I survived!

We are back from Las Vegas and had a very fun, exciting, yet stressful trip. We drove to Utah the first day, and stopped in Salt Lake City, where I got to have lunch with a good friend who graduated from the nursing program a semester before me. It was great to see her, and a comfort to know she made it through boards and is now a confident and competant nurse. Maybe I have a chance! We then went on to spend a night with the Brooksby's. It is so great to visit them and see how much they have all grown. The next day we took off and drove to Vegas. We stayed in the Brooksby's condo, which was nice except that there was no power, so no Air conditioning. The power was off because they are selling it next week. We bought a battery powered fan and enjoyed the luxurious spa and pool that all the condo residents get to use. We did a lot of shopping! I found some great deals on clothes at out let malls. They even had an outlet scrub store, where I bought 6 new sets of scrubs! Very cute ones too! We relaxed, and tanned. I also studied every day for boards. We stayed in a hotel the last two nights, at the stratosphere. We had booked the hotel for monday and tuesday, when the price was less than half of what it was on the weekend. We enjoyed the air conditioned room! We went and saw the show "American Superstars" which was an impersonation show. It was really good! After a relaxing and fun time in vegas we drove back to Utah on Wednesday and stayed with the Brooksbys one more night. I began to get very stressed, knowing I had to take my test the next morning. I eventually got to sleep and had nightmares all night about my test. At 11:30 wednesday morning I got to the testing center and the worst 4 hours of my life began! I could have gotten anywhere from 75 to 265 questions, and I got 240. As I read through each question, I felt less and less confident with what I knew. I tried to stay calm and concentrate on the questions, but it was so hard! By the end, I left with absolute asurity that I had failed. I began planning out my next steps to retake it and try to find another job. Devry kept saying "you passed, I know you passed!" I tried to believe him. I was told I could go online and pay a fee to get my test results after two business days, or wait 3 weeks to get it in the mail. Who in their right mind would torture themselves for 3 weeks waiting for those results??!? I woke up at 1202 saturday morning and went online to check if my results were there. They werent so I thought I would have to wait another 2 long days until monday. Luckily I checked later that afternoon and saw that my results were available. I called Devry to come into the kitchen and demanded he give me his credit card. He probably thought I was nuts! I was shaking so much I couldnt even tell him why i needed it. Finally he came over and saw and immediately handed me his card. I spent the next few minutes trying to type in the credit card number with shaking hands. That was hard! Finally I got there...I clicked to open my results and all it said was - "status: Pass". I read it 4 or 5 times to make sure that it really said pass. Then I made devry read it to make sure. When I was absolutely sure it said pass, I started crying! Devry was like "Chelsey, you passed, why in the world are you crying?!?!" I was just so overwhelmed and relieved I didnt know what else to do! He was so sweet, he came over to me and gave me a hug then said..."guess what...you are an RN." Then of course he threw in "I told you so". Anyways.... Finally...the 2 hardest years of my life paid off. I went to the hospital today to set up my schedule and I start my three 12 hour shifts a week on wednesday! I am so relieved to be done with school and big tests like that, yet so excited and nervous to be entering practice. I am so glad I am in the post partum unit. I wouldnt want to start my career anywhere else.