149 - Jamie Clark Pt 1: The Horse is the Gateway Drug

Join nurse, farmer, and Yakima, Washington native Honored Guest Jamie Clark as she chats about why going to work is a stress relief sometimes, the intersection of nursing and farming in her life, her myriad influences leading her to nursing, being part of a satellite cohort, nursing school expectations vs. reality, her nursing journey, and more!

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feeding Our Young® podcast, the first episode of 2026. I can't believe that I'm saying that for starters, but also because right now it's October, 2025. We just switched our air conditioning over to heating. We're just making that flip here in the great inland Northwest, but I welcome it. That's something I love, but enough about that. uh What I'm excited to do is introduce today's honored guest who has been described by some, namely her husband, as Farmer on top, Nurse on the bottom, the one, the only, Jamie Clark. Jamie, how are you this morning? Good, how are you, Eric? Oh my gosh, I'm living my dream. I'm sitting here talking to you. Like, there's literally nothing I'd rather do this morning than that. If I'm not talking to you, I'm probably just sitting over there cross-stitching. That's it. It's a... No, it's true. I'm actually, I'm reforming myself here this fall. I'm not running. I'm done running. 215 half-marathons. I ran my last a couple weeks ago, and so far the itch has stayed away. I need to just give this body some rest, so... Wait, now, now, okay, so moving along, this is about you, Jamie, not me, right? Let's talk about you. It's only two and a half still, we're fine, we're fine. ah And to be fair, this week I'm really excited. Not that I'm excited to not have students, I missed the last rotation, I'm looking forward to the next rotation, but this is that one week in between where the one thing I have to do for my students is a half-day boot camp on Friday. OB Bootcamp, that's it. so I get like an extra day off this week and I don't even know what I'm gonna do, it's so fantastic. Well enough about me, enough about me. Obviously Jamie and I go back a little bit, she is apparently acquainted with my schedule and things that I do, but also I think that's the uh pot calling the kettle black or something like that, I think that's a saying, right? be true. Yep, little bit. So without further ado, we've already addressed that you are the one, the only Jamie Clark, farmer on the top, nurse on the bottom. Where are you from? Where's home for you? And what nursing schools did you graduate from? Yeah, so home for me is Yakima, Washington. We, I was born and raised there, grew up in Sela, graduated from Sela. I met my husband, like right out of, right out of college or right out of high school at a wedding and has, he's been stuck with me ever since. So that's been, that's been a hot minute now. I think it's like, I think maybe 18 years we've been together. my gosh. So yeah, it's been a minute for sure. Half of my life, literally half of my life with him. And then we moved to Longview for a quick period of time. And I did like all my prereqs for nursing there, moved back to Yakima and went basically straight into nursing school. uh But throughout that whole time I was I've been basically working in the hospital since I was 18. So my first job was like working as a HUC on MedSurg Onc. And then I took a position in a cardiovascular lab as a tech, like just, you know, doing transcription and filing and that sort of thing for uh cardiology and internal medicine specialties. So that was super interesting. And then I went basically from that into being a NAC. and tele and I did that the whole time. This was kind of like in Longview mostly. And then I had finished my prereqs. We were ready to move back home and em applied to WSU and YVC, which is their community college there in Yakima. And I got waitlisted at YVC and I got right into WSU. So, yeah, because I think because there's so many, it's less prereqs, so there's more applicants you can apply sooner. But my kind of trajectory was always to get my BSN. And so I got into their satellite program at WSU in Yakima. That's incredible. And I love the connection there because you talk about Yakima and I got some, I don't want to say fond memories there. It's not like I've been there often, but my uncle lives there. My aunt and uncle live there and they both actually teach at the community college there. And so, yeah, yeah. So it's just fun hearing you talk about it. I'm like, my gosh, I've been there. Like I've seen the campus. It's fantastic. So Washington girl your whole life basically then. girl my whole life. I actually worked as a HUC in labor and delivery during nursing school. And I think all of my hospital experiences that far into my life, it basically helped me rule out where I wanted to land when I was out of nursing school. I was like, I'm not doing tele, I'm not doing med surge. I don't think I want to do PEDs, but I'm not sure. And then I got to labor and delivery and it was like, this is fun stuff. There's emergencies rolling through the door, we're triaging patients, we're working right next to the docs all the time. I just loved it. I was, as a HUC, sat right next to the triage desk and would admit all of those patients coming in. And I was like, this is it. This is it for me. So I went into nursing school knowing that I wanted to do labor and delivery and having multiple instructors try to talk me out of it. eh I can remember several conversations where they were like, hey, why don't you do tele and ICU? Like, I think you're really smart. can like, I think you can tie these things together. You have great critical thinking. Like, why don't you do that trajectory? I think you'd be great at it. And I was like, no, I'm never going back to tele ever, ever, ever. never ever. And so it just kind of helped me rule in what I wanted to do and rule out what I didn't. That is incredible. And you're taking me back to nursing school myself because I'll never forget my first quarter instructor. She's like, Eric, I'm going to tell you right now, you would be incredible in the union. And I think that's something that sounds like you're really passionate about. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm very pro-union. I'm glad I'm part of a union. But that is not politically for me. Like, no, I'm good. I'm not there to make waves. want to, you know what mean? I try to see the best in everybody. And that gets kind of interesting when you're fighting two different sides of the, you know, whatever. So for me, was like new very early on, that was a no, but it was the same thing. She was like, no, Eric, the more I'm with you, like definitely, you just have, you wanna, you're gonna, I know you're gonna love it. And I'm like, yeah, and almost 19 years later, no, no, thank you. Anyway, all right, so pulling it back around before we, cause I, we're already talking. We're talking, I've got questions percolating in my brain. But before we do, gotta know, what are the three words you chose to pick? Nursing school. So I chose consuming and inspiring and challenging. Those were my words. Awesome. And we'll find out why. I mean, you know, for those listening, they're like, this is pretty obvious. But I always love the why because every honored guest gives a different facet to the why for various words. And I just love that. And then what are three of your favorite songs in life right now? So I was talking to my husband about this yesterday. I am not listening to like music basically at all, unless we're playing it on the farm, because I have a podcast in my ear all the time, like all the time. Like if there is any dead space, I have a podcast playing. So so I'm not really listening to like anything in particular right now. I mean, I like country music. I like rock. like classic rock. um So I listen to kind of a variety of things, but truly that's what's going on in my head most of the time is like I'm listening to podcasts. Most of it's like true crime or political podcasts. I occasionally will throw a nursing one in there, but like those are kind of my main main two. And I think it kind of helps me balance like my work life from like other interests that I have. So. which is key, I mean that's absolutely important. I there are those that dive in and I love nursing. Obviously I wouldn't be doing this podcast if I didn't, but sometimes you just need, I don't wanna talk about it 24 seven, seven days a week, I just don't, you know what I mean? You gotta unplug from, for you maybe it's nursing sometimes and or the farm sometimes. And for those that are like, okay you guys keep bringing up this farm, you're not talking about the farm, don't worry. She's gonna give a nice little plug at the end, so stay tuned. It is one of the most. I just love that about you guys and about you and how you... Anyway, I'm not going down that road yet. But in the meantime, if you want to share a little bit, give a preview, go ahead, but also tell us more about your family, whatever you want to share there. Um, so I have a husband and three girls. my girls are four, nine, and 12 now. I have a little gap in there. call it my COVID gap between my second and my third baby. We were trying to have a baby like right when the pandemic hit and I was like, Oh, I had a couple of miscarriages and I was like, I'm going to like take a minute and like, we'll start trying again. And, and then like all hell broke loose. And I was like, okay, so we're not going to do this right now. My husband was like, yeah. Definitely not. um And then we kind of like circled back in, I think, 20, kind of the end of 2020, maybe. And he was like, are you serious about this? Like, I thought we had like, I thought I dodged the bullet and like, we weren't going to do this again. And I was like, no, I'm having a third baby. Like, do you want to be the dad? I'm definitely having one. So that's up to you. um So he chose yes. so we have, yeah, we had a third baby in 2021. She's four now. So, em so yeah. And then we live on, we live on a 40 acre farm in medical Lake and we run a pumpkin patch and we do some like Easter and Christmas events on the farm. So we got a lot, we definitely have a lot going on at home all the time. And I feel like I actually kind of go to work for like a break, which probably sounds insane to like most people. I get to focus on one thing at work, and that's just taking care of patients and my coworkers. And when I'm home, I have a hundred different obligations that are pulling at me on all these different ways. So going to work is kind of a stress relief sometimes to me. So I know that probably sounds kind of crazy. Not to me, you're preaching to the choir 100%, sometimes, and we talk about it at work, right? Like everybody's like, you sometimes, I'm a huge fan of the guy, I love my kids, love my wife, love, love, love being a dad and husband, and sometimes you just gotta go to work to focus on other people's problems. So I can't, I can't, oh, go ahead. I just was gonna say it's also fulfilling in a different way for me. know, like the farm fulfills me in a way, but the work fulfills me in a different way. And they're two totally different jobs that like, it's like two halves to a whole for me. So like that, that's like what completes me as doing both of those things. Yeah. Well, I mean, since we're talking farm at this moment, I have a hunch that, and go ahead and name drop, you're going to do a little promo here at the end and you're, anyone who wants to find out about this farm that is semi-local, by all means, there'll be info on the website when Jamie furnishes me with her bio and you'll be able to see it there. But in the meantime, I imagine there, you talk about there's two different halves of you in that and in two different focuses and yet, I'm sure that nursing informs your farm life. What do you want to say towards that? Yeah, I actually think that being a nurse makes me a much better farmer. we like we own the name of our farm is the rest of truck ranch. And that ranch part puts a focus on like animal care and animal husbandry and breeding. And so it's so interesting the things that I have learned in nursing that translate to taking care of animals, you know, like the recipe for keeping everything alive is mostly the same. It's like food, water, warmth, shelter, you know, like all of it's kind of the same. um So yeah, I mean, I'm doing, I'm doing this year, I've done my first interuterine insemination. So I've actually like had my hands clear up a cow and trying to get cows pregnant. um I have inseminated pigs. I have done attended lots and lots of births on the farm. I've done internal. internal rotations of babies inside of moms that aren't presenting correctly. have, we do all of our vaccines on the farm. I do all of our castrations. I mean, some of it's like, I do stitches on the farm. Like there's just things that I mean, we wouldn't be able to do em if I didn't have this nursing background. So yeah, it all kind of translates. And I do think it makes me like a much better farmer. Like I'm, you know, dosing antibiotics by weight and. eh All of those things. So I've resuscitated a lot of babies. eh Imagine that that recipe is also very similar on the farm, right? Like you have a cold baby, you have like a wimpy baby with poor tone, like all of the things that NRP teaches you, it's the same for these mammals as well. ah yeah, all of it's been like super handy. eh I was telling my husband we had a bad delivery this spring. And I was like, what would you have done if I wouldn't have been here? Like we pulled up to the farm and this, had a goat delivering and she's like one of my older goats. And I was like, what would you have done if I wouldn't have pulled in just then? And he's like, I don't know. I think I just would have like pulled it out. I mean, I don't know. And I was like, well, you deaf, that baby definitely would have, it was coming out with its shoulder presenting and its head was back and its legs were back. So there was no presenting part other than like a shoulder. And so I had to push it back in, pull a head forward and pull a leg forward. And I was like, what were you going to grab onto? And he's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So yeah, so there's all those things that like, I'm like, oh man, I'm so grateful for the things that I've learned in nursing that it make me a a better caretaker of all of these animals that we take care of. So. I, side question, was the farm always the thing you wanted to do? Like where did that come into play? You know what? My husband and I, neither of us were raised on a farm. um Matt grew up with like, his mom would always have like an animal or two. Like they had a couple of horses at one point. They had a couple of goats at one point. um But I didn't raise, wasn't raised around any animals. My dad was born on a farm, born and raised on a farm. And I think he knew like how intense that obligation is. And so he was always like one cat. or one cat, two dogs, like that's our max. That's all you guys can have. And so that's how I was raised. But in nursing school, like when I, when I, got married, when I got married, I was basically, I told Matt, was like, I, I'm either going to have a baby or I'm going to buy a horse. And he was like, sounds good. You should buy that horse. So that was kind of like our first big thing was like, I bought a horse when I was 21. And I didn't know shit about horses. Like I didn't know anything. And so I just figured it out. um Yeah, I had a sister in law who was a horse trainer and she's like, well, I can help you. And so I spent like every waking minute with that horse. And then it was kind of like, well, the logical next step is to get chickens. And so we should do that. So we got some chickens and then we got ducks and we got a bunny. And then we started having kids and it just like, I think the first escalation really was that I got two sheep. I got two dairy sheep from a farm out in Tyoton. And that was like, that was it. Like it was downhill from there. We bought 40 acres. We moved to Spokane and bought 40 acres shortly after. And um I've done nothing but fill it up, I think. Unbelievable. Like, I'm just, the phrase that comes to my mind is like, okay, so the horse is the gateway drug. You know what mean? they say you get one tattoo and you're gonna be tatted from head to toe and I don't know, my gosh. Well, okay, so transitioning back into obviously what the podcast is about, this whole whatever nursing thing. um Why nursing for you, Jamie? What do you love about nursing? You mentioned you've worked a few jobs, so just take off uh on that topic there. So my mom was a dental hygienist growing up. I was pretty young when she went to hygiene school and I knew that that was, I think, maybe a major turning point for our family. We started making better money when my mom got out of hygiene school. And my dad always worked kind of a blue collar job and that was sort of... Going to college was never like a question in our household. It was like, which college are you going to? What profession are you choosing? Because I think that they knew that impacted their life trajectory so much, my mom going back to school. And so my brother got cancer when he was 12. So I would have been... nine, I think nine, yeah, probably about nine um for the first time. So he got cancer again when he was 17 and he's had cancer one other time since then. Yeah, so I have been, I've had that exposure, like my mom going to hygiene school, my brother having cancer, and then my sister became a nurse. And I think she was influenced like her mother-in-law. is also a nurse and oh is now retired. So I just had all of this like healthcare influence in my life and I knew that I loved people and caring for people and taking care of people. so, and I knew I wanted a job that was gonna have like influence in the world. Like I wanted to do something that was gonna be impactful. um And so it just felt like a good fit. Like it was like a nurturing job. It was something that I needed to go to school and do like, I mean, I was super interested in like science and medicine and physiology. And so it just felt like it all kind of came together. And I don't really remember like the turning point for me of being like, I'm going to nursing school, but I, I do remember that like being in my head most of high school that I was going to go to nursing school. And then, um, Yeah, my sister, mean, starting to work in the hospital, my sister was working at and seeing all of the different things. Basically all the kinds of nursing I didn't want to do. I do remember calling her and being like, I don't, I don't think I want to do this. Like, this doesn't seem like very much fun. Have you seen these nurses on Medsurg? What a fricking nightmare. And I mean, that was my perspective. But I also remember having a physician walk out the desk with like a, like, two or three vials from a pleural centesis and being like, what is that? I need to know. Like what is happening? What, where did that come out of that came out of a person? Like I just was so intrigued by that. Like I was like, Ooh, I'm not grossed out by body fluids. This is so fascinating. So yeah, I was like, that's so gross. I want to be there next time. You know, like that's where I was at. So I mean, for OB nursing, that's like a good fascination to have, because there's a lot of stuff that comes out of a lot of different places. So that's kind of like my journey to nursing school, I guess, is like I just had all of these different health care influences that kind of pushed me in that direction. But I don't remember ever making like the decision to go to nursing school, really. It was just always there. Yeah, that's incredible. And so I, you know, I mean, I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about nursing school. And I'm watching the timer here. You've got a little bit of time this morning, correct? Okay, so permission seeking here near the end of what might be your first episode of A Two-Parter. Are you willing to go A Two-Parter on me here? All right. I love it, okay. So with that then, that changes the direction of where I'm gonna go, which is let's talk a little bit about nursing school. So I this is a nice segue here, because you're talking about, there wasn't a defining moment, man, I'm doing it. But you recognize this is something I definitely wanna do. Body fluids don't gross me out. You know what I mean, the passion to make impact and all the things. So then you get into, you do the prereqs to get into nursing school. Talk about like expectations versus reality. Like you have this built up in your mind, you kinda thought, you know, I pretty much had this in the back of my mind, I'm gonna do this this whole time. Then when you get into nursing school, talk about your nursing school experience. Was it, you know, was this jarring disconnect or was it pretty much how you imagined? Like how did that work for you? So I felt like going into nursing school, my hospital experience was so helpful to me. I knew what nursing looked like already. You know, I feel like some people come into the hospital environment or out of nursing school or even in the middle of nursing school. And it's a very, it like the the vision versus reality is so jarring for some people. But I already, I already was well acquainted. I knew what 12 hour shifts looked like. I was working night shifts. Like I had seen my, you know, my sister was a NICU nurse at the time. so I had a very good, I think reality maybe of what nursing was going to look like when I got out of nursing school. When I got into nursing school, um, it was a little bit different maybe than how most people feel nursing school is going to look like because I went to an offsite campus. So, so, Being at ICNE, like being at WSU in the Yakima location, I had a small cohort of students to be with. We had like 22 people in our class. I knew everybody in the building by name, like every person that worked at WSU, I knew them by name. um Our little campus was tiny, you know, we had like two classrooms, I think a library, like a sim lab. em and an office, like that was kind of it. And there were some upstairs admin, admin kind of like offices for professors, but it was pretty small. So, I mean, it felt very familiar to me because I had already been going to community college. It felt like a leveled up community college. ah It didn't feel that strange walking in there though. I was just like, this feels all very familiar, except for when you're learning over a TV, right? Like that was different. em But I'm also somebody who's not shy. So that didn't really impact my, like, I felt like I wasn't impacted in my learning em or my ability to ask questions. Like, I would just ask a question. Like, I didn't care that I was on camera or em being projected. I didn't care. I was just gonna ask my question that I had. em So, but I can tell, like, for some students, it probably was more difficult to not be able to, like, you know, go up to the professor after class and ask a question or do those things, or if you were struggling in class. uh So I feel like it all felt very kind of comfortable. What I didn't anticipate was this group of humans that I was with and how close we were all gonna become. We were living, we had this shared experience. ah like trauma bonding, kind of. Like when I was thinking about this, I was like, you're kind of trauma bonded because it's like you're all in these intensely stressful situations. You have all these exams coming up, you have all these practicals coming up. It can be super stressful and you're so immersed in nursing school. Like you just live and breathe nursing school. So I didn't anticipate making like super close friends the way I did. and being such a tight-knit group during nursing school. We had such a great group of students that we all got along pretty dang well. There was very little infighting in our class. And so it was really nice. Everybody was supportive. We'd all go out together. It was great. I definitely neglected my marriage a little bit during nursing school, because you're in it. You're in it. This is it. You live it. And then it was like, got out of nursing school and pulled my head back up and I was like, okay, I can be like, I can be a full wife again. Like I can do this, but it's pretty consuming. Like really when you're in nursing school for sure. very much so. And again, whether you're remote learning or you know what I mean, in class, on campus, etc. Like you're you're taking me back to, having that husband perspective of, know, my wife was very much like, OK, you need to study, you need to memorize stuff for A &P, right? Like, so let's I'll take the kids. got them. I'm going to go take whatever. I'll keep them busy. You got probably like 45 minutes or an hour before they lose their minds. And then I'll be back. And it was it was very much that, you know, I trying to not lose sight of who you are in the midst of an all-consuming thing like nursing school is very, very challenging. And so I have yet to really hear or experience a lot of people, know, and let's say more towards the community college slash older, you know, students situation, but many marriages failing, you know, on behalf of that, thankfully. But I can see where it would maybe, you know what I mean? And trying to support one another. while also like uh I have to focus almost completely on this upcoming test, this exam, this clinical. So thank you for talking about that. I'm glad you're opening kind of the window to, because I don't even know, know, granted I got my ADN at community college, but still I had the privilege of going up to the instructor afterwards, hey, XYZ. So that remote learning for you, so you describe how that affects classroom, what was that like for you for clinicals? Oh, so we had, I mean, we had onsite clinical instructors. uh Most of our clinical instructors were uh like current nurses that were going back to get their masters and that was part of their like fulfillment for their uh master's degree uh and like reimbursement for tuition. Like they got a discounted tuition for doing that. So a lot of them were deeply, I think deeply invested in their own learning. And so I felt like we had a lot of really good instructors in nursing school who were like understood what it meant to be in school because they were actively in school. And so that was really nice. em So we had a set of clinical instructors on site and we had these distance like instructors that were teaching us theory. But. I felt like everything was pretty accessible. Like I could text somebody, I could call somebody. Yeah, yeah, I felt like we were super well supported. I do know that like it was notably harder for the older generation of students trying to go back to school. We had probably, we had one person in our class that was like probably 55 going back to like nursing school for the first time. and one that I think was like 60, so like retirement age basically. And so they both had a really hard time. And I think part of that is just the technology like interface, know, like you're now having to do, it was, I mean, when did I graduate? 2011. So 2009 is when I started school. So it would have been challenging had you been. raised in a generation where you didn't have to engage with that technology and then now all of a sudden like that's how you're doing it all. Like you're typing up every paper, you're learning everything online, you're I mean we could re-watch our video streams online and so I think that technical aspect for the older generation that was in our class was very challenging. em But I do feel like we had really good support from and it had been I mean, that extension site had been around for a long time. So I felt like, you know, it wasn't like I was experiencing the formation of a nursing school, which I know can be really challenging. Yeah, there's there's inherent challenges in that in and of itself, right? As an organization is trying to figure out who they are as an organization. But thankfully you didn't have to deal with that. I I had the experience on the other side of that going to SCC SCC at Spokane Community College because we had satellite uh classrooms as well. And the one that's popping to mind is Colville, which is north of Spokane for anyone who's not native here and. uh And so I remember like, know what mean? We'd have them on the screen and they would, you know, ask questions and stuff like that. And it makes for a different classroom experience, one that I found mostly enjoyable because yeah, you got all these people you get to interact with on the daily. You know, our class was like, I don't know, I want to say 60 or 70 students somewhere around there. ah I might be, those numbers might've been inflated over the years, I don't know. But you know, then you have these other satellite students. that are very much involved and you're trying to stay involved with them. The only, I almost forgot about that. The only time I had an issue with that was the birth of our oldest daughter because we had it all arranged. I had this little bit of time off from nursing school. I got stuff done ahead of time and all this thing and my wife had a scheduled C-section. And my oldest daughter, for whatever reason, I don't know if it was a student anesthesiologist, I don't know who it was, but the spinal didn't take. So then my wife had to have a general anesthetic c-section. And that's a big deal for anyone out there who's not had major surgery or anything like that. It's a lot bigger deal to have to have all the anesthesia and all that as opposed, and it's harder on the baby. they come and tell me, right, the nurse is, yeah, Eric, unfortunately, and we've had two kids by this point, I know how the c-section thing works. and they come in, Eric, sorry, Jen is gonna have to go under general, the spinal didn't take him, like, oh, okay. So just tell me when I get to go back. And they're like, no, you don't understand. So the policy is dads don't go back. Support people do not go back when your significant other has to go under general. I mean, I was so upset. And so then, and I kind of calm it down. I'm like, okay. And her doctor was amazing. Got me in looking back much sooner than I should have been brought in. But he knew I was in nursing school and all the things. So I'm there as a dad and as a husband, not as a nursing student. But guess who is there? Colville students, two of them, they got to see my daughter be born and I couldn't see them be born. I was like, they brought in my like old school digital camera, you I was like, please get pictures. And I, you know, it just was like, you gotta be, so I was like begging, like I'll go in as a nursing student. don't get, like I'll throw some scrubs on you want me to like, and they're like, nope, it's the policy. You can't go in. And that's not against my organization or anything like that. It just was like one of those things where I'm like, you gotta be kidding me right now. Yeah, like we're in a cohort together. You know that, right? Like we're on the level. Like we're the same right now. I can go in and just be a student. Although I did give her her first hepatitis B shot, so there's also that. Yeah, it was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying, but I was like, oh, I get the chance to like, like down the road say, hey baby, dad gave you, you know, your second injection in your entire life. I was like, yeah, let's do that. Anyway. funny. Enough about me, one last question for you before we make the jump to an episode two. just briefly, you talked about, know, and I know this is a topic you want to talk about and that's why we'll start the next episode expounding on this topic, but you've had quite a few jobs in your years of nursing. So how many years, to summarize, how many years have you been a nurse and what has your career looked like since graduating? Yeah, I've been a nurse for 15 years. em I have almost the entire time done floor nursing, but I've had a lot of different jobs for sure. em I think this probably stems from me having some undiagnosed ADD, which is probably why like the farm and having multiple things going on in my life all the time. Like I just function in that because I'm bouncing all the time from stuff. and I get bored really easy, I just need to be constantly mentally engaged or I just sort of check out. I just need to do new stuff. um So I started out as a floor nurse. I worked in Yakima on labor and delivery uh straight out of school, which was really nice. I had been a huck on that unit and it was like a working interview for me. So I um had been there the whole time during nursing school being a huck on. like evening and night shift. And then they, when I was about done, I was kind of like, Hey, do you guys have a job for me? And she, we had, we were in the middle of a hiring freeze actually. And I was kind of panicked. was like, man, I'm going to have to do some crap job. don't want to do it, is fine. I like we're so broke. You know, I needed to like just get out of nursing school and get a job, but I've been into the nurse manager's office and I was like, Hey, do you guys have any positions that you're like needing to fill? And she was like, yeah, what do you want to do? And I was like, nursing, like, I don't care. Like, I have a preference, but like, I just need a job. And she's like, well, I have labor and delivery positions and I have mom baby positions. What do you want to do? And I was like, my gosh, I would love to do labor and delivery. I had been also a hack or a knack on the floor. So I'd done some mom baby care also. And I kind of was like, I could go either way, but like, I love the adrenaline. Like, I love an emergency, I like a hemorrhage, I like a crash C-section. So like, those are the things that I, I mean, I still kind of am into that now. um And so, yeah, she gave me the option and I was like, I'll take a labor and delivery position. She was like, all right. um And there was a HUC that I worked with at the time that she got passed over for a position because she had a bad attitude. And she always was kind of like complaining about everything. And so, she, her working interview did not work out for her. So I felt very grateful em to get that position. I worked on the floor for five years on night shift. And about year five, I was like really struggling with night shift, with sleeping, with like mentally and emotionally. I just was like, I feel like something's wrong with me. And I started to work, I kind of was like coming up soon to a day shift and I started working like an occasional day shift. And then like all of a sudden it was like the veil lifted and I was like, my gosh, this is what it is to be alive again. Like I don't have to be a zombie person all the time. Like I am awake and alert and like great, like I love my job now. So at five years I got into day shift. It's like, if you don't mind my interjecting, it's like remembering you're like becoming reacquainted with your former self. You know, for you it was five years, for me it was 17 years. uh it was like, you know, you get into the pattern, you get into whatever, and it's like, okay, like I'm managing this, I think, better than most. No offense to anyone, you know, whatever. I'm doing this the best that I can, and I feel like... I feel like I've got a pretty good grip on it. And you go to days and you're like, yeah, no, okay, no, I still like, that was, I'm just a brand new person. This is the guy I was almost two decades ago. I'm far more positive. I'm not as, know, crotchety and all that stuff. I'm gonna put a pin in it here. That was, we covered her first five years of her career, bedside nurse. And we're gonna jump into episode two where we pick up where we left off and you're gonna find out all the amazing things she's done. and you don't wanna miss her discussions. There's some topics coming up that I'm just so excited for you to hear. So, Jamie, thank you. We're gonna take our break and we're gonna come right back. So if you're binging, we'll see you soon. Okay, sounds good.