5:17 p.m. - 2015-07-02
update
I finished nursing school. I graduated, took the NCLEX a couple of weeks later and had it shut down after 75 questions. The NCLEX is a beast of a test -- it is computer-generated so each question is based on your reponse to the lsat question, and when you get a question right the questions get harder until you start getting them wrong. Every person taking the test gets about half the questions wrong, and it's the level of the questions that you answer correctly -- not the number correct -- that determines whether you pass or fail. If it shuts down after 75 questions, the computer was able to make a determination about your level of competence quickly -- you either did really badly or really well.
I spent the ensuing 48 hours feeling certain I flunked it -- I was cocky, I didn't really study because I scored in the 99th percentile on the Comprehensive Predictor, which also said I had a 99 percent chance of passing the NCLEX without further study. Everyone else I knew did Kaplan and other structured reviews. I didn't. I was sick of school, and I'm good at tests.
After 48 hours of dreading the rest of my summer -- study and re-test -- I got my results. I passed. And I got my nursing license number four hours later.
I have not had as much success with job hunting. I'm still unemployed. I am trying to be optimistic. Unfortunately my state is not one in which there is a nursing shortage; there are tons of new grads looking for jobs. I've only had my license two weeks, and I just got accepted to a RN-BSN program two days ago, which should help. I have enough income still that I shouldn't have to dip into savings, and enough savings and credit cards that I can survive pretty much any major disaster, but I really am getting sick of being out of school and unemployed. It makes me feel like a loser.
Actually I am just enjoying it more than I should -- hate myself for not wanting to start working again, but I really don't and I am finding plenty to keep busy.
As usual when I'm in some sort of work/school-related crisis -- these seem to threaten my identity more than personal crises -- my weight is dropping. I'd been somewhere over 105 for a while, and this spring when clinicial ended and I stopped having to eat regularly in order to function I dropped to around 100, and now I'm about 95. I'm 5'3-1/2 so this is not catastrophic, but it's over the border into anorexic territory again and I am aware that a) I feel like shit, and b) I have no motivation to maintain a healthy weight, which for me tends to be caused by weight loss (not the other way around). My hair looks like crap, my nails keep cracking, and I think I am probably anemic because walking up stairs wears me out, my pulse rate is high and my OT sat is only in the mid-90s, which isn't good for a 36-year-old non-smoker.
I started taking iron pills, the bandaid approach.
I have been seeing a therapist who is actually smart since January I think, and I am debating whether to bring up the weight loss with her. It has been gradual enough that she may not have noticed, and she may not notice for another five pounds. She thinks I weigh around 100 and she was OK with that -- no weigh-ins or doctors required as an adjunct to therapy. If I call her attention to it, she may start requiring those things, which would really suck. On the other hand if I don't I may be compelled to keep going until somebody stops me (I suppose that this is my plan, since I don't seem to have any other). This will seriously fuck up my life and my ability to get a job. So maybe I'll be able to control it for the sake of getting a job -- I have to get a physical and I have to go to interviews, and looking like a skeleton is not going to be helpful.
I don't know if A has noticed -- she hasn't said anything. She has gained a lot of weight since she switched meds -- maybe 15 pounds -- so she may just think that's why I look skinnier.
And then there's my kids. Mar has been reading about eating disorders in her Body Book For Girls and asking me questions. Fucking book.
Yes, I wonder if she suspects and I feel terrible about that.
I guess this is my life update for the past however many months. I got Mar a beanbag chair and planted more flowers and retrimmed the wreath on the front door today. I applied for four jobs. I took my kids to camp and retrieved them. I need to get them to put away laundry and help Cashy learn to draw people. He is upset that he can't draw them as well as he'd like.
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