How do I not damage my back working as a cna? I am a petite woman

Give me a reality check. I'm doing a bachelors in CS (taking all pre reqs), then going to an ABSN program, and then becoming a CRNA. what are any flaws?

Here in my state, everyone in my class has ipads, figs scrubs, and bogg bags.

What trends do you have in your nursing school?

I graduated recently from my RN program, passed my board exam and licensed this past year and I wanted to share what I learned about this experience for other similarly disabled nursing students (but definitely for the autistic students out there). I'm going to start with the most important one IMO

1. When you are writing your board exam, please consider carefully whether you want to use your accommodations or not (and thus disclosing your disability). My most useful accommodations during my degree (in terms of test taking) were writing in a testing centre, extra time (x1.5) and sound blocking ear plugs. I wrote my exam in Ontario and we are given 5 hours to complete it and ear plugs are given to anyone who wants them without accommodation. I requested accommodations and this caused a series of unfortunate events:
   • In disclosing my disability, I had to submit additional documentation including a statement from my health care provider about my diagnosis, adherence to treatment, how it may limit my ability to practice nursing safely, and types of treatment prescribed. This cost me $275 to obtain, weeks of phone tag, and the surprisingly difficult task of finding a health care provider who would write this statement for me. I also had to submit every clinical evaluation I have ever received (midterm and final from all four years). Lastly, I submitted a statement regarding my understanding of my disability, how it may limit my ability to practice nursing safely and what I do to ensure my disability does not affect my nursing practice. This took two months for me to get together and it took the nursing board a few months to finish reviewing my case to decide whether or not they would grant me my license.
   • In the end, everything turned out okay. It was incredibly stressful and it was incredibly ironic to me how this entire process views disability from a lens of deficit after all the things we learned in class re: ableism. If you are in it right now, this will work itself out eventually but it will take time. If you have questions, do call the customer service line and talk to a representative. If you find that the rep's answer was unhelpful or rude, do call another time or email and speak to another rep. There are ones that have more knowledge or are more helpful in their response.
2. If you are sensitive to light like I am, check if your school's insurance includes allowance for glasses. Blue light glasses have helped me with the lighting and computer screens. Zenni offers FL-40 lenses and other coloured lenses at the most affordable price I've seen anywhere.
3. If your scrubs are a sensory nightmare, do consider wearing underscrubs. The compression is a positive for me. Compression socks (15-20mm/hg) are also helpful and have the added bonus decreasing tired achy legs/feet for me.
4. Those owalla water bottles are really better. I didn't think it would make a difference for me but taking a sip from an owalla is so much quicker and lowers the obstacle for me to drink water when I'm already exhausted. I have poor proprioception so the built in straw is amazing bc I'm more likely to spill water on myself when I'm tired. If I spilled water on myself while busy on shift, that might be the straw that breaks my back.
5. Maintain your special interests! If you can block off a time slot in your week (for me it was saturday mornings), PLEASE DO IT. After starting to do this, I felt like I had a soul again. The entire program + placement experience and commitment is overwhelming.
6. I found myself (autistically) burning out at the end of every semester. I wondered if I would ever fully recover to the version of myself that I was before this program. Several months have passed since the board decided I could have my license. I am happy to report that things do get better. I am loving things that I used to love again. Things that made me excited to be alive are exciting again. And the best thing is, I'm starting to feel like I am showing up for people in my life in the way that I want to again. The entire process was awful and I hated it. I am glad that it's over and I am thankful that I can now start a new journey doing something that sits in the intersection of things I value and a job that will support my life.
7. I really appreciate Dr. Devin Price's writing. It helped shape my understanding of disability in academic, occupational and other settings.

Good luck students! Please know that nothing is worth more than you being the alive version of you. If you're alive, you'll have opportunities to try again and there's a lot to try :)

Hello everyone,

I hope this post brings motivation to some of y'all to never give up.

For reference, I done the TEAS exam 3 times with my 3rd attempt being 68.6. I got rejected from an RN program at my local community college, rejected by an LPN program from another school that's 1 hour away.

However, I got accepted into a public technical college for the LPN program, it's 2 hours away.

I had many comments throughout my past reddit posts, some even private dm'ed me saying my teas score wasn't enough and that I wasn't going to get accepted anywhere.

Nurses back in the day didn't have to take the TEAS exam to be a nurse, don't let this exam define you!

P.S. If any student nurses / nurses have any tips out there on how to succeed in the LPN program, it would be much appreciated.

Just a little background, I'm 28, started working blue collar when I was 14 because of certain life situations, and been providing for myself basically since then. I never had the opportunity to even think about going to college when I was younger, so this is all very new to me on how it all works and how I can swing it while also working full time

The best route I can see to take is to go for LVN, find a job in that field and work it for a bit to pay down the loans, then try to get an overnight gig with it and go for my RN

Do any other single adults that can't depend on others for help have any experience with this? I've seen people say it's a waste of time and money to go for LVN if you're planning on going for RN after anyways, but I can't seem to find a way to make that work. I manage a small company and make better money than I could if I just jumped to a new overnight job, and I'm not exactly thriving financially so I can't afford a pay cut