back to life

The month of May has been very busy for me so far. I have had 2 job interviews, the first was for the nurse bank at Weston General Hospital as a healthcare assistant at which I was successful. Alas the second one I wasn’t successful, it was for a community phlebotomist but they needed someone to work 5 mornings a week and none of the other candidates needed to job share. But it was worth going for the interview as it’s good practice for the future

Last week I went to the University of the West of England for a selection afternoon for the return to nurse practice course. We were an easy group to spot, all women around a similar age, barely there or subtle make up, smart casual clothes and looking extremely apprehensive about the next few hours. Reasons for letting our registrations lapse ranged from living/working out of the country, bringing up family and illness, although I was the only one playing the health card.

The course tutor went through all the details of the course, what we were letting ourselves into for 4 months and what we had to achieve at the end. We took in the details of the hours of practice expected, the huge book of competencies and the final assignment, but what was worrying all of us the most was the numeracy test. It looked horrific but it was only stuff that we learnt in school and calculations of medicines that we used to do on a daily basis when we worked in the past, but because of being out of practice it was scaring the living daylights out of us all! All I can say is I’ll be doing a lot of practice papers, maths was never my strongest subject.

We were all offered places on the course and despite feeling numb with fear at the thought of it, I am strangely looking forward to starting in the beginning of June. It’s an intense course particularly because I’ve done no study or work for a long time, I will really have to pace myself so I don’t overdo it and potentially make myself ill again. But I am staying positive that I can be successful in this next journey in my life.