyana’ had to say in order to get into a nursing school. Now, five years later, this girl finds herself in a nurse’s uniform- scared, confused and unsure.

Well, I was that girl and my story is nothing new at all.  This tale took years in the making and while it still has not been concluded yet, I want to share a bit of it.

As a kid, my idea of nurses are those underpaid workers injecting vaccines while wearing white uniforms. I didn’t even know that nurses are the doctors’ partners in providing health care services.  So when my mom asked me to take up nursing, I had doubts.  I never doubted that I could make it.  I just didn’t like the idea of bathing patients, wiping out fecal material from other people’s anuses and wearing a white uniform.  I also didn’t like the idea that my mom wanted me to engage in a profession I used to belittle.

Then I found myself reading nursing books, enrolling in a nursing review center and taking the nurse licensure examinations twice.  I was confused and in doubt all the time.  I was trying to fit into the world I didn’t want to be into in the first place.  I was at a crossroads, trying to see the right path, trying to get into a road that will lead me to happiness.  I was lost.

What does it take to become a full-fledge nurse anyway?  Well, it really involves lots and lots of patience.  You have to be humble enough to stomach all the belittling words of ‘wannabe socialista’ patients.  You have to be strong enough in dealing with arrogant doctors.  You also have to have enough perseverance in living the world of professionals who work like unpaid carabaos  in order to gain this so called ‘experience.’

As of now, I am an unemployed registered nurse providing ‘community service’ to my province mates (I am a volunteer nurse is what I meant).  I’ve been applying as a staff nurse at a local hospital nearby without any assurance that I’d get in.  I’ve also been looking for slots for trainings at the Lung and Heart Centers of the country.   In every sense of the word, my career path is still uncertain and so is my life.

I don’t want to lift everything up to God because that would be considered laziness on my part.  I just want to do my best, grab all the opportunities as they come and walk by faith.  Though my life is uncertain, I know that God will be with me.

Photo Taken from:
http://www.storiesinart.com/notes1.htm

Lovelots,
Maica Angelle