Above, me at nursing school graduation in 2007, with Two, who was 3 weeks old.

This past week, I went in for several hours of continuing education to keep my nursing credentials current. Due to some weirdness on my employer’s website and their internet sign-up for the class I was taking, I wasn’t sure until I arrived in the room whether or not I was even at the right building.

I was running a couple of minutes late. My education had to be completed by the end of the month or I would no longer be allowed to come into work. I had snagged the last spot in the class at 3 a.m. during a recent night shift.

What if I showed up at the wrong place for my class? Driving somewhere else would make me even more late! What if I couldn’t attend the class and had to find another one? It had taken me two weeks or more just to find an opening for the class. There weren’t any other open classes that were occurring before my certification expired!

I rushed into the classroom, promptly misidentified the instructor as a fellow pupil, and eventually found a seat. Another nurse flew in not long after and found a seat at my table. She looked familiar and I found out she worked on my floor, although we’ve only met once or twice before. She remembered that I had given her report once after a crazy night shift.

She volunteered that she was coming to the class straight from work, was running late, and was fearful they wouldn’t let her in, that her certification would expire, and she wouldn’t be able to work. All a tiny bit irrational and catastrophic, and all exactly how I’d been feeling moments before.

We chatted briefly in between segments of the class about work on our unit. I felt bad for the other person at our table, who I suspected was a medical student. Knowing my coworker was a nurse on my floor gave us an instant camaraderie and understanding that it was hard to make someone else a part of.

We watched the videos, listened to the instruction, and practiced on the manikins. It felt a little silly, like it always does. But it also felt good to practice something we need to know how to do. It felt good to FEEL GOOD at it, to fall back into the rhythm of it after those first few awkward moments. It felt good to know that if that manikin had been a real person, all this practice will make it much easier to do the right thing in a moment of stress.

Automating our actions is what gives us the confidence to act when we can’t think – because we’ve practiced so many times that we don’t even NEED to think.

I left my class feeling relieved, and satisfied. I remembered my skills. I’m good to go for another couple of years. And I’m grateful for the tribe of nurses I work with and that we can “get” each other by way of our shared experience.

This week, May 6-12, is National Nurses Week. Incidentally, because of my schedule, I never work that week, and I miss out on all the free food and thankfulness my employer provides for its staff. On the upside, now that the Chaplain is in healthcare, he knows about Nurses Week, and he appreciated me accordingly, which is better than anything the hospital could have offered, anyway.