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

x

 

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Confessions

Hello dear friends,

I have some confessions to make, things that live in my mind and that you might like to know, in order to get to know me better. Some are fun, some are sad, but they all come from this crazy mind of mine. There you go:

• I always get in the shower promising myself that I will put on moisturizer after I finish showering but I never do. I mean, of course I put on moisturizer. Once a month?

• There are days when I don’t drink any water. I completely forgot. Healthy, right?

• I have been known to forget my students. More than once someone has called me or showed up at my office when I wasn’t there, or when I was there, teaching someone else. Sometimes I forget their names too. They seem to like me anyway, as they bring me gifts all the time and are usually super nice.

• When I look myself in the mirror, I hate myself. I think “oh my, you have completely let yourself go. You’re fat and squishy and you have so many stretch marks that your body resembles a road map”

• I envy people who have nice, long fingernails, with a perfect manicure. I eat mine for lunch. I wish I could look that put together.

• I hate Cristiano Ronaldo.

• I always think that my all my friends love each other more than they love me. I have had the same thought for eight years.

• Sometimes I accidentally kick or punch my dog and I feel really guilty but then she licks me like “it’s okay mom”.

• I’m ashamed to eat in public. If I eat a salad, people might thing “Oh, look at that little fat girl, at least she’s trying” and if I eat a pizza they might think “Look at that fat pig, stuffing herself”

• Sometimes I ignore people’s calls on purpose. Just because I don’t feel like talking at that moment.

• I’m finishing my degree just to finish my degree. My dream has always been and will always be to be a doctor. Can I live without pursuing that dream? I don’t think so. What am I going to do? I wish I knew.

• I hate when people touch my food. Unless I offer.

• I have had my heart broken real bad. It still hurts after seven years.

• I miss all the people I used to be friends with but am no longer in touch. For me, people don’t just stop being my friends. Even if they disappear from my life. I wish I could get them all back.

• When I go to the pharmacy for my prescriptions I feel ashamed to be buying 8 different depression related pills.

• When I ride a bus, I never sit because I’m afraid to take too much space. I know I’m not THAT fat but I don’t want to touch people or bother them.

• I’m afraid to change in front of Rui. I do it out of habit but I’m afraid he might find me disgusting because I’m so different from how I was when we first started dating.

• I think my friends think I’m a little crazy, should not take so many pills and that they don’t understand my depression at all. I think that they believe I could do something about it if I tried really hard. Please tell them I can’t?

• I could never buy condoms if I had to. I would die of shame. I am ashamed to buy tampons or pads if the register person is a man.

• I’ve only farted in front of my boyfriend after 4 years. So… this month. I’m so disappointed. I thought I was a lady and only farted in front of my sister and dog.

• I really want to be a mother. If it was for me I would be pregnant right now. But we don’t have the ideal financial situation (at all), my health is a mess and I cannot start a pregnancy 30 kg overweight.

• I wish I had the energy I had when I was younger, just a few years back. At one point I was a tutor, taught Literature at a senior citizen university, worked at H&M, was at school, was a baby-sitter for 2 or 3 hours from Monday – Friday and did freelance translations. Now I have work and university and my house and all seems too much. Back then, whatever came up, I would do it. I was involved in a million projects.

• Blogging has filled a whole in my life that I had for a long time. I always felt something was missing and blogging has taken that feeling away. It’s one of the most important things in my life right now and I take it very seriously.

• I want another dog. Or a cat. Or guinea pigs. But ideally a dog to keep Rosa company. Again, we don’t have the money or the ideal situation for that.

• I feel that, in life, I always get the short end of the stick. Since I was a child. I never get what I want, life always kicks my but.

• I envy those 25-year-old married women, mothers of five. I know people judge them, but I admire them. I’ve always wanted to be a young mom of many. And to get married young.

• I hate Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Flies, every Lord.

• I had 5 years of French. Can I speak? Baguette.

• I’m more afraid of the gynecologist than the dentist. It freaks me out.

• I would like to be a stay-at-home mom and home-school but people don’t do that in my country/culture. They would say I don’t want to work and would call me weird for keeping my kids away from school or regular education. Come on, I teach other people’s kids…

• I’m afraid of so many things but I’m deeply afraid of death, tragedies, criticism and failure.

• I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be at 25. I feel guilty for that.

 

And I guess that’s it for today, my dear friends. Get to know a little of my mind and heart. Would you like to confess something?

Love you all. xo