Climbing Mountains

On Thursday I made the very long, stressful drive to a little company called Pearson Vue. I walked into the office and waited in line, listened to their little spill about confidentiality at least 4 times, had my right index fingerprint taken 4 times, was given a white board and pen, had to turn my pockets inside out to prove they were empty, was again fingerprinted and told about confidentiality and finally told I could begin.

Sitting in front of that computer again was a little daunting. We had worked for two years so that I could take this one test. No pressure, right! For those that are not familiar with the Nclex test, it is a computerized adaptive test. It is smart enough to judge how "safe" of a nurse you will be. The test can have anywhere from 75-265 questions- all dependent upon how you answered your previous questions. Once it has determined that you will or won't be a good nurse, the computer simply turns off. When I took my LPN boards- the computer turning off made me want to cry- "I wasn't finished, please let me keep answering these awful questions!" This time when I hit question 75 all I could think was, "please turn off, please turn off, please turn off" Magically, it did!

However, then comes the 48 hours of absolute agony! I am not a patient person and waiting for test results like this is horrible. Especially since the people at Pearson Vue know how you did the minute the computer flips off- probably even before that! Ryan was, of course, confident of my success and told me numerous times that I had nothing to worry about.

Yesterday morning, the 48 hours were over and I even left work to go to my parents house and check my results. After listening to the spill about this not "being official until the license comes in the mail" and I "am not allowed to practice as a Registered Nurse until that time" the funny voice on the phone said, "Congratulations, you passed!" Whew- 2 years and the 48 hour wait is really over. I am a Registered Nurse! Our life can go on- we have climbed this huge difficult mountain and the view from the top is incredible!