OFFICIALLY AN RN!!!!!!!!!!

So it is official... I passed the NCLEX and am officially a registered nurse!!! It has been a long couple months of studying and preparing for the NCLEX, but it was all worth it in the end. I ended up taking the Anderson review course here at Regis and found it very helpful. The course was very detailed, but it allowed us to go over all the material so far in nursing school. During the days before the exam, I was extremely anxious. I even contemplated moving up my date just to get it out of the way. On the day of my NCLEX, I popped out of bed early and arrived to the testing center 1 hour before my exam. I didn't want to take the chance of getting stuck in traffic and being late. Sitting in front of the computer, I began answering the questions not feeling confident about my answers. However, as the test went on, I began to feel better about understanding the format of the questions. When I finally looked at the question number I was on, the number read 70 and before I knew it, the machine turned off at 75. I paniced! The screen turned blue and I immediately felt that I either did really well or really bad. After the exam, I went to work here at Regis and began to feel anxious. I tried the "Pearsonvue trick" that I had heard so much about in order to feel less anxious. After doing the "trick", I received the "good" sign, which made me a little relieved (if you don't know what the trick is, google it). Two days later, I paid $8 for the Quick Results and I saw the official PASS on the computer. I have never felt more proud of myself. The 1 and 1/2 years of studying and papers was totally worth it! Now, I am officially a real registered nurse!

Although this was extremely exciting news, it did not mean that my semester was over. Now that the NCLEX was finally out of the way, I could finally concentrate on my actual school work. In research, I am performing a proposal concerning the lived experience of compliance in college age students with diabetes. It is a lot of work, but pretty interesting. In theory, a concept analysis needs to be done on the word compliance. Finally, I am doing well in my advanced pharmacology course. I enjoy learning what medications should be used for each disease/illness. I still have a lot of work to get done this semester. However, I am now on spring break! Since I am not going anywhere fun during break, I plan on spending most of the time off finishing these papers in order to catch up and have a less stressful semester.

That is all for now! I'll be back with updates as soon as I can!

- Katie Kefalas, RN : )