Wow.

I wrote my last post here during my second month of nursing school.

Now, when I’m feeling official, I can sign my name “Elise Raimi BSN, RN, MPH ”. More letter than anyone needs but what they mean to me this evening is that tomorrow I will walk into the Emergency Department for my first day of work as a nurse. I started nursing school thinking that I wanted to do hospice nursing but, ever since my second semester of school when I spent a day in the Emergency Room, I have known that I wanted to work there.

That day I showed up in the ED at 7am and by noon I had done CPR on two people, had blood splash on my shoes as a doctor put a chest tube below me while I did compressions, and a man had come through the ambulance bay doors holding his abdomen which, when he released it, spilled its contents. A seasoned told me to pick everything up, and off to the trauma bay we went. I was hooked.

Now, after working there as a student, I know that it’s not all trauma. On bad days it feels like you have a front row seat to watch our society crumble into a pile of poverty, mental illness, fear and antagonism. But there are more good days then bad and on the good days it feels like you are able to stick a hand into that pile and help someone out. Yes, there is still an enormous pile. Yes, the person you help out may well get swept back in again. But you get to go home knowing that, at least for a few moments, you made their lives better.

Tomorrow I walk in to the Emergency Department with a badge that says RN. I am excited and terrified and can’t wait and don’t want it to start because there are still so many things I don’t know. I know the next year will be full of high highs and low lows and I’m hoping to get this blog up and running again as a way of processing it all.

Wish me luck for tomorrow!