The beginnings

She lives in Florida, went to DSC, works in an ER. I live in Kansas, went to MNU, work on a PCU. How exactly did we become the kind of friends we are? Well... that is a story...

Back in seventh grade we all lived in a smallish kansas town. We were both homeschooled all the way through, and it was time for our town's homeschool graduation. We were the official escorts for the 8th graders graduating. I was there with my best friend at the time, Liz, and then RaDonna was the third escort. It was the first time we had met. She refused to talk to us. We tried talking to her, she didn't really respond, and Liz and I gave up and did what best friends do, ignored everyone else. A couple of months later her and her sisters started a play, Anne of Green Gables. My group of friends were all in it, so I joined as well. That began the friendship of RaDonna, her sisters and myself. Over the next couple of years my family started attending their church, we started doing more and more together, and at some point she became the person in the world who got me. By the time I headed off to college a couple of hours away she became the friend I missed the most. When she moved to Florida with her family partway through freshman year of college, I cried. When I about lost my mind that spring, playing backgammon with her on IM was the main thing that pulled me through. We have talked each other through years of school, clinicals, the highs and lows that only someone who has experienced nursing school can understand. Last year I graduated, and she flew in for a grand total of 36 hours to watch my pinning ceremony, before she went to texas to say goodbye to her dad who was leaving for Iraq. This week I flew in for her pinning ceremony, and I just about burst out crying through the whole thing.

We made it, RaDonna. We are finally done.

Being a new nurse is terrifying. I know this, she is going to figure it out soon. The constant fear that you will screw up because honestly, I don't know near enough to do this job, can be cripling if you think about it. This blog is so we can share our thoughts, fears, experiences. So on the exciting days when something went right I can write about it and she can celebrate with me. On the days when everything went wrong, she can write about it and I can comiserate.

This is us, figuring it out.