101 - Shea Mollahan Pt 2: Well-Grounded, Milking Life for All It’s Worth

Continue with relatively recent graduate and Northern California and Spokane, Washington native Honored Guest Shea Mollahan as she describes fun facts about cows, her incredible answer to “why nursing?”, how she chose her university, navigating challenges in nursing school, crybaby kidneys, her disdain for ATI, not getting the practicum you want, and more!

Contact us:
mystory@feedingouryoung.org to be featured on a future episode
q@feedingouryoung.org to send a question for possible inclusion in a future episode
thanks@feedingouryoung.org to send a note of appreciation to any of our honored guests - let them know how they touched you - I'll make sure they read your praises!
info@feedingouryoung.org to send any other inquiries
+1 509 ALL THEM (509-255-8436) text/voicemail line

Follow us:
@feedingouryoungllc Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube
@foyllc Twitter/X

Many thanks:
Jon Holland (Jomarkho - found on SoundCloud, Spotify, and the like) Music - intro/outro/sting composition
10com Web Development Logo and website design

Transcript

0:03

So anyone who is listening to the Shea Mollahan Experience Part 2, if you haven't figured it out already and if you're not a long time listener, go to any of our two-parters and just listen to the intro of the second part because most of our honored guests do something fun. This one we couldn't come up with anything off the fly so was like, well Shea, you're a talker. Talk. And so she did. I think you did a great job. What do you think? Thank you, I definitely felt the prep I'm not gonna lie that the pressure that I felt was the intro not not podcast that intro, but I think I nailed it beautiful someone who's been through nursing school and is a practicing NICU nurse times one year. whatever I can do to just add to that pressure, Shea, that's what I'm here for. Yeah, you know, it's always pressure makes the best people. I don't really know where I was going. Awesome. Okay, so in that intro though, you do say that you can talk about anything and everything under the sun. So what is your position on cows? On cows, you know, I actually was driving from Montana the other day and we were looking up different types of cows and I didn't know that a heifer was a cow that has not had children yet. Yep. And then a steer is a bull that can no longer make babies. And then there's bulls and then there's just normal cows that have had babies. But I know I was learning all about cows. So that's my stances on cows that they're cool and colorful and I like the fluffy ones. Um, I'm kind of, okay, so first of all, I didn't know those facts either. Second of all, Shea, you can testify, I did not prep you for that question. And so I asked her about cows and boom, there we are. She's got a two minute soliloquy on cows. Okay, what is your position on, no, I'm just kidding, all right. So because we're doing things backwards now, so I wanted to make sure we talked about the things that you wanted to talk about. And now we ask the mundane questions that everybody gets asked. But no, because I love part of the whole purpose of this is we get to hear your story. And being a talkative soul and someone who's very positive, let's find out how you got to that place. So let's start with the catch-all. Why nursing? Where did that come to be? Honestly, that is a great question because I don't, I mean I have my ideas but I don't know how I stuck with it for so long. I guess my why of getting into nursing is a personal story of how a nurse has influenced my life. I actually was a NICU baby. I was in the NICU, also part of Lucy's story. We're just the same person. Wow. Yeah, sorry everybody. This is, we're catfishing you now. It's just one person who's pretending to be Lucy and Shea. It's fantastic. In Lucy has two voices and I'm the second voice. Okay, so now I can't title it Shea Mollahan. has to be Lucy the second, Lucy's second voice, AKA, wait, sorry, say that again? Lucy Rash the second. Yeah. ladies and gentlemen, Lucy Rash the second. I'm sorry I misintroduced you on the first one. Gosh. Okay. But I actually was a NICU baby. Fast forward a week before I was born. My mom was doing, hosting a gala at the school that my older siblings went to. And she had met a bunch of people at this gala. End of story. Fast forward to me being born. I started turning blue. I was a turned baby. I just wasn't able to breathe properly. And so I was sent to the NICU and I was there for quite a couple of hours before my mom was updated and then my mom was wheeled in her little wheelchair up to the NICU and walking in there was a nurse, I don't know if I'm allowed to say her name, but for the sake of the podcast I'll say her name's Jamie. Jamie was actually a woman that my mom had met at the gala a week prior to me being born and immediately my mom was rolled in and just had this sense of relief that her baby girl was okay and my mom describes Jamie as her as her angel, her guardian angel. And for three nights, Jamie took care of me and was just super comforting to my mom and supportive and made her just feel safe and content knowing that her baby girl was gonna be okay. And then I was discharged from the hospital. I just, I call myself a jumpstart baby and I still. to the babies in the NICU that are only there for a couple days to the parents as jumpstart babies. Oh, I love it. Yeah. a jumpstart. But I actually ended up attending the same school that Jamie's sons attended. And so I saw her outside of the hospital, grown up, and she was just the sweetest person to me and would go out of her way to say hi and wish me a happy birthday and everything. She was just incredible. I had, I mean, I was... tiny at this point, but apparently it just left the biggest imprint on me and for as long as I can remember and as long as my mom can remember, I knew I wanted to be a NICU nurse because I just thought the best way to pay forward everything that Jamie did for me would be to do to someone else and give parents and my patients just the same level of comfort and love and support during a really difficult time. So that's kind of my why. of why I got into nursing is just paying forward what the amazing experience I had was with my nurse at the beginning of my life. Oh, the one who helped jumpstart you, really. Jamie the Jump Starter, that's her name. Hopefully someday Jamie somehow stumbles upon this and hears you say that. I just, I love those stories. And for those that are listening, if you are a long time listener, you know that we send out these little forums and like, hey, here's some ideas of things you can talk about, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Shea did not, she's one of the ones that does not fill hers out. She's like, pshh. I'll talk, I'm good, we're ready to go. So I had no idea what's coming. This is what I love. Like this is now the part of the vanity project is this is one of the rare cases where I just get to ask questions I want to know the answer to and I'm finding out alongside you guys that heifers don't have have not had a baby. So they don't know about jump-started cows or anything calves. I don't anyway. All right. Bye. So incredibly, and I don't want to take away, the absolutely inspirational story about why you wanted to become a nurse, and that is so fantastic. that ever, like for you, that ever waver? Did you ever like, well, maybe I should be a teacher, or was it like, no, this is what I want to do, and that's just what you've done. Honestly, the second option, I mean, there are probably definitely some points in high school when everyone's like different ideas of what they want to be. I'm like, wait, should I reconsider and look at all the other options? But I mean, junior year, I started applying to colleges specifically, sorting out universities that had nursing programs and then I got into nursing school and I was like, well, there's no turning back now. I'm in it. I'm in it for the long haul. That's that's amazing. You know, it's funny you mentioned that. A memory that I haven't thought of in a while. But in high school, same thing. Like I wanted to become a doctor when I grew up. I'd make no bones about that and blah, blah, And yes, I've talked about like dovetailing into the ministry for a couple of years and then dovetailing out of that. And anyway, that's how I ended up in nursing. So a little bit later start. But in high school, even though was dead set, medical field, like all the way, doctor, provider, something, I don't know, like I want in the medical field. Senior year, junior, senior year, I took a DECA class. like, I want to see what business is like and that sort of thing. Because my grandfather, he had his own advertising agency that he worked up from the bottom and ended up being a partner in it and all the things. So I was like, advertising, that sounds kind of fun. You can be creative and you can, know, all these things. So I flirted with it for a little bit. You know what mean? Yeah. then you were from Northern California. doing the math. And you ended up at Washington State University here in Spokane. How'd that happen? You know what I mean? I'm sure there were plenty of colleges in California, let alone closer to you, than little old Spokane in Washington. Yeah, honestly, um, I didn't look at a single California school mainly because the ones that I wanted to go to I could not get into And then the ones that I could get into I could not afford so Yes, so California was no longer an option for me I also wanted to get out California. I was like four years to live somewhere that I've never lived before and possibly might never live again. Did not happen. I'm still in Spokane. But I just was like, had the opportunity to get out and try something new and experience something new. And so I decided to start looking. I wanted to stay on the West Coast looking at schools. I wanted to stay close to family. And I was looking at Oregon and see I was looking at Oregon State, but they don't have a nursing program. And Oregon was off the table, obviously. My parents were ducks. I mean, not ducks, they were beavers. So we obviously didn't like the ducks. I love that I actually didn't even look at Oregon because my sister was a beaver and I was just like, it's not even an option. I cannot be a duck. Exactly. Sorry to all the ducks out there. Yeah, I'm gonna get on that. This'll be good, you know, down the road, everybody be like, man, I'd love to get this honored guest on it. Like, no, I heard your episode was shey. Exactly, but I and then I was looking at UW and just found love with WSU and I actually looked at Boise too, but I didn't want to do a four and a half year program which Boise was and then I ended up doing a four and a half year program at WSU. I cracked up, but it's funny how life works. But I went and visited Boise and I went and visited WSU and I loved Washington State. I liked the big college feel but the small community. And I liked the sense of camaraderie. I mean, I can go anywhere wearing my Coug shirt and I will get it. Cougs. I could be in Europe. I've not happened before, but it truly is. But I loved it. I loved my time there and I love the nursing school. So I have no regrets where I went to college and I'm very thankful for my opportunity to go there. Go Cougs. I miss teaching there, even though I didn't do it for very long. It's just a fantastic, and yeah, the nursing school's on the Spokane campus. So anyone that looks up Wazzu or anything like that, they're actually based in Pullman. The main campus is in Pullman, Washington. But the nursing school portion of it, that is on the Spokane campus. And so I have no attachment to Pullman or Wazzu in that regards. can't even like... I don't feel like I'm part Kug, you know what I mean? Like can't claim 100%, yeah. But it is like legit 100%, one of my wife's best friends, really good friends in their group, a couple of them, they come from Wazzu. And it's, they go to the games still, they go to the, you know what I mean? I mean, it is like, you're in, you're in. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the same thing between like beavers ducks, right? Like you're not gonna, you know what I mean? And the whole Cougs- Huskies thing. Yeah, very real. Being a product of both sides of the state, I can definitely testify to that fact. Anyway, so with all of that, so wonderful, so that's how you ended up at Wazzu. Now, take us through your nursing school experience. Like, you've already talked about, you don't even need mental health specifically during nursing school, but I mean, going all the way back to, well, really, you are going all the way back about five years for when you're starting. and then the four and a half years, so five and a half years, but those four years in nursing school, what do you remember most about that? What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you work through those? I think my probably I'll start with my undergraduate in Pullman. My first two years were definitely probably not everyone's experience. I did go through nursing school or I went through my undergraduate was during COVID. So that was a whole shift of experience of I'm very thankful I didn't have nursing school during COVID. I mean, I hit the tail end of it when I started, but at WSU in Pullman, I went through COVID. So all of my classes were online. and it was definitely a very isolating experience. I think as everyone experienced during COVID, um, a level of isolation, especially during such a difficult, I mean, I was taking like microbiology, like the harder classes, like anatomy, physiology, online. And So it was definitely a shift of having to wear and how to do stuff online. And I love having professors in person and being able to ask questions. And I don't know, I feel like there's more of being able to connect and ask the questions you want to versus over the online. Also, no one talks in classes in general, I feel like. But online, I don't know what it is. I mean, you're on a camera and half the time you can't even see your face, but no one speaks on these things. there's just like no meeting new people, all of this stuff. So that was kind of like my first experience at WSU. And then shifting to nursing school. I feel like everyone always talked about how hard nursing school was. And I never understood what they meant by that. They're like, oh, it's such a difficult time. And I'm like, I don't know what that means. Like, please elaborate. And it wasn't until I got into it that I was like, oh, wow, it's just, especially J1, it's like a whirlwind. It's just such But I, during my first, like during J1, I only had my clinical group because those are really the only people you could hang out with because COVID was still kind of going on. So those were the people you spent all of your time with. And so I, we trauma bonded, like we said, I still keep in touch with majority of those people from J1, but they were like my group, my support system. They, were the people that we would have a group message and be like, do we have class this week? Do we have a test this week? Does anyone know how, what this question means? Like it was just such a family community during J1 and honestly throughout it, but then I kind of branched out and met other people. But J1 was truly like where I met my little group and we just like supported each other through the first semester of nursing school. I don't even remember what the question was. I'm just kind of ranting. It legit was just talk about nursing school. Like what was your nursing school experience like? You're hitting it perfectly. Yeah, it was just a whirlwind. And I am very thankful for the people that I had. And it was just such, it was such an experience that I'm very grateful for. Yeah, COVID definitely made things a little crazy, but you, I mean, nursing in general, you just have to learn to adapt. And it was really, the proof was in the pudding that we had to learn how to adapt. So it was great. And I loved my first clinical instructor. He was definitely, little scary if you're listening to this we appreciate you so much and I but he was just he had he had such a high expectation from all of us and I we all really wanted to like prove to him that we could do this and like live up to those expectations but I mean he was also an incredible instructor that taught like I still remember his diagram of the kidneys and he would call the kidneys the crybabies. I just remember, like, I still remember this and this was three years ago, but Yeah, I'll never forget the kidney diagram that he drew on the whiteboard and he talked about the kidneys being crybabies. But I mean, there's just those little moments throughout nursing school that just like you get and they just stick with you throughout nursing school. And that was one of them and he was one of them and he was an incredible instructor. I'm just rambling. it's so it's I love nursing school. It was such a great it was such a and I'm talking about it but it's such a pivotal point in my life. Yeah. Well, and that was, now I'm remembering, because you're like, well, am I even addressing what we were talking, what was the original question? But the sub question on that was, were there any challenges you faced? And it sounds like the primary one was basically navigating through COVID. Yeah, navigating through COVID and just like nursing school is difficult and people always said that and I think the hardest part for me throughout nursing school was just the time management of it all. I think yes, it was hard and yes, the classes were difficult, but I mean, there were difficult classes that I had throughout my undergraduate or even in high school or things that I struggled with regardless and I think those were easier for me than the amount of classes that I had, the time consuming studying hours, and just finding those moments to focus on my mental health and have those moments with my friends or find little areas to do those things. Because for those two years, I wouldn't say that I was the most social person ever. It really was like me and my roommates in a little cocoon and we hid there for two years and awesome, these beautiful butterflies once we graduated. But yeah, I think that was probably the hardest part was just figuring it out and not necessarily school or the test. Actually, I guess the test because I was a straight A student and having to not be a straight A student anymore. Some people still were, but I was not one of those. Wait, so you were a straight A student before nursing school. How about in pre-reqs? Yep, still straight As. So yeah, you're like, boom, I got this. I know how to learn. I can do all the things. I can pass the test. And then you hit nursing school and the train just flies off the tracks. Yeah, because of ATI. And I will say that. Every answer is correct, but there's one that's more correct. And that will be in my head for the rest of my life. And I actually went to a bookstore the other day. And of course, there's like five ATI books in this bookstore. Like it's a reusable bookstore. So I was going through it, looking at the questions and I'm like, I will never do this again. and book closed. We are not purchasing that book. And those stories. Thanks for playing. No, and I think that's fantastic. You're like giving all these wonderful visuals, you you guys in this cocoon and then you blossom into beautiful butterflies. Even the crybabies, the kidneys, this crybabies, I've never heard that. That's fantastic. don't, dude, so crazy. And when you said that, it brought up a memory that I haven't thought of in a very long time. And it's when I first started community college, not over here. for the nursing degree, but when I first started, originally prereqs for pre-med and all the things. And it was... I don't remember if it was a biology class or I can't remember exactly what it was, but it had, we touched on human anatomy, but it wasn't anatomy and physiology. And I'll never forget this instructor professor. was, the guy was an eccentric fellow, but man, could he teach, right? But you you run into those instructors that have their like thing, they hang their hat on, right? Like the hill they're gonna die on. And I try not to be one of those instructors and yet I'm finding that. Okay, so I tell my students, I'm like, I'm sorry, yeah, guess this is the one thing that I'm gonna keep harping on. But his thing was, I'll never forget, he was always like, the stomach is functionally outside the body. And if you don't remember anything else in my class, I want you to remember that. Well, kudos to him, he's a great teacher, because here I am now, you know what I mean, 20 plus years later, talking about how the stomach is functionally outside the body. And I mean, he did the whole, back legit chalkboard drew the like he drew the GI tract and was like look it's it's outside like food goes in your mouth and out the back you know he went through the whole thing and he's like it never goes like yeah you you you absorb nutrients but it's it's outside the body and we're like but no it's inside that no it's outside the butt okay all right so Welcome this very special second episode where we just dove tail into all sorts of things. Awesome. Anything else you wanted to share about nursing school at all, clinicals, practicum, anything like that. don't think anything clinicals. I think clinicals is definitely difficult in the sense of just it's hard being a student and sometimes your preceptors don't enjoy having you or aren't the greatest nurses you'll ever meet and that's okay. And I remember during nursing school I was just always told, know, you learn who you what type of nurse you don't want to be and that's always really stuck with me and I still experience that today. and then practicum. It is okay if you don't get the practicum you want. What? Are you kidding? I know it's the end of the world. And it truly felt like that, to be honest for me. I wanted the NICU obviously and I didn't get it being on the float pool at Seattle Children's and I know the float pool Seattle Children's and the vascular access team for my practice. I know. And trust me, I still have that thought sometimes but I have learned so much about like infiltrates and all the different things with IVs, central lines, cleanings, what you're looking out for, vesicans, like everything. I still use that in my, in the NICU, because sometimes we get infiltrates and I'm like, why days? We're gonna use it. So, I mean, you just, it's just, you go with it and I ended up in the NICU regardless of what my practicum was. So, it's okay to not be where you wanna be because in the end you'll end up where you want. And I guess the lesson for life is, it's actually okay to not get what you want necessarily all the time. Isn't that weird? Yeah. And in fact, there's the old adage too, that be careful what you ask for, because sometimes you will get it. exactly. Exactly. No, that's amazing. So a couple other little just like getting to know Shea questions before we round up. And so with that, just you are anyone who has spent the last 50, where I think we're at 60 minutes total between the two of us flapping our gums. Me flapping my gums, you saying very pointed, smart and intelligent things. that, and you know about cows, like come on, you can't be more intelligent than that, like come on. Dr. Google, on the way. home from Montana. Which makes sense because you do see a lot of cows from Montana. But that being said, so very inspiring person, obvious. You know very inspiring people, obvious. Who inspires you? honestly, my mom is probably one of my biggest inspirations. she is just truly one of the strongest people I've ever met in my life. She had been dealt quite a couple difficult cards. At one point, she was a single mother raising five children. And yes, and the fact that all five of us have come out to be some pretty great human beings has is just such a telling, a telling thing of the woman that she is. She is so resilient and loving and caring, regardless of how difficult the life she is living. And she is just such an inspiration to me. I'm like, this is the part that it's I'm mumbling about of like how to talk about my mother because I just love her so much. And she's my best friend. And there were times in high school and middle school where I think everyone has a tiff with their parents and aren't great friends with them. But I am now 23 and she's probably one of my best friends who I go to with everything. Even my hard days at nursing, which a lot of stuff she probably doesn't understand, but she is just such a comforting person to sit and talk to about my problems that it just is, she's incredible. And she's someone who really inspires me both in my personal life and in my career life as well. Yeah. that's amazing. And you're welcome to name dropper. What's your name? Kelly. Kelly. Hats off to Kelly. That's amazing because, I mean, as the son of a single mom as well, that is granted. I don't know what that feels like. I don't, I'm not a single mom. I might be a male postpartum nurse, but I can't make the transition to single mother. Um, that being said, not knowing how that feels being when you are a child of a single mom, you do. you see the work that goes in there and you see the endless hours of just putting up with our crap, right? Like that's... That poor woman. I apologize to her for all of the sins. So is there anything you want to share also about... So kudos to you, Kelly, kudos to you. Every single mom out there, just absolutely amazing, no matter what you're doing and no matter if you feel amazing or if you think you're amazing or you think you're just the worst person in the world, because I guarantee you, someone knows you are not. You are absolutely doing the work of, you know, two people or really what... mean, they say it takes a village to raise, you know, to do anything. Yeah. So you're doing the work of one village just all by yourself. No big deal. So before we get into our standard ending questions and all the things, you mentioned you have multiple siblings. Anything you want to share about them that they wouldn't mind you sharing? Like that's five kids and a single mom. How does that work? It was, it's a lot. I mean, I think my older sister is, gosh, let me think. I think she's 11 years. It's a 11 year difference between my older sister and my youngest brother. I'm directly in the middle. I have an older sister, an older brother, a younger sister, a younger brother. And I love them. I love having a big family. I love having built-in best friends. I attribute my personality to them. I think I have a little piece of each and every one of them that is just shoved into who I am. And I am so grateful for them. I can go to each of them for different things. They're all such different people, but such amazing people. And they're all kind of scattered all over the place. And that's probably the hardest part about so many siblings. I have one in Washington. I have one in Texas. I have one in Scotland and I have one in California. What? Scott like Scott no offense to the other siblings what's the sibling doing in Scotland? She is just the little adventure bug. my goodness. She is actually getting her masters at the University of Glasgow. What else do? And she's looking to get her PhD there possibly. she's just a little smarty pants and she's also another inspiration to me. She's just in Scotland living her best life abroad by herself, meeting all new people and experiencing a whole different life. Yeah, she's pretty incredible too. Well, just hats off to the entire family. Can't wait to go to your next family reunion, so thanks for inviting me. Yeah, I'll let you know the dates and times and we'll see. I'll just, you know, Kelly, I'm, I've an honorary, I don't know, I don't want to say son because I feel like that would take away from your siblings and you, so I don't know, like seventh cousin, twice removed, something like that. Okay, love it. So on the subject of numbers, seventh cousin, twice removed, and all the things, I didn't want to lead off with this, but I did want to let you know, I didn't want to start off because I didn't want to inflate your ego. But Your episode is episode number 100 of Feeding Our Young. Oh that makes me so happy, I'm so honored. so honored to have you be the 100th episode. I, you know, hopefully we got 100 more in us, but by golly, this is it. We've peaked everybody. We've learned about cows. I'm so glad we talked about cows on the hundredth episode. Are you kidding? You can't have a 100th episode without talking about cows. Exactly. That's like substandard for 100 episode podcasts across the nation. Right? Like isn't there like, what is it, like 200 or 300 episodes of TV for you to be like to go into syndication or something like that? Yeah. So you have to, a hundred episodes. You have to talk about cows. All right. That's a new rule. my gosh. But anyway, I had to let you know. And thank you. It is an honor to have you be in the hundredth guests or a hundredth guests, hundredth episode of Feeding Our Young. So on that note, if you'd give us the... 100th closing, as it were. I guess it's not really the 100th closing, because when you have double episodes, you don't have the standard closing in the first one, but I digress. You talked about three words that you used to describe nursing school that you were in so long ago. What were those words, and why did you choose them? My three words were demanding, eye-opening, and pivotal. I guess I'll start with demanding. I kind of had touched it. OK, well, I will be starting with demandings. I kind of touched on it a little bit about not really knowing what people were talking about getting into nursing school and saying it was super difficult. It's just really time consuming. It's a lot of energy and effort towards something, but it was something that I enjoyed. I mean, that's kind how I knew I was doing the right thing is I was learning about the craziest things that honestly didn't even pertain to the NICU, but I still loved learning. Like I loved Learning something new about the body or the different medications or how the medications worked in the body and I still love that about my career But it took a lot of energy it took a lot of work and it took a lot of time and I wasn't I wasn't necessarily familiar with the amount of time that it would take and it I'm very grateful for the friends that I got throughout nursing school because they were the ones that helped keep me focused and Caitlin roommate during nursing school My goodness, she would sit on, so we lived in like a townhouse and I like the third, the second floor was the living room area and Caitlin would be down there all the time because she had a little dachshund named Winston. He's a kitty. Winston, everybody knows Winston, and if you don't know Winston, go back and listen to Caitlin's episode because Winston's just adorable. Yes, he is. But she would always be sitting there and sometimes she would just grab out her computer and I'm like, are you studying? And she's like, yes. And I'm like, well, shoot, I should probably study too. And it was just stuff like that where like you just kept each other accountable. And I mean, you learned different ways of studying. My goodness, I am not a textbook reader by any means. I am going to share a little secret. I did not buy any of the textbooks in nursing school. dun dun dun scandal on episode 100 of Feeding Our Young. Yes. No, but I didn't. I think I bought one textbook and it was the Davis Drug Guide. And I still don't use it. But you can find free PDFs online. Don't let your school do- My Davis drug guide, I held onto it for so many years. You know how many times I cracked that open after nursing school? Now granted, we did have one on the Peds Oncology Unit that we would use in conjunction with what we had online, but in the same token. Yeah, not so much. really as much. But that's okay. And then I'm trying to think of what else I have done. Yeah, I think that's it with demanding. But I... yeah, back to... See, this is what happens when I just go down a rabbit hole. I never use the textbooks, but I never... That's not how I studied. I was not able to read textbooks and gain knowledge. I was a big Quizlet person. I was a big talk through the diseases and how they worked with my friends. And my study buddies, which helped me a lot. Honestly, talking through and educating were two of my biggest things that helped me get through nursing school. But finding that out of what worked well for me through nursing school was hard too. My second word was eye opening. I think I was so passionate about starting in the NICU. I knew I'd want to do NICU for as long as I can remember. And then I caught into nursing school and I was kind of like... There are so many avenues to nursing that you can do. You can do inpatient, you can do outpatient, you can do management roles, you can do leadership roles, you can do education roles. There is just an infinite amount of options you can do in nursing, which was super appealing, and I never really realized that. And so when I got into nursing school, I was like, holy cow, what do I, holy cow, cows, there it goes, it connects. Holy cow! But there's so many different avenues you can take. I ended up still going into the NICU because I did my clinical rotation in S1 and I loved it so much that I didn't want to leave. I didn't even want to go on lunch during my days in the NICU. But I'm very thankful for that and being so eye-opening has allowed me to realize like what I truly love to do and doesn't make me feel stuck. Like I can go into, if I don't want to do NICU anymore, I can go into any of the other fields, which is such an exciting thing. Like most careers you can't do that. And so I'm so grateful for that. I think that's my second word. And then my last word is Nursing school is, is and was the most pivotal point in my life. I think throughout my first couple years of college and throughout high school, I definitely struggled with finding my people. I definitely had friends that I don't think that I look back on and I'm very thankful for their friendship, but I probably wouldn't be friends with them today. And I remember my mom would always tell me like, you would find your people in nursing school. And I never believed her because I was like, I haven't found my people so far. And I still I have my close friends, I'm going to shout them out because I do love them. And I have three great friends from my hometown that I'm grateful for. And I still do. But outside of that, like finding my groups in college and stuff was hard for me. And then I got to nursing school and I have found some of my best friends. And like my best friends, I had my three roommates that I lived with all throughout nursing school. And I had my one friend who I love very much. And I am, I'm very thankful for finding my people because it's hard living in a world where I sometimes can be more, How do I word this? In college, I definitely didn't align with a lot of the values of why people were going to college. I was very much set to get into nursing school and was very adamant that I had to get in. And not all people go to college in the beginning for those reasons. And that's where we all start in the beginning. So getting to nursing school and meeting people that were anywhere from the age of my age, 21 to 40 years old and being able to connect with them and. just have such great similarities and meet such incredible people and then also find something that I'm super passionate about, my job, my career, and forever wanting to advance in that has been the most rewarding thing I think that I've had so far in my life at the age of 23. So I'm very thankful for nursing school and honestly for starting my life in that point in time. Yeah. Man. Again, I can't even, like, I'm doing the thing. And you make me want to do the thing. You know what mean? Like, that's just so inspiring. Thank you, Shea. So, I don't know what happened. Somebody heard you say cows and they were like, this is amateur hour. I don't know what's going on. They are going off the rails this episode. I'm just skipping to the end. Yeah. you have one piece of advice that you want to give nursing students that you want them to walk away with for the rest of their lives, like crybaby kidneys or stomach spaying out functionally outside the body. What's the one thing that you want your listeners to walk away with? I think the one thing that I wish that I had more of in nursing school that I want these listeners to walk away with is be confident in yourself. There are moments in nursing school and in nursing where you will feel like you're not doing the right thing. And you will make mistakes in nursing school and you'll make mistakes in nursing and that's just life. We're all human and learning to know that you are smart and it's okay to make mistakes and you will continue to grow because the amount of times that I've made tiny mistakes in my career so far that I'm like, okay, well, I'm never doing that again. And I'll sit there and do the thing that I made the mistake on. I'm like, well, see, I have this in my head. It's there forever, just like the crybaby kidneys, but... Heheheheh... It's okay to make mistakes and nursing school is hard and nursing is hard. But knowing that you are smart and you are determined and you are knowledgeable and you're enough to be a nurse. It's a great career and it starts with you. Just rewind it, rewind it just a few minutes, rewind it and hear that again. And then if it sunk in, rewind it and hear it five more times so that like crybaby kidneys you don't forget. what she just said, that's 100%. My heart goes out to everybody in that regards. Please take those words to heart and run with them, fellow nursing students. So, Shea, thank you so much. This has been an amazing afternoon, super inspiring, and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you, you as well, Eric. Thank you so much for having me. I'll see you at the family reunion. Alright, are we bringing cows this year? Yeah. not real cows. Stuffed please. I love it! We're done, alright, okay. Yay!