Don’t sell yourself short!

Life :- The quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body or inanimate matter. (Webster’s New Explorer Dictionary).

Being a male of 42 years of age with no qualifications has almost made me feel the urge to give up. I grew up in the 70’s as a teenager when, from that period of education standards, a School Certificate was really the main qualifications most employers were looking at for new employees. The Higher School Certificate really was for students wishing to enter university for a chosen career which is similar today, only that from an employer’s outlook the Higher School Certificate is needed in most cases for employment.

I figured if Moses was in his early 40’s when leading the Children of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years, I still have a chance to make a go of life at my age. Most of my past employment has only served a purpose of providing an income, which is fine in this world of high unemployment, but I felt this empty feeling about what am I doing. After a marriage of 14 years which fell apart I had a lot of thinking to do and it took some time to find that something - and through out the process I must have looked like a real goose to some from previous remarks and comments made (That’s Life!).

Nursing happened to come across after many try outs for different employment options. I guess to a point with nursing the way it is today with shortages world-wide I couldn’t lose. I applied for a position as an ‘Assistant In Nursing’ and got the job.

I remember telling my mother up in Newcastle that I have got a job in nursing and there was like this “stunned silence” and I thought I heard this “gulp” on the other end of the line. For the first time in my life I can’t see any other job I’d really rather have.

Nursing has so many areas to qualify in today and the future outlooks are positive, compared to previous jobs I have had. I’m almost at the end of doing a trainee-ship in Aged Care, which will provide me with a Certificate 3 in Aged Care by September this year. Since starting nursing I have been exploring future nursing studies and now it seems that university, which is no big deal for most, is now looking like a reality in my life in doing a BA in Nursing. Oh, and by the way, if you think aged care nursing is chasing bedpans as most uneducated type’s might view it, have a look at this.

As an Assistant In Nursing my duties in my ward which is looking after residents in high cover requires the following:

We are involved in dressing. showering, washing, changing pads, changing beds and making them, feeding, changing colostomy bags and cleaning the stoma area, emptying catheter bags and cleaning the area of the catheter tube where it is inserted on the resident to prevent infection, removing glass eyes from residents and cleaning, transferring residents from bed to wheel chair and back to bed, writing in details of residents in the various charts to keep a record of their progress for medical history etc., using lifters for resident transfers. We are also trained in dealing with infectious diseases that may come our way such as MRSA and AIDS, in which our population is now at risk within a variety of age groups across Australia.

So life goes on, and if you feel like I did for quite sometime, in feeling out of focus, the best advice I can give is below…

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
1 Peter 5:7

P.S.

&  &  &  &  &  &  &  &  &  &  &  &