A Letter to Myself: You Did It

Dear Rowan, There is so much to say, I realized this after I submitted my final reflection as a nursing student. I only had a five-page limit so I am going to write everything I want to say to you here. I know how scary, painful, and terrifying nursing school was at the start of my journey. If I could, I would want to go back in time and hug you. To let you know that everything will be okay, that you can get through university and become a great nurse. My first year of university is a painful and rough year to remember. I don't like to look back on it, but I reflect on that period a lot more than I thought. Now that I am sitting down and looking back, I can feel it all over again. I feel like tearing up. My chest feels tight and my heart is heavy. It is almost hard to breathe. Dread. If I could choose one year to summarize the first year of nursing school, it would be dread. I was so lost and alone. I had friends, yes, but a lot of them were Mohawk-McMaster nursing students. These friends are amazing sources of support and love, but they were not always there in your McMaster-site classes. In those classes, problem-based learning, and professional practice, I was all alone. It felt like it. I was not close to anyone. Thank the nursing gods for Madison and Julia. My first two friends within the McMaster-site. Without Rice is Life (my amazing MoMac friends), and without Madison and Julia, I have no idea how I could have passed the first year. These are the individuals that reminded me that I was not alone. They also reminded me that I was a good nursing student. Yes, we struggled with comparing ourselves to others and only seeing ourselves as terrible nursing students. Can we talk about the transition from high school to university? I realized that even though our teachers in high school try their best to prepare us for university, the university is an entirely different dimension. Nothing prepared me for it. I was that smart student, who was involved in everything in high school. HAAAAAAA. Ah, I was the complete opposite in the first year. Well, the complete opposite from first to the third year. The workload was much heavier than I had in high school. The content in classes was much more complex. My old study methods were not enough. I had no idea what "readings" were until someone showed me the list of readings we had to complete. For any class. Did I read all of them? Uh, no. I was already overwhelmed with just keeping up with notes and doing other assignments that were due almost every single week or every other day.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I need to type that scream out, I was mentally losing it typing all of that out. Then there was the bullying. Yes, it took me a while to come to terms that I was being bullied in the first year. I felt like such shit. The bullying made me afraid of the ENTIRE McMaster-site cohort. I know not everyone is mean and rude in our cohort, but I was scared of getting hurt even more. From the first year and second year, I have felt excluded, targeted, and disrespected from my colleagues. I dreaded going to any Mac-site only classes. I hated feeling alone in a group full of people. I was always worried about what others thought of me. I'm smart, but apparently, that wasn't enough for a lot of people. I wasn't genius enough or quick-thinking enough compared to others. I hated myself so much for that. I was so angry at myself because I could not transition from high school to university as easily as everyone else. I knew people were talking about me. So I just felt more like shit. I tried to do the things everyone else was doing in school, but I ended up stressing myself even more. I ended having to go to counseling because my social anxiety was interrupting my way of life and I was just paranoid as fuck. Sweetie, you make more friends. Trust me. Rice is Life, Madison, Julia, Natalie, Tina, Ivy, and so many more people. The list is 100x longer than what you used to have in the first year. You have amazing roommates too, like Mary and Liana, who listen to your nursing woes. Oh, and you meet the love of your life, most unexpectedly, in the third year. That's a story for another time. But his name is Navid and he is the absolute best. You aren't alone. You started to realize that you also learn differently from those who ridiculed you. You struggle with textbooks and notes, but you are a damn quick learner when you do things hands-on. Why else do you awkwardly copy your clinical tutors or nurses in the background? It's because you learn and remember that way, by doing things. Textbooks and notes are important, but it isn't everything you need to learn and to be an amazing student. It took me too long to realize that. I didn't say this enough to myself back then, so I want to say it to you, "You are an amazing student. You are going to be a great nurse." The third-year was great except for the second semester when you were also being bullied by your tutor in clinical. Yes, a teacher, who is supposed to be your guide, targeted you and called her way of teaching "tough-love". You thought it was okay at first, to constantly being called out for little things, to be asked questions on the spot that even your fellow peers wouldn't know how to answer without searching up it up. You thought being humiliated in front of nursing staff and students was the only way for you to learn. You thought it was okay until that day in the clean core. You had to hold yourself together, and when Natalie asked you what was wrong, your voice was breaking and you were on the verge of tears. You had two patients that day, only a 15-minute break to eat an apple in the morning, and you were scrambling to complete your tasks. Your tutor gives you 10-minute lectures on little things and saying the same things over and over again. Those precious minutes that could have saved you so much time on charting. Then she pulls you in the clean core, and asks "Do you understand what I am saying?" You reply, "Yes". She asks, "Do you understand what I am saying?", again. Multiple times. Each time, the question hurts a little more because you realize that she doesn't believe you are listening or understand what she is saying. She asks, "Why are you always unprepared?" You say that you spend hours doing patient prep, with Natalie as a witness (because she sleeps over the night before clinical), but your tutor still says you're unprepared. Then when she asks you another question on the spot and you try to find the answer on your phone (that other nurses do), she dares to say, "Is Google all you know how to use?" I broke. I said no because I have textbooks at home. I do not have a textbook on me, inside the clean core, at that very moment. I felt like such a failure. I went home and cried. I cried so much that it hurt to breathe, my nose was filled with snot, my face stained with tears, and my eyes were red and swollen from all of the cryings. I only ate an apple that day, I didn't even have a chance to breathe or take a bathroom break. All I can hear in my head was, "Is Google all you know how to use?" again and again and again. I remember my roommate, Tina, listening to me cry about my day. She even helped me pack my lunch that I didn't have a chance to eat, with these amazing mango ice cream pops when I was going to Navid's. You called Navid and told him what was going on. He called an Uber to pick you up and bring you to his place because he didn't want you to walk at night, alone, while you were crying. When I got there, I was still a crying mess. Navid was feeding me my lunch for dinner because all I could do was cry. You were so scared of failing the semester. It only took Natalie to tell you that what your tutor was doing to you was bullying. Did I mention anything to my tutor during final evaluations? I said she was the toughest tutor I had, but I "know" that she had "good intentions". She questioned all the other tutors I had because she said all she gave me were positive comments on my clinical reasoning worksheets. Well, yeah, because I had time to do research and I had all of my resources at home. Not in the clean core, during a 12-hour shift. Honey, the fourth year will be a blessing. It will be a struggle because you have much more clinical hours to complete, essays and facilitations to do, and maybe another salty tutor in your problem-based learning class in a certain semester. *Cough* Besides the point. Your clinical is the best learning experience you ever had, one-on-one with your preceptors, teaching you everything hands-on. Yes, hands-on learning. Then they guide you to question or reflect on your assessments and experiences from the day and connect it to what you already learned. For example, in forensic nursing, your amazing preceptor, Ash, helped you understand how to conduct and interpret an in-depth mental status examination. I have not done a full neurological assessment since the first year, so it was nice to have someone teach me the ropes right there. Oh, you also have a badass preceptor in the cardiology-vascular surgery unit, Krystin. She helped you learn meds so fast, learn how to do things efficiently, help you understand topics that textbooks and videos could not explain to you. Do you want to know the best part? Both preceptors, professionally registered nurses, say they can rely on you. Remember in the second year, your first clinical tutor said that when she was in nursing school, that she wanted to become a nurse that someone can rely on. I remember her saying how a nurse told her, "I can rely on her (my tutor) to watch my back". Ever since that day, that is all you wanted to be. Someone a person can rely on. Well, you did it. We did it. We made it. Oh, also, you are pretty badass. You look forward to completing your clinical shifts. You take more initiative to complete nursing tasks and go out of your way to help other nurses with their tasks. You work together with your preceptors and healthcare team. You answer phone calls, provide health teaching, and speak to patients and their families. Hell, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I have been mistaken to be an actual nurse multiple times by staff, patients, and their families. Don't get me wrong, you know that I know we still have A TON of things to learn and master. But what matters, Rowan, is that you did it. You are amazing. Rowan, I am so proud of where we are. I am so happy with who I am right now. All of those negative people in your life would not recognize who you are. What am I? I am confident. I am smart. I am inquisitive. I am enthusiastic. I am compassionate. I am happy. With the support of family, friends, professional counseling, and colleagues, you are a McMaster nursing graduate. You are pretty bummed out about your clinical placements being canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic because you wanted to keep working in the hospital. Your convocation is supposed to be online now? Your graduation formal is canceled. You are done all your assignments though! You only have one final phone-meeting with your tutor and preceptor left. But I am still in Hamilton right now. Why? I am done in school early. The pandemic has the government has the entire country in quarantine. I got laid off from my job too, but I still have to do something. As much as I would love to spend time with my family, I feel like I have to do something to help. I can't stay still at home when others are out there facing this pandemic. That is why I signed up for a childcare volunteer program, where I will be watching over the children of health care providers. It isn't much, but it is something that I can do right now. Well, that was a long letter, but I wanted to let you know that you did it. I wanted you to see who I have become. I want you to know that everything turns out okay in the end. Don't be frustrated at yourself because you aren't like everyone else. Instead, love yourself for being different. You found what works best for you, and you went at your own pace the moment you out. There is so much more to tell you, but those are stories for another time and for you to experience. With love, Your future self