Fire In the Belly.

Last October a friend asked me to train their daughter how to intubate while they filmed it for their daughter's high school senior project.  Since I was the only person they knew with access to a high-fidelity human patient simulator it was worth the two hour drive for them. Since I love teaching it was worth going in on a Saturday; a life-changing Saturday, as it happened. 

Life is dull without change.

The session was a blast, they got some great footage, we celebrated with lunch after at a hidden gem serving Columbian food close by.  Over empanadas, my friend asked if I'd ever considered becoming a nurse anesthetist (CRNA), a population she worked with everyday as a recruiter for travelling CRNAs. "You're a natural teacher; so much of your job would be educating and calming patients before surgery, after a few years of practice you could teach in a CRNA school" she said.

"I'm here for you."

 

 I was nearly done with my BSN and had been giving some serious thought to the next level of nursing education.  My options included nurse practitioner (NP), nurse educator (MSN-E), clinical nurse specialist (CNS), and nurse anesthetist.  I'd eliminated CNS for being too theory-focused, MSN-E for being too stodgy & political, Both CRNA and NP had appealing practical aspects - doing things rather than discussing them - but NP had the advantage of international shortages, government financial assistance, and - most importantly - immediate enrollment. CRNA required 18 months of recent ICU experience, meaning a two-year delay in matriculation. True, I'd never met a CRNA who didn't love their job, and I knew from my Coast Guard experience that outpatient care done by NPs was largely a sisyphean grind of sniffles & coughs but the immediate gratification of starting a program now outweighed my reservations - I'd pretty much decided on an NP career. Besides, CRNAs were smart people. 

 "You should definitely think about it, you would be great" my friend told me.

I thought about it a lot.  I asked everyone I knew about it.  Every one of them said "That's a great idea - I would let you put me to sleep in a heartbeat!"  Their trust in my professional skills was a little unnerving - I didn't share the same view - but the consistency of their answers lit a little spark in my belly.  Really?  Could I?  I thought about all the nurses I'd known who'd become CRNAs.  I realized if they could, I could.  I did the research, crunched the numbers, reached out to old hospital contacts, dusted off my stethescope, unpacked my scrubs, put in my sim lab notice, started working bedside in the ICU again, the fire growing a little more each day. It felt like everything in my life was leading to this point, like I'd finally decided what I wanted to be when I grow up.  It's going to be long, gruelling, and expensive.  I will doubt my choice and abilities ten thousand times before I graduate, ten thousand more, after.  

Lord willing, I will do this.

I will coalesce 20 years of education, training, experience, and ability into aquiring skills to safely eliminate the pain and memory of surgery, a scientific advance nearly as important as the discovery of penicillin for quality & quantity of life.

“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.”  - Nietze