GUEST POST – Juggling and Struggling – The life of a student nurse

Hello everyone! I thought I would firstly start by saying thank you to the gorgeous Cheila for giving me the opportunity to do a guest post on her blog! You are awesome!

Cheila has asked me to post about my daily life and how I manage being a mum, a student, an employee and a landlady .

I thought I would introduce myself first for those of you who have not met me before.

Hi! I am Lindsay, I am 27 (nearly 29), I’m a mum to Rose aged 5, a nearly wife to Dave, a student nurse, a landlady and a healthcare assistant. I also have a little blog Lindsayrose in which I post about everything from lifestyle to beauty to food, please head over and have a mooch!

 

Lets start with University. My course is Adult Nursing and we are required to be in University and/or on placement 45 weeks a year. Tough going for us nursing students.

I have got to be honest though being in uni is an absolute dream for me as I don’t have to worry about childcare and the hours are not your typical 9-5, it is very flexible although I have an awful lot of studying to do and usually assignments and homework with the little one, not to mention clubs. When I am on placement however its a different story, its difficult, VERY difficult so here is a day in the life of me whilst I am on placement (my busiest time).

Before the start of my 4 Long days

• Before the start of shifts which are 12.5 hours long I might add! I always make sure that the day before I have prepped meals for all four days , breakfast, lunch and Dinner so I usually spend a morning cooking so I haven’t got to worry about what my next meal will be during work.
• I will also spend an hour or two ironing all of mine and Roses uniforms for the next four days, sorting roses into days with socks vests and knickers with a different hair bow for each day. I then will take Roses bits to my sisters the night before placement starts.

Typical Day on placement/work

The alarm clock usually wakes me at around 5.45am, where I rush to the bathroom have a wash brush my teeth throw on some makeup and get dressed. I head downstairs and take whatever meals are in the fridge put them in my bag and pop them in the car.

6.10am Rose gets up, we throw on her coat and into the car we go. Luckily for me she is an early riser so I don’t usually have trouble waking her up.

6.30 am – I drop Rose at my sisters who very kindly takes her to school for me and then I eat whatever breakfast I have popped in my bag whilst on route to work.

7.30 am – The working day begins.

20.00 pm – The day is over and I head from work to my mums who usually collects Rose from school, she bathes her, feeds her and pops her in her pjs so she is ready for bed as soon as we get home.

20.45 pm – Rose is usually fast asleep by now so ill run a bath. Whilst my bath is running ill catch up on any mail that has come through the post, ill put a load of washing on and tidy through. Then its bath time!

21.30 pm – I lay out everything I need for the morning, even down to what makeup I’m using. Then ill head down stairs hang out the washing to dry and then crawl into bed. Usually on my first Long day I will text my tenant ( I have a house that I rent out) and make sure everything is ok and nothing needs doing. Then I head off to the land of Nod.

This day is repeated x4 I literally do not have a life for the four days I am on Long day shifts its hard work.

Friday comes and I have a day off yipeeee!, to be honest one of the things I miss the most about working long hours is not seeing Rose and being able to take her to school I’m even hoping to get a community nursing job when I qualify just to be able to spend more time with her.

Once Rose is dropped off at school ill head to the supermarket, do my weekly shop, scrub the house from top to bottom, iron whatever clothes have been accumulated from the washing I have done through the week and then its time to pick up rose again!.

We usually eat dinner around 17.00pm have our baths pretty much straight after and then Dave comes home from work for the weekend! Then Rose is off to bed at 18.30 and me and Dave just relax and catch up. We barely speak in the week because our schedules are so busy.

Saturday is my free day, we usually make plans to do something together and enjoy our day because on a Sunday I go back to the hospital were I am working my placement (40 hours a week for FREE) and I work a long day as a healthcare assistant to earn some money. Sunday night is then usually staying up and doing all my food prep if I haven’t managed to get it done on the Saturday.

As you can probably guess my life is a constant whirlwind of different things going on, it is super difficult trying to juggle everything all of the time and there is just no possible way I would have been able to go to University and embark on this career if it wasn’t for my mum and sister who are fantastic helping out with Rose.  I just feel sad that i cant be there every day to look after her myself because i am looking after someone else’s daughter, mother, son, husband ect. And of course Dave who supports me in every single way. I just hope once I qualify in February that he can maybe get a job closer to home or its going to be a permanent long term struggle for us.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Thanks for reading

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