144 - Katelyn Makemson Pt 1: Nursing Externships FTW!

Join very recent graduate and Jasper, Alabama native Honored Guest Katelyn Makemson as she describes her love of the Lord and trusting in Him for her future, the importance of her family, how she pictures her family during labs/sims, nursing externships, and more!

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feeding Our Young podcast. I'm gonna warn you right now, this is a high energy episode. I'll tell you why, because my honored guest is high energy and she's got a lot of exciting things that she just maybe have completed. We'll get there in a second. But then also me, I've gone through without exaggeration a hellacious summer. I had one hell week uh last summer, which was echoing a hell week we last had in 2003. and just brutal, but this summer put both of those to shame. So, all that to say, I think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of that whole thing, which makes me very excited for today as well. So, between our honored guest and myself, you're gonna get a lot of words. They might come rapid fire. I talk fast. I believe our honored guest talks fast. So if you need us to slow down, let us know. We won't hear you because it's already recorded, but we're gonna have fun with this. So. Without further ado, enough flapping my guns, the one, the only, Katelyn. Katelyn, welcome to studio this morning, how are you? I am great, my friend. So ah I'm gonna let you take it over here. Go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us where you're from. My name is Katelyn Makemson. I'm from uh on the smaller side of Alabama in Jasper, Alabama. It's very small, small county, just small town, really. Yes, and my wife and I, this is, you're the first person, not the first person I've spoken with from Alabama, obviously, but uh the first person I've spoken with since my wife have been down there. And the fact that I can even say that thrills me to no end. Never had been to Alabama before, and coming down there and speaking at Bevel State. Just, you guys, you've got something special down there as you probably already know. ah And I guess... There's the cats out of the bag. So, where do you attend nursing school or where did you attend nursing school? went to the Bevels Lake Community College. There's five campuses, but I went to the Summerton campus. Very, very cool. so then, are you, do you have more schooling or are you done? Yes, so I finished my associate's degree in nursing on August 4th, so I'm done with that big one. But then um me and my boyfriend and his friends, we all were like, we're just going to jump back in. And we all start on the 20th at the University of Alabama. We're doing the RN to BSN program. So that'll be a year and then I'll have another nursing degree for my bachelors. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for you. I- this is- I'm finding out just alongside with all y'all, because I did not know that little tidbit. So that's amazing. I'm so excited for you. I- excited too. We're getting all the stuff notifications on our phone and we're like, this is a lot, but it'll be fine. We've got it all figured out. We'll be good. Ah, well Let's finish the traditional opening questions. Katelyn, what are the three words you've chosen to describe nursing school, having just finished it? Um, just as I described for the ADN demanding. Always demanding, very rigorous. Everything's just rigorous. That's like one of the big things. And then also at the very, very, very end, you're going to question it the whole time, but rewarding. That's my, that's, think that's my biggest word for it. Just the nursing profession. Yes ma'am. Oh, I love it. And then, do you have three favorite songs in life right now? Yes I do. So you probably already guessed it, I'm a very big Christian. So I wrote them down so I wouldn't forget them, because you told me that and I was like, sometimes when I get straightforward questions like that, mine decides to go blank, so let me write it down. So I wrote them down. So first one, above all, is called A Life Worth Dying by Josiah Queen. Just kind of talks about like, live a life worth dying. So live a life that you're going to be happy with in heaven. If that makes sense. Live a life that you're gonna leave a legacy. Not just in like what you did, like I wanna leave a legacy in the nursing career, but I also wanna leave a legacy of just my life in general. Does that make sense? So that is my all time favorite. I listen to it before every test. I listen to it before I enclutch for my LPN license. I listen to it all the time. Like anything I have big or I have questions about, I listen to that song. Mmm. uh And then the other one is called Still Waters. It goes off of Psalm 23. It's just about anxiety, leaving the anxiety away. The Lord's gonna give you still waters to let you keep pursuing through. It's by Leanna Crawford. I absolutely love it. That's another good one. Again, like if I have any anxiety about a test or anything like that, that one just likes to calm my nerves. And then another one is by Lauren Daigle. She's very big. Leanna Crawford and Josiah Queen, they're kinda coming up in the music world. I think they're gonna make it big. Yes, I love her. Yes, I found her about a year ago and I was like, where have I been? Where have I been? But my third one is from Lauren Daigle. It's called Trusting You Because You Can't Do Anything Without Trusting the Lord. That's my whole thing on life. If I can't trust in the Lord with what I'm doing because I know in the end that's his plan for me. Mm-hmm. So always trust in him. Just pray for it, let him guide your way. If it doesn't happen now, that doesn't mean it might not happen in two years or something. You know, if you try again, it might just not be his plan for you now. So I always go in that. If anything deters me from schooling-wise or work or just in life in general, still trust in him because he's got a plan for you. And if something didn't work out, he's still got a plan for you, I know a lot of people don't talk about this because some people find it embarrassing, but again, this is, you know, off of all of these trusting in him and stuff, I actually went through nursing school twice. Yes, so the first time I played softball for Burwell State, um I received, I got a shoulder injury from it because I was a pitcher. I went through first semester. I barely passed, you know, Okay, yeah. to the end of the road. Barely past first semester, I was supposed to have surgery for my shoulder. It's called vascular thoracic outlet syndrome. Not a lot of people have heard it, but it's kind of getting really bigger in like, pictures like softball, baseball pictures. It's always kind of been big for baseball pictures, but it's kind of starting in softball pitching. So they were supposed to go in and take out my first rib, because the muscle in my shoulder was too big for my little bitty frame, pretty much. So, um... But on top of that, which one of our little middle things that we might get to talk about is just some challenges in life. I have a heart condition and we can talk about that later and stuff. Heart condition didn't let me get to have the surgery. So the surgery was gonna stop me for like two to four months. Wasn't gonna be able to pick anything up. You the weight lifting restrictions, that kind of stuff. I wasn't gonna be able to do nursing. Can't do clinicals if you can't pick anything up, right? yeah. um and then once I realized I wasn't gonna have surgery, it was too late to re-register. So I took a semester off and I was like, you know what, it's okay. um I took 21 credits at Beville State, finished my last season of softball and graduated with my associates in science. I was like, okay, this is his plan right now, you know? And then... I was like, you know what, let me just go back into second semester. So I reinstated in the second semester. Don't know what I was thinking, cause going from finally figuring out nursing school, like how to study for nursing school to back to six academic classes and then back trying to figure out the nursing school way, it wrecked me. I barely failed, but I was like, you know what, that's fine too. I can go back. So what I did, so I did that second semester in the summer semester at the Summerton campus. um In the fall, I was like, I don't know what to do. It's too late to try to reinstate for the fall at Summerton. I don't know what to do. So I got to look in at Beville stuff and they have a phlebotomy course. It's a 10 week course. I said, this will help me. I said, even if I don't go get my license, I'll know how to stick somebody. I don't know how to straight stick. This will help me get comfortable being around like a needle to stick them. I said, this will help me. I said, this can fill my time. This will help me. So that's what I did. I did the 10 week course in the fall and then I reinstated and got back into the Summerton program and then I did my two years and I'm done. So that's just, that's just some things that, you know, a lot of people don't want to talk about like their trials and all those tribulations and stuff like that, but that's open to me because it's life. We all got stuff that tears us down in life, so that's just, I know, that's something I go through like, I got set back so many times, but I persevered and went through it, you know? Yeah, I'm just like, you're already inspiring me. We're not even 10 minutes into your episode here. This is incredible. No, and I thank you for that because you reminded me too. I go back to when our first son died. We were here, I was chasing pre-reqs for nursing school. And same thing, I was like, no, I can't, like I got this great spot, da da da. So I was gonna go and push forward and get it done. And I had to take off six months. You know what I mean? Some people are like, only six months? But you know, legitimately, like I was ready to go. I wanted to keep going. We moved here for this dream and we're gonna keep going. But God had other plans. And I always talked about how my two-year degree, I was jokingly told my patients, I was like, I have a four-year, two-year degree because it took me four years to get the two-year degree. But in the end, it's worth it. You go through life is gonna life. And that's how we talk about it in our household. I'm like, life is gonna life. Mm-hmm. It's how you handle that, whether you've got that resilience, that grit, to then say, okay, you know what I mean? And in Feel the Feels, it's not a like, oh, I'm just gonna keep pressing forward and it's okay and I don't have time to grieve. No, you've gotta grieve the losses. Not just, obviously, the death of my son for that, but like you're talking about these ideas, these dreams that like, I'm gonna get this done by this date, I got a goal. And then that doesn't happen because life "lifes." Mm-hmm. like, you gotta grieve that and you gotta work through that and then you're able to step back up to the plate and go, okay, know, sorry to use this off ball, I guess you know, straight there, but you're stepping back right back up to the plate going, okay, now I'm ready to face this. Let's make this happen. I'm not even, we're just gonna dive right into your, this is, I don't care, we're doing this, we're doing this. You know, I, We have our normal opening stuff, but you're already just diving into the meat, so let's just keep going. I am gonna backtrack. I love it! So we're gonna backtrack just a little bit though, because I wanna know a little bit more about you. You sent me a few topics you wanted to talk about. So some of the more lighthearted topics before we go back into the meat of the matter, and that is your hobbies and interests. I mean, you kinda touched on one, but what do you wanna share about that? So I like doing crafts. I like doing arts and crafts. Anything kind of DIY. I absolutely love giving it a shot. Even if it doesn't, I'm like this does not look like what I what it looked on the picture, but it's fine. We'll make it work. And then my touching on like family stuff and all, but my grandmother, she does the resin cups and she has these with like Bluetooth speakers on the bottoms and stuff like that. And she just kind of does however she wants to with him. It's very artsy and craftsy and I love going and helping her and giving her ideas and us making something that nobody else has and that kind of stuff. add, what are resin cups? I've never heard of this phrase. so it is like, it be like a 20 ounce cup, a 30 ounce cup. She does some of like the 40 ounce Stanley cups. Um, and she takes resin. A lot of people use resin sometimes like on countertops. Like if you do granite or anything like that, or it can be on floors, you kind of like spread it out and that resin just hardens everything in. So what she does, sometimes she takes a cup and she sands it down. Um, and then she will spray paint it. color that she wants or she might just leave it bare like that. She decorates it how she wants like modifogin glitter somewhere. She has like a Cricut, like the vinyl Cricut, and she'll Cricut something out and put it on there like a saying, a phrase, a picture, whatever. She'll put it on there and then after she's got everything how she wants it she pours resin over it to harden everything in and make sure nothing moves. None of the glitter moves, none of the stickers move, that kind of stuff. And then she smooths it out. it's just, hang on a second. So it's just like a cup like this where you can like feel it and it's smooth and it's practical. She has some on the bottom. It's like a 30 ounce cup on the bottom. It has a screw off speaker. like for like, yes, yes. She does that. I'm sure that's where I got my arts and crafts stuff from me and my little sister both. But I love going and helping her with that stuff. Normally she don't need my help. Normally she's like, no, I figured this all out. all right go for it. But I love going and helping her kind of like set up at small festivals because we have a ton around Jasper and just Walker County during like October to December because you've got like Halloween festivals and then you've got some around Thanksgiving and then there's a bunch of like the Christmas praise that you can set up at and stuff like that and we love going and doing those. And so I love going and helping her with that. um I love going and making shirts too. I have a ton of shirts I've went over and be like, look, I need some vinyl and I need your Cricut. Let me make a shirt real quick. And she'll help me like figure out the design and stuff like that. And like, I might see something on Pinterest and I'm like, I love this shirt, but I want to make my little tweaks to it to make it just for me, you know? So she helps me do that. Cause I'm like, does this look good? And she'll tell me like, no, you need to figure out something else. that does not look good, I don't know what you're thinking, and then other days she's like, yes absolutely, or she'll give me more ideas to make it more unique, that kind of stuff. So I love any and all things like that. my gosh, that's amazing. I mean, and that leads naturally into the second thing you wanted to talk about is your family. So you're talking about grandma, but what do you want to share about your family? Um, so I have my mom, my dad, I have a younger sister, she is 13. So she's just hitting that middle school stage, that good stuff. Um, let's see, there's so much you can talk about them. They are absolutely amazing. They have pushed me and done everything that they could for me, um, tuition wise, because I didn't have a job, that kind of stuff. Like they have supported me every single step of the way, even when those trials hit and I got pushed back. and they supported me through that phlebotomy class and they supported me going to get that other degree and they just helped me so, so, so much and they still continue to do so. um Like with my BSN, they're like, do you need any of this? How can we help you with this? That kind of stuff. um Like throughout nursing school, mom would always come in and be like, you need me to give you some questions? Pull up some questions and I'll ask them to you. So, cause that's how... I studied sometimes, like I just needed somebody to ask me questions because that was the best way I could do to study for a test was make a mock test, you know? So just do practice questions and stuff like that and she would go and do that or I made my own study guides out of like our PowerPoints and stuff. So that's how I also see it. I made my own study guides. like, I just hand her the papers, be like, just make questions up and ask me and let me see if I know them. So mom did that. Then they and my fake patients for checkoffs. Like, come here, I like you got COPD or something, I need something. So, um and my little sister, I would always go in her and be like, look, I need your help. I need you to be a fake patient. I need you just to sit there. Here's my check off sheet. And if I miss something, put a mark beside it. So I will remember it next time. All the way down to like Jessica helps me out with everything. That's my younger sister. She from... If I just ask her, she's like, yeah, come on, let's go do it. And I'm like, okay, great. Thank you so much. Whether it's from, again, helping me with the school stove or maybe I'm like, Jessica, does this outfit look good? Because I don't know. She helps me with everything. I love her so much. She's, to be 13, she's so mature and she just knows her stuff. She's got it all going on. um So yeah, I can't thank them enough for all they've done for me throughout the beginning. Like not just this last time, like fully completing nursing school, but all the way back way to when I first started at Beville. And that was back in forever ago, 2018. I started as a dual enrollment student in high school at Beville. So they helped me with, cause I was like, I'm a little sophomore over here. How can I take a college class right now? And so she helped me as much as she could, especially trying to figure out how to do like APA format papers and all this stuff. I was like, mom, I don't know what I'm doing. So she's helped me so much and dad, anything I call, like, hey look, I got this going on, I don't know what's going on, my car, something else is going on, he's there as fast as he can. So, but I just can't think any of them enough for what they've done for me. That's incredible. Do you like, so because like when they're your fake patients, for example, when you are in school doing lab check-offs, doing whatever, are you picturing them? Does that kind of help give you a morale boost too? yes, because I would be like, Jessica, lay right here and here's this paper and just read through it. And if you don't know what something says, just ask me and I'll look at it I'll tell you if I got it or not and stuff. And then when I'm sitting there in lab or standing there in lab doing the check off like with the instructor, all we had was the mannequins and stuff. And I'm like, it's awkward talking to those mannequins. Now, some of them now, some of them now, like they talk and they do stuff. I know less at Bevel. So the mannequins that do give birth and do talk and stuff like that, like for our simulations. But the other ones, you're not gonna check off on one of those. They need to save those and save that battery and all that stuff for those, which is understandable. But you're just sitting there and then they're just kinda, and you're like, hey, what's your name and date of birth? Do you have any allergies? And they're just this quiet. And we're like, oh, okay. And you move on. So I just think about Jessica and them being there, um just laying there and being like. cause Jessica will be like, I don't know, think of a name. And then I'll be like, okay, that's how you were talking, that's your name, we'll move on. I love it. And I love that that support continues beyond, you know what mean, inside the home. It just carries, you carry it with you to school and I love that. Well then, so I have to ask then, and there are two topics here that you had separated, but I'm gonna combine them and allow you to run with it. Because you've got other jobs and careers, is something you wanna talk about. Which pairs in my mind with why nursing, because if you've worked other jobs and careers, then at some point nursing came a part of what you want to do. So go ahead and just address those topics together for me if you don't mind. So, um again, I'm very young. Just gonna be, just got a baby nurse, all this good stuff. I've had my LPN since about March. um But back when I was doing all those classes to get my associates in science, my mom works in HR at the Arc of Walker County. I don't know if you've heard that. There's a bunch of arcs out there. um It is not necessarily group homes. if that makes sense, but they're different individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities that live together. And um the ARC provides staffing, housing, accommodation for them in those homes. So they are as independent as possible, but there's somebody always there to help them. So I got a job with them as it was called a direct care professional. um So I was in those homes helping those people. I absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it. I've been around just a good bit of the individuals all my life. Mom started there when I was three. So I'm 22 now. So all my life. So I absolutely love all of them. They're like family to us. And I love going in their homes and getting to joke around with them when they were upset and like make them happy, that kind of stuff. And so that fed into my healthcare stuff because I was already knew I wanted to be a nurse at that point. And I was like, Mom, this will help. This will help too. Because whether it was helping them eat, fixing them something to eat, changing them, helping them get a shower, that kind of stuff, I was like, this isn't going to help. You know, just making those connections with people that sometimes have hard times making connections, you know, not because they don't want to, just because, I don't know, that's just not, they don't understand that process of making a connection. Maybe they feel that connection and inside of them they're like, Yes, I know this is connection, but they just can't express it, if that makes sense. So, but I love coming in and just being like, hey, so and so invisible, what are you doing today? And they're like, well, I'm just sitting here right now. And I'm like, all right, well then just sit there. Like, all right, all right, you want to go do something? Do you need something? That kind of stuff. And I just absolutely loved it. I was there for a little over six months and then I became what There's a few different hospitals in Alabama. I don't know if they do it in any other states, but in Alabama they do nurse externs. So at Orlando Health, which it was Tennant Hospital, but now it's Orlando Health. So it's like Walker, Princeton, Brookwood, those hospitals, those sister hospitals, it is a nurse extern. So there are three externs, like classes, I guess that makes sense. So when you start out and you're in nursing school, that's how you get the thing. You have to be in nursing school to get this job. That's kind of one of the requirements. You start out as an external one. That is more along the CNA PCT work. But that goes along with, you're that for first and second semester. So like you're just now getting into it. That's just kind of getting your foot through the door, that kind of stuff. Build- building a foundation as it were. Yeah. absolutely. And then um once you get to that third semester, you move up to an extern too. Because at Beville, all colleges are different, but at Beville, your first and second semester is when you do labs. So when you're done with your second semester, you have done all the checkoffs. So in Third semester you move up to that X-Term 2 and your start you are able to do like IVs, Foley's, that kind of stuff, those skills that you learned because you should have already checked off on them, you know? So you start that and then whenever you get your LPN, so some of the schools are different, but whenever you get your LPN you um can either apply to be an LPN there, but then you have to work full-time, or you're an LPN X-Term. So that is why I currently am now at Walker until my first start date for my RN position. You work under your LPN license, but you are also able to shadow an RN and help them do RN stuff. If that makes sense, like under their scope of practice as well. So you always go under your LPN scope of practice and then like, say it's blood. Now know some hospitals' LPN can give blood. At mine, we can't. Say it's blood. I can go in and help the RN give blood and do those practices, but they have to be in there with me if that makes sense. It kind of gives me, yes, that also gives you like when you're a new grad and you're like, I've never done blood before, what do I even do? Like, what is this? Like, okay, like I have this form for lab, do I just tube it down there to them or do I have to, you know, some of that stuff that nursing school like don't teach you. You know, because there is a lot that nursing school don't teach you. It teaches you the foundations and the patho and like, okay, this is this med, this is this med. But when it gets, you have so much to learn when you're a new grad and you actually are physically there and you actually physically see this stuff, you feel lost. And I'm so grateful for this ExTerm program because starting out, I don't feel as lost. Mind you, I am lost, because I'm like, I have so many questions, but some stuff I'm like, okay, I'm not as lost. I know what comes next. You know, like I know oh this patient is saying they got chest pain, let's go ahead and get an EKG and see what's going on. You know, that kind of stuff. So I've already got those, those gears are working and they already kick in automatically when I see them. And, but the, extern has been, the extern position has been an absolute blessing to me because also on top of, you know, those tiers, you could work, I think it was like four to six weeks on one floor and you could change if you wanted to. So I started on MedSearch because I was like, I want to see a little bit of everything. I think this will give me a good foundation to see a little bit of everything. So I started there and my idea was like, I like the idea of ER, but I don't know if that'll work for me when I get down there. Because you you never know until you like are in it. So we transferred me over there to the ER when I started as an extern too and I have it left. And that's where my RN position will be. So I'll stay in my little ER home. That's incredible. Because again, like you said, you have this idea, but until you're in it, you don't know. don't know. So that's why I was very, very, very blessed about this extern program is because I could, if I wanted to try ICU, I could go and try ICU. If I wanted to try a different med search for, because my hospital has two kind of med search floors, I could take a dip in those or the other one, or I could go down to LND and Mother Baby, or I could go to Senior Care and help them, or I could go to Jerry's soccer I could go to stock that kind of stuff there was a lot of places to go and say because at my hospital we have a 12-bed ER we're small very rural hospital say I wanted to go to an ICU but I wanted to go to like a cardiac ICU Walker doesn't have that but they could have moved me to I think Princeton has one they could have moved me there to see if I like that if that makes sense they worked with you. was PRN, so they worked with your schooling. School always come first for them. It was just absolutely amazing, and it was a way that I could get some money coming in when I was able to. But I just... learning the tangible aspects of the job. like it was like everything just made sense. It was like, all right, I'm learning this stuff in school. I can hopefully apply it while I'm at work or try to figure out how I need to apply it at work. And then I'm also having an income where if I decided to go in and work as a CNA, a PCT or an LPN, I would have had to have a full job. And that would have been like night shifts for like my first and second semester. So it would have been like, that's actually too much and I wouldn't have time to study. So it was just, I was talking to somebody yesterday at work and I was like, I wish everybody possible could go and be an extern. Because it just, it's helped me so much. And I know so many people that that's put their foot in the door for them a job and stuff at where they extern at, like me. That's why I have a job there because I was an extern. Because they knew me, I have, you know, like, and they didn't have to, yes, like. the other side of that quote unquote interview. yes, they knew what I could do. They could see my strengths, my weaknesses, what they would need to help me on once I became an Aurea. They saw the whole aspect of me instead of me being like, well I'm a good worker, you know, like in an interview or something like just face to face. But they've been able to see me when a heart attack comes in. They've seen me when a stroke has come in. They've seen me when we've had a AAA. They've seen me when we've had... a baby come in with a 104 fever. They've seen all the sides of how our ER works, because I've been in all of our sides helping whether it was a flow to doing this stuff. And mind you, I've still got tons to learn, but I feel like this is giving me a leg up, if that makes sense. Absolutely. So I'm looking at the time and we're gonna split this into a two-parter right here, right now. You guys, you don't wanna miss part two, dropping on Saturday. Katelyn's story, you've already been so inspirational, Katelyn but your story just takes it up a notch in part two. You guys, you're gonna find out why she finds sanity in the insanity and I think we'll just jump right in talking about what your future plans are. So don't miss it.