The Iliad and the Odyssey
Four long years.
That is a long time.
Four years of blood, sweat, tears, aggravation, joy, panic, and uncertainty are about to come to an end.
Tomorrow my wife takes her Anesthesia Certification exams to officially complete her journey and become a CRNA.
I'm elated, nervous, and mostly surprised she is at this point.
Why?
Many moons ago, while looking for a place to live, we were discussing career paths in the car.
Myself being in IT listed a number of options for what I could do and the kind of money I could make.
She plainly tells me that the most she can make is it she became a CRNA (That is a Certified Registered Nurse of Anesthesia).
"Oh? How much do they make?" I ask.
"I would triple my hourly wage." She replies.
"Wow! So why don't you do that?" I ask.
"It's boring work. All they do is push gas." Is the answer.
Now my wife is a Nurse, and I will say that in the truest sense of the word. She loves to work on sick patients. She lives for the difficult cases and intense situations. It is not only her job, but her passion. Granted there are some less then savory aspects of it that she doesn't like. Things that shall remain unmentioned, but none the less it is what she truly loves to do. So I didn't really question this answer at all.
So knowing this fact we now move ahead two years. We are now married and happily planning where we want to move forward with our lives now that we are settled and together.
In an odd move my wife switches to a lab based environment where she is installing pacemakers and other heart related hardware. The idea was to work 4 day a week and no weekends to have more time with me. However this position doesn't sit well with her since she is used to 3 days a week with more down time between workdays.
However something happens while she is in there. She actually meets and worked with CRNA's. Seeing them, working with them, and talking with them she discovers that their work isn't simply pushing gas. As she so thought. Over a course of a few months she becomes more interested with what they do and curious. It should be noted that Her "pushing gas" comment stems from nursing school. Where in a half day rotation that is all she saw one do.
Now however she has worked with one on a crashing patient. Watched the decisions that they made and were allowed to make regarding the patients health.
One night she mentions this too me.
So I ask, "Well can you follow them around one day."
"Yes nurses can shadow someone from another department to see if they are interested in the setting, the people, and the environment they would be working in."
They allow this since you only see brief tastes of different types of nursing work in school.
So she sets it up to go one day and really see what they do.
Before she even sets her bag down when she got home that day I knew what the answer was. The look in her eye, the excitement in her voice, and her whole demeanor were summed up by her next words:
"You would not believe the things I get to do! The abilities that I have. Things that I would not be able to do otherwise unless my name said M.D. after them."
The ball was set in motion that day and there was no looking back.
Now I should mention that the schooling to do this is a long full time program. No working no income and 24 to 28 straight months depending on the program.
This was early 2001. It was months of retaking old classes that were required to be updated. Taking Graduate based classes that some schools required. Planning and setting our finances to handle this change. Days of typing and filling out all the application paper work for eleven different schools that she was applying to.
The waiting for those schools to reply.
The days of interviews sometimes up to 5 hours long.
Getting accepted into a local school so we didn't have to move for two years.
Myself getting laid off two days later.
The uncertainty of our financial situation (don't worry no matter what she was going). Don't worry I found good work several months before she started.
24 months of pure hell, full class loads, full clinical hours in the OR. Myself picking up the slack with the household chores. The brutal school politics, the massive amounts of information she had to assimilate. The stress, and flat out everything that she was forced to go through. As the quote in the movie the Shawshank Redemption says: "crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want too" seem appropriate for what she went through.
Finally graduating this past August.
It now all come down to tomorrow.
I might turn blue holding my breath.
But I just want to say that I give her all the credit in the world in putting herself through all that to get into a position where she will love what she is doing more the ever.
To her I say congratulations, Good luck, and I love you.
It should all end tomorrow.
That is a long time.
Four years of blood, sweat, tears, aggravation, joy, panic, and uncertainty are about to come to an end.
Tomorrow my wife takes her Anesthesia Certification exams to officially complete her journey and become a CRNA.
I'm elated, nervous, and mostly surprised she is at this point.
Why?
Many moons ago, while looking for a place to live, we were discussing career paths in the car.
Myself being in IT listed a number of options for what I could do and the kind of money I could make.
She plainly tells me that the most she can make is it she became a CRNA (That is a Certified Registered Nurse of Anesthesia).
"Oh? How much do they make?" I ask.
"I would triple my hourly wage." She replies.
"Wow! So why don't you do that?" I ask.
"It's boring work. All they do is push gas." Is the answer.
Now my wife is a Nurse, and I will say that in the truest sense of the word. She loves to work on sick patients. She lives for the difficult cases and intense situations. It is not only her job, but her passion. Granted there are some less then savory aspects of it that she doesn't like. Things that shall remain unmentioned, but none the less it is what she truly loves to do. So I didn't really question this answer at all.
So knowing this fact we now move ahead two years. We are now married and happily planning where we want to move forward with our lives now that we are settled and together.
In an odd move my wife switches to a lab based environment where she is installing pacemakers and other heart related hardware. The idea was to work 4 day a week and no weekends to have more time with me. However this position doesn't sit well with her since she is used to 3 days a week with more down time between workdays.
However something happens while she is in there. She actually meets and worked with CRNA's. Seeing them, working with them, and talking with them she discovers that their work isn't simply pushing gas. As she so thought. Over a course of a few months she becomes more interested with what they do and curious. It should be noted that Her "pushing gas" comment stems from nursing school. Where in a half day rotation that is all she saw one do.
Now however she has worked with one on a crashing patient. Watched the decisions that they made and were allowed to make regarding the patients health.
One night she mentions this too me.
So I ask, "Well can you follow them around one day."
"Yes nurses can shadow someone from another department to see if they are interested in the setting, the people, and the environment they would be working in."
They allow this since you only see brief tastes of different types of nursing work in school.
So she sets it up to go one day and really see what they do.
Before she even sets her bag down when she got home that day I knew what the answer was. The look in her eye, the excitement in her voice, and her whole demeanor were summed up by her next words:
"You would not believe the things I get to do! The abilities that I have. Things that I would not be able to do otherwise unless my name said M.D. after them."
The ball was set in motion that day and there was no looking back.
Now I should mention that the schooling to do this is a long full time program. No working no income and 24 to 28 straight months depending on the program.
This was early 2001. It was months of retaking old classes that were required to be updated. Taking Graduate based classes that some schools required. Planning and setting our finances to handle this change. Days of typing and filling out all the application paper work for eleven different schools that she was applying to.
The waiting for those schools to reply.
The days of interviews sometimes up to 5 hours long.
Getting accepted into a local school so we didn't have to move for two years.
Myself getting laid off two days later.
The uncertainty of our financial situation (don't worry no matter what she was going). Don't worry I found good work several months before she started.
24 months of pure hell, full class loads, full clinical hours in the OR. Myself picking up the slack with the household chores. The brutal school politics, the massive amounts of information she had to assimilate. The stress, and flat out everything that she was forced to go through. As the quote in the movie the Shawshank Redemption says: "crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want too" seem appropriate for what she went through.
Finally graduating this past August.
It now all come down to tomorrow.
I might turn blue holding my breath.
But I just want to say that I give her all the credit in the world in putting herself through all that to get into a position where she will love what she is doing more the ever.
To her I say congratulations, Good luck, and I love you.
It should all end tomorrow.
posted by z-man at 12:12 PM
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