The Worst Day of My Life

The following story is completely true, written originally on June 6, 2007.

It's the night before the biggest test of my life. I am not tired at all, and all day I have either been bored or panic-stricken wondering if I'd studied the right things, studied enough, learned enough, printed the directions to the test, and a billion other things that flooded my head. I tell myself maybe it would be good to go over the review notes I have with test-taking tips from one of my professors. By now ADD (or ADHD) has progressed to near lethal severity, and I am only able to glean one bullet point from the first page I read (pay attention, this is foreshadowing):

"Don't expect everything to go well the day of the test"

After failing miserably at my study attempt, I reason that 9 is not to early to go to bed because getting plenty of rest has to be somewhere on that paper I read. I try, but I cant sleep. I take a shower for no reason.

Around 1 am I wake up like someone set my bed on fire. I am convinced I am late, and when I look at the clock I realize I still have a few hours. Now I'm nervous that since I am so awake now, I'll sleep through my alarm. I remember reading somewhere that if you get odd hours of sleep you wake up tired, and feel rested if you get even numbers. I start trying to count how many hours I'll get, then realize I've been counting hours for about 20 minutes, then start to panic about how that will affect my odd/even sleep ratios, and can't fall back asleep. I start thinking about medication classifications and that does the trick.

I actually wake up a few minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off and I'm wide awake. I take another shower for no reason. Make coffee. Get dressed. Warm up the car, even though it's June. Go over the directions. Get food. On the road by six. Everything is going perfectly, and I found enough change in the center console to buy a sausage McMuffin. It's gross.

It takes about an hour and a half to get to Columbus, and I finally find the right building and I'm actually a little early. There is one girl with a mustache in front of me in line and she is taking the NCLEX too. I didn't ask her, but she had the sort of unattractive physique and weird urgent walk that nurses have so I just assumed it. She has a little hospital keychain thing. Definitely a nursing grad. Probably already has a job.

The man at the desk smiles and asks me for my printed copy of my ATT. The paper I hand him apparently is not what I need and he stares at me. Somehow I'm not worried yet, because I brought a little piece of paper with a number written on it and I figure he can use wi-fi or something to look up my info and let me take the dang test.

This is not true. He says I need another piece of paper. I ask him what I should do, and he thinks for a minute then says I can go down to Kinko's about 12 miles away and print it off my email account and bring it in. I ask if I'll be too late and he says he isn't sure, but it's worth a try. That is not as definitive an answer as I would have expected from someone who sits at a front desk of anywhere. They are supposed to say things like yes and no or go home now, not 'worth a try.'

I'm freaking out now, officially. The coffee and sausage are making my bowels do things I don't understand or enjoy and I have a headache and all I brought was a bottle of cranberry juice. I literally start thinking about how low my blood sugar will be and how that will impair my brain functioning and realize I am still staring at the man at the desk. He feels awkward. I turn for the door and head to Kinko's.

I get back on the highway, driving like a bat escaped from the depths of hell, cutting people off and I run a red light. At Linko's I sit at the computer and stick my credit card in, get on the internet and after 3 tries to get on to my email it isn't working. I call some people to see if it works from their end and it doesn't. Someone tells me the Cedarville servers are down. I spent $80,000 on that university, and the one time I need them they let me down.

I call the test center, they tell me to come back and pick up my driver's license that I apparently left on the counter, and the man says he doesn't think this is going to work out for me today. I feel like vomiting. He gives me the number for the NCLEX people and says my last shot would be to see if they can email it to another account. I call them while driving back to get my license, still running red lights with no regard for my lack of license, and a tech support phone guy of Pakistani descent cheerfully informs me that he can get me the information I need in as soon as 24 hours. I want to murder someone. I also want to know why all tech support places are staffed by people less than fluent in English.

At the test center I get my license and by now the guy feels so sorry for me he calls the NCLEX people and asks if they can send it to me sooner. Apparently the man who told me it would take 24 hours was an idiot and they say it will be in my mailbox within minutes.

Back to Kinko's. 2 more red lights ignored. Still haven't gone to the bathroom because somehow I feel this will ruin my chances of taking the test. Time is precious. I print it off and drive back to the test center and proudly hand it to the man at the counter. He looks at it and puts his head down. "This is ridiculous... this is the wrong one again. They sent you the same thing you brought in the first time."

He calls the NCLEX people again, gets a little attitude with them, which makes me feel better. They resend it. I decide Kinko's is too far away and ask if there is another option. We google a library close by and I speed over there, park in a handicap spot (I am above the law at this point), and run to the door.

It's closed.

At this point this story seems highly exaggerated, and I wish that in the past I had done a better job of being truthful and wish I hadn't built up a reputation of exaggerating because then maybe you would believe me when I tell you that every part of this story is true, down to the very last detail.

I bang my head against the window and try not to weep like a child. A woman runs up to the door and asks what I'm doing. Through the door I try to tell her my story and realize that I should just wait for her to unlock it. I retell the story, and she lets me in, saying she could let me in a few minutes early and tells me I can use their internet and printer as long as I have my library card.

I apply for the library card, and a man who looks like George Costanza with a ponytail hears my story which I have now told 4 times, and he looks at my drivers license and says I wont be able to get a library card with a new jersey license. I grovel and plead and he lets me get the card. As I reach to grab the card from the counter, he places his hand over it, and covers it with a sheet of paper about the guidelines and policies of the library. He proceeds to tell me smugly that I will have a small trial period for my library card and will only be able to borrow 3 books at a time and absolutely no DVD's. He knows my story but is just being a jerk. I want to break his glasses into his corneas but they are so thick I don't think I would have the strength.

Back at the test center, I hand the paper to the man (his name is Rob. We are kind of friends now) and I have to go back to the library again. It turns out I just printed off the same wrong thing from before and it was my fault. Oh well.

By now I know this small suburb of Columbus better than my hometown, and my handicapped spot is still open. Fate must be handicapped, because at the printing station I realize I am out of change to pay. I tear apart my car and find a single quarter, run back inside, give George a nod, and print off my thing. I get back to the test center and the mustache speed-walking girl who walked in with me is now finished her NCLEX, and is off on her merry way. It's 10:15.

I go through all the security checkpoints that are totally unnecessary and sit down to take the test. My hands are shaking, I think I have an ulcer, and there is a circus in my bowels. Question 1 is about something I have never even heard of. I don't even think it was made up of real words. Maybe the Pakistani guy emailed me the Pakistani NCLEX because I was rude to him. Maybe I'm an idiot and just don't know anything. I raise my hand, ask to go the bathroom, and sit on the toilet banging my head against the wall trying to calm down. When I'm finished I don't wash my hands for 30 seconds, or for any seconds, because every nursing lesson I've ever learned is gone.

Instead of the test shutting off at 75, I get all 265 questions, the maximum number possible. I think I must have been borderline the whole way. I still don't know if I passed and honestly I don't think I did. This was the worst day of my entire life.

I want to sue Cedarville University, NCLEX, and the internet.


Note: Adrian in fact did not pass, and had to take the test again later. He passed. He is now a real nurse in an undisclosed location.