Big Girl Shoes

Recently my aunt told me about the cutest graduation present I have ever heard and I've been dying to share it. This week presented the perfect opportunity.

When my cousin graduated from high school, my aunt wanted a really meaningful gift for her graduation, not just another gift card to Target or another set of monogrammed towels to add to the stack. So she came up with this idea of buying her some "Big Girl Shoes." She went in search of the perfect pair and ended up finding some gorgeous heels at Neiman's Last Call, they look a little like this:

So she wrote her this sweet note about growing up and becoming an adult. She talked about how the truth of the matter is that sometimes, life is hard. When you're on your own, you don't get to hide from hard things, you just have to put on your "Big Girl Shoes" and deal with it, whatever your struggle may be. She told her when it was especially hard, and she just didn't think she could do it, she should put on this pair of big girl shoes that made her feel beautiful and confident and that in them she could do anything. My cousin wore them with her cap and gown at graduation and packed them up for college ready to take on the world. How cute is that!

Well, Aunt Marcy, I could have used some Big Girl Shoes this week.

My preceptor (the nurse at the hospital I am working with) has taken the last couple of weeks off for vacation so I have been spending time working on my capstone project and going to extra classes instead of working shifts out on the floor. Our first shift back was Tuesday and I was excited to get back to clocking in hours. I got up extra early to pack my bag full of everything I needed, even made myself a lunch and brought reading material to study during down time, I was so prepared.

Now, on the labor and delivery floor, you can't wear your own scrubs. It is considered a surgical area because you have to be ready for a c-section at any given moment. Consequently, you have to change in to surgical scrubs when you get to the hospital so you don't bring in contaminants from the outside on your personal scrubs. I love this because first of all I don't have to buy or wash any ugly looking scrubs that I didn't want in the first place, the hospital takes care of it! And secondly, I get to wear my own clothes on the way to and from the hospital so if I ever have to go right to an event or make a quick stop at the grocery store, I don't feel like I'm walking around in my pajamas. I hate that feeling. So anyway Tuesday morning I get to the hospital, head back to the locker room to grab my size scrubs, change into them, and reach into my bag to discover that I didn't bring any shoes.

Yall. I came to work without SHOES! Who does that??

I looked down at the little peep toe gold slippers that I had worn into the hospital and wondered if anyone would notice if I just kept those on instead? So much for being too prideful to wear my Asics with jeans. I mean they were going to ruin my outfit... but would it really have been that bad? Maybe I could just put on some surgical shoe covers  over my flats and tell everyone I just wanted to be extra prepared for an emergency c-section? Oh wait. I work in Payson. The last time we had a code white was.....2001? Okay not really. But you know what I mean.

So I had to tell my preceptor that I had forgotten my shoes for work today. Please imagine saying that to your boss.

"I'm sorry, I don't know how this happened but I came to work without shoes today." Seriously? I mean this is a labor and delivery floor but you're taking the whole barefoot and pregnant thing to an extreme.

Possibly one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

But don't worry I have a great lunch packed and tons of reading material to study for the NCLEX when we can't find anything else to do! Yeah, worthless. And the weirdest part of it was, it threw off my groove all day. I had to borrow a random pair of shoes from the closet (luckily I remembered socks...) and for the entire shift I felt like I was watching someone else, some incompetent nurse, make all these silly mistakes, like forgetting my password for the charting system for example. Yikes.

So after my no-good-very-bad-day I had some re-evaluating to do. Can I really be a nurse if I can't even wear shoes like a normal human? And that's when I remembered the Big Girl Shoes. I don't have a pair of official Big Girl Shoes and even if I did, a twelve hour shift in heels would be a total nightmare. But I had to decide that night whether or not I could go back and face my preceptor again and prove to her that the person she saw on Tuesday was not me. That I am a competent nurse. Heck, I'm more than competent! (Or so I told myself... I had to convince myself to go back to the hospital somehow because in reality... its not actually optional...) And 7 am Wednesday morning I was right back at it. Wearing my Asics. And do you know what? It was fine.

I did assessments, I did charting, I gave meds, I took vitals, I did teaching, I checked equipment, I identified heart tones, I changed linens, and I even studied for the NCLEX.

So it okay, I'm going to be a nurse again. And I plan on buying myself this rockin' pair of big girl shoes for insurance against those bad days.... as soon as my first paycheck comes in as an RN.