Geek to nurse. That’s me, although it’s not as cut and dried as all that. For twenty-odd years, I worked with computers for a living, making pixels line up to form pretty pictures, for marketing, for social networking, for communication.

Eight years ago I embarked on a slow journey to switch professions, from Bay Area web geek to registered nurse. It took time. I had no existing degree and needed to patch up the holes of my previous college experience. I worked part time, learned during the rest, savored the enduring support of my husband. I waited to get into nursing school – two years of it, attending lotteries every semester. Once in, the wait was over – nursing school was a whirlwind of intensity. I felt like I was learning through my eyes and ears, through my pores, the proverbial sponge.

During this time, my father passed away from cancer, and my mother was diagnosed with her own. She battled on and maintained her faith in me, that I would be the best nurse I could possibly be. I graduated at the end of 2009, missing my dad, swimming in the love of my husband, my mom, and our friends, ready to take the NCLEX and put my new license into use.

And the economy took a nosedive. New graduate nurses, all dedicated like me, all earnest like me, all hungry for work, like me, we flooded the marketplace. Nearly retired nurses came back to work. Soon to retire nurses, didn’t. Hospitals consolidated, invoked hiring freezes, or hired in-house only. Layoffs happened. Are still happening.

The nursing shortage exists. And at the same time, it is nearly impossible to find work as a new-graduate nurse.

I revised my plan to work and then continue with an RN to BSN program, going straight for the BSN instead through an online program. My mother’s battle with cancer deepened, grew more desperate, and I spent more of my life in the Midwest at her side. She passed mid-2011, at home, with the help of a Michigan hospice.

Things started to settle. My husband and I tackled a long held plan to move to the Pacific Northwest, to Portland, Oregon, to buy a home there and settle in with deep roots. He was, is, finishing up his own next step in education, a Masters in Fine Arts, poised to graduate in a few weeks.

I started volunteering for a local hospice. I continued my standard approach to applications – figure out the hospital job website, fill in the many form fields, create a profile, apply for the jobs that require experience because that’s all there is, and pray to be noticed amidst the many other hopefuls. And at last it became unnecessary because the hospice asked me to interview when they had an opening.

I started a few weeks ago, orienting as a Hospice RN/Case Manager. The job so far… I keep searching for the right way to describe how I feel in this work, and I think the best phrase I can choose is “heart-opening”.

I’m truly blessed to have found this work. And that’s what’s triggered me beginning this blog. I want to share the moments and lessons and experiences with the most impact on my practice and growth as a nurse and as a human being. I want to pass it on to the other nurses out there, of all levels of experience and training, and to those who might be thinking of working in hospice.

Thanks for reading.