Happy New Year guys! I hope 2018 is going great for you all. This is my first blog of 2018. I had hopes of posting in the first week of the year but I had a lot of reflection to do. I’ve decided that I’m going to be more vulnerable and open with you guys. I’ve always had a little issue walking the thin line between revealing and not revealing too much at the same time. Being as private as I am, believe me when I say it’s HARD but I started my blog so that I could share my experience and at least inspire one person.

WARNING!!! This post might be a tad bit lengthy but I promise it’ll be worth it. So here goes…

It was the end of the fall semester 2015. By then I was at the end of semester 2 of my BSN program. Now let me back track a little bit and give a little background. By the time fall 2015 semester came around I had already completed my first set of nursing classes and was well on my way to semester 2. I felt like I was finally on the road to fulfilling my purpose and was on my way to becoming the Christina Yang (true Grey’s Anatomy fans would know of this legend) of nursing. Semester 2 classes consisted of: Gerontology, Clinical Skills Lab, Mental Health, Clinical Rotation and the silent killer Medsurg.  I started the semester like how I usually do, giving myself a pep talk, prayer and writing my goals for the semester (to get all A’s). Like some of you guys know, at the start of the semester, most professors like to brag or make it seems like their class is harder than a rock. Little did they know Tanya wasn’t phased by these scare tactics (nope, they gotta bring Jesus himself before they can scare me lol). While most of my classmates were freaking out based on what these professors would say, I would whisper to myself ” girl you got your schooling from the Islands so you know you got this!” In my Medsurg class, the professor stated from the jump that exam #2 would be the hardest exam of the semester and depending on how we did we should reconsider if we wanted to continue or not. Was I fazed?…….Nope.

MEDSURG THE SILENT THE KILLER

Exam one came and I passed so that gave me the confidence booster I needed to carry me through the rest of the semester. Now my fellow nursing students and even nurses; I’m sure at some point Medsurg was giving you the business and more. Let me telllllll you exam #2 which was based on fluid and electrolytes beat my ass worst than Mayweather beat McGregor, it knocked me OUT! Now I didn’t get an extremely low grade, but it was low based on my standard and wasn’t a passing grade(keep in mind at my school an 80 was considered a C). It wasn’t a case where I didn’t prepare because I did, but something about that exam just didn’t make sense to me, not to this very day. As my friend Gigi likes to say we only get 24 hours to be in our feelings and it’s back to regular programming the next day. So being the optimistic person that I pride myself on being, I knew I had to come real hard the next few exams.  Now every student KNOWS  that when you fail an exam it drops your grade to the ground but let you get a good grade that grade barely moves up the ladder lol (it’s hard out here for us). I didn’t let getting unsatisfactory grade deter me, I did the work and prepared for exam #3. Now all my other classes were going well but Medsurg and the theory part of skills were consistently kicking my butt. It’s not easy taking an exam knowing all the answers are right and you gotta select the best one, sometimes my best answer ain’t the answer they’re looking for lol (This is where the critical thinking of nursing comes into play). I studied my ass off and tried to do my best on the next 3 exams and finals to ensure that I would have a passing grade at the end of the semester.

THE FINAL THAT WOULD DETERMINE WHERE MY LIFE WAS HEADED

Let’s fast forward to the end of the semester, you know that nervous feeling you get when anticipating your grades? Welll there were back flips going on in my stomach while I waited that afternoon. The other grades came in and they were great but the 2 grades I was really concerned about seemed to have been taking forever to be posted. I must’ve refreshed that blackboard page a million times that afternoon and having a mini anxiety attack each time lol. The notification popped up Medsurg: D, Skills: D. In that instant my body just shut down and went numb.  Who would’ve known that those 2 grades would later determine where my life would be headed.

I failed one class by point 5 and the other by point 8. The school I was attending at the time didn’t do the standard round up of a grade so I was screwed. Saying I was devastated is an utter and complete understatement; I WAS DE-VA-STA-TED! My future, like I had envisioned it, was no more. I’m a very emotional person so of course I cried like a baby. Not knowing what to say, I sat in silence for a while before breaking the news to my loved ones. Now you’re probably saying why All the dramatics or why not take them over next semester , well my friends failing 2 classes is an automatic dismissal from the nursing program in which I was enrolled and meant I had to wait 2 whole years to reapply to the program.

After talking to my loved ones, deciding what to do next was on my agenda. I started looking for schools to apply to literally the next day.  I knew changing my environment was a priority.  Me failing wasn’t necessarily a case of not being  prepared because I did everything to the best of my ability, not to make any excuses but I strongly believe that the many surrounding distractions is what contributed to me failing but at the end of the day I can’t point fingers at anyone but myself. I should’ve known how to block out the distractions as well as putting my needs first but that’s another story for another blog post(coming soon).

SADNESS TOOK OVER

I never like to say I was depressed simply because I’ve seen that word thrown around too loosely, as soon as things don’t go our way. Depression is a mental health disorder and I didn’t want to associate myself with that without having the facts and I also didn’t want that to be me. While I may have had some symptoms they were mild in my case. Was I sad? Absolutely! I had my period where I was down, always in my head overthinking, looking at my classmates progress and would get in my feelings and think about the coulda, shoulda, woulda. I lost my appetite ( which is why I’m trying to gain 15lbs). I was just a Debbie downer but I sure hid that well from the people around me.

THE MANY STUMBLING BLOCKS

I moved to Georgia after getting into a school there. I was excited and was sure that my second chance was on the horizon. After enrolling, I decided to meet with my adviser to ensure I was on the right track with my classes etc. Only to be met with “I’m afraid you can’t pursue a nursing degree here after further revision of your transcript. Our philosophy is if you failed at one school who’s to say you won’t fail here? We can’t have that.” I was so livid that if you were to cut me that day you wouldn’t have gotten any blood. Again, I was sad for quick moment and then I picked myself up and tried an alternate route. I decided to try Respiratory Therapy; the plan was to pursue my nursing degree after getting the Respiratory Therapy degree. I then proceeded to taking necessary prerequisite classes for the RT program. Before the start of the fall semester program, I made the tough decision not to continue because my heart just wasn’t there, and I was not feeling any kind of satisfaction, additionally my heart was still with nursing and always will be. I took that semester off to solely apply to nursing programs. You know life has a tendency to not go your way when you want it to. I kept meeting stumbling blocks, after stumbling, blocks after stumbling blocks and every now and then I would question why me???

TURNING STUMBLING BLOCKS INTO STEPPING STONES 

One of my mission is to showcase how I turned my stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Here I am with a blog that’s suppose to be geared toward my progress in nursing school but yet I am not currently in a nursing school/ program at the moment. So how can I give you advice you may ask,  well I’ve been in the program long enough to know the ins and outs and ultimately my blog was created to document my unique journey through nursing school and this all apart of my journey.

WHEW!!. now that I got that off my chest …

I decided to tell my story because I know I’m not the only one and I wanted to offer help to others like me. I had to get comfortable with failing, often times we tend to let failure be negative when it’s not. I had to learn this the hard way. What good would the world be if none of us failed? I mean even successful people failed at something at some point in their life.

Nursing is truly my passion and giving up is never going to be an option; no amount of failures or stumbling blocks will take that away from me. I have had time to reflect and ever so often I do a self evaluation to determine what is and isn’t working and ways in which I can improve, change and grow,  and what is it that I can do better. A very wise woman told me recently “Don’t repeat the same actions expecting a a different result.”

All this coincides with why I chose the title for my blog post. It came to me randomly in a dream and I saw it fitting.  I believe failure builds character, it sure changed me for the better, the way I think has certainly changed, my ambition and my drive has also changed. I want you to know failing is not the end.

If you’re passionate about something go for it, and never stop trying until you get to your desired destination and  know taking an alternate route to get there isn’t such a bad thing.

Can you think of a time where you failed and got back up? Felt defeated but overcame? Leave a comment and let’s discuss.
Look out for a follow up to this post this next week!