I PASSED!!

I passed, I passed!!!!!!

Well, at least the "unofficial" results I had to pay $7.95 to receive say I passed! Praise the Lord!! I KNOW the Big Man was watching out for me. I had a TERRIBLE time finding the motivation to study for my NCLEX (The nursing licensure exam). There were too many other exciting things catching my attention around the house whether it was painting, cleaning, or spending time with that darn good looking husband of mine! 

Isn't he cute??

Luckily, to graduate from our program, we had to take an exit exam, which is basically a cumulative exam from all of nursing school. It is very similar to what we will see on our NCLEX exam, and we are required to pass it in order to graduate. Since I was more than ready to be in Virginia living with my husband, and not in Corpus Christi, I was super motivated to pass this exam! I also knew it would be a great review for my NCLEX, so I studied a great deal. I ended up doing very well on it, and the instructor said I was "right on track" for taking my NCLEX, which was very reassuring! When it came time to study for the real exam, I felt like I was just reviewing information I had already studied a thousand times! This was good and bad. Good because that means this wasn't the first time I was studying the material, but bad because I was bored with it and tired of studying the same material over and over.

I felt pretty good until 2 days before the exam when I started freaking myself out just a little bit. I was making myself nervous because I hadn't studied as much as I thought I would have, even though I felt prepared. I went to sleep early the night before the exam, knowing I have trouble sleeping if I'm nervous about something. I was almost asleep, then OF COURSE, several jets fly DIRECTLY over the house, 10x louder than they have ever been before... and they've been extremely loud! And it wasn't just because I was about to fall asleep the night before my big exam.. I couldn't even hear Nick talking, and his head was right next to mine!

It took me another almost 2 hours before I finally fell asleep, so I ended up getting about 6 hours total. I was tired the next morning, and all during my test. I kept praying for only 75 questions and my prayers were answered! (NOTE: The NCLEX is scored weird. You have to answer a certain number of "difficult" questions in order to stay above the "passing" line. You can have anywhere from 75-265 questions to accomplish this. If you have answered enough hard questions and have stayed above the passing mark after 75 questions, then the test shuts off. You keep going until you've answered enough to pass, unless you run out of time or questions!) If the test shuts off at 75 questions, that doesn't automatically mean you passed. You could have failed so miserably, the computer says "Wow, this girl has no hope of recovering, she should just stop now!" I felt confident enough when the computer shut off at 75, I had passed and I wasn't TOO nervous about it. And I was right!!! I'm SO relieved it is over! Now to wait for my license number so I can apply for more jobs!!

- Laura Choffel, RN, BSN :)