What no one tells you about nursing school...

They tell you it's going to be hard...

They tell you patients will die and patients will live and you will walk through both daily...

They tell you that you will have nights that you will cry for hours...

They tell you that there will be days so full of joy and hope...

And the feeling of accomplishment you have is overwhelming...

But they don't tell you...
No one tells you that the last term is emotional. bittersweet. stressful. fulfilling. exhausting. No one tells you that the people who have walked beside you for four years will become like your family. you cant imagine your life without all of them. No one tells you how exhausted working back to back long shifts will make you. No one tells you how stressful it is to get everything done to graduate. No one tells you how emotional everything becomes. i'm so happy to be done, but graduation hit me today, and i realized how much nursing school has shaped me into who i am. No one tells you that it will make you compassionate, that you will understand the people around you more and more. No one tells you how it feels to find out your patient died. No one tells you what it's like to have to tell a patient's family that something went wrong. No one prepares you.

No one will tell you that you'll meet the impoverished.

The broken.

The amazing.

The uncomfortable.

The forgotten.

it's been all consuming for almost five years. it's a lot of mixed emotions. i'm happy but also sad, and exhausted all at once. No one tells you that.

We've finally almost made it.