 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael and I'm a newly qualified general practice nurse. Yay! So today I'm in my lounge. I thought I'd give a little bit of a change of scenery and just show you and update you what I've been doing with the lounge because as some of you know from my Instagram stories and stuff we are doing up the lounge at the minute. There used to be a really crap wallpaper up there and yeah so we've stripped it all. We've done all the painting, we've done the skirting boards and now we've got this beautiful new carpet which the dogs absolutely love. Oh god here he goes. Sorry I need to show you this. So he's got a thing where he chases shows. Little weirdo. Anyway yes so this is the lounge so far. Wallpaper's done, the painting has been done, the skirting boards have been done, the flooring has been done and now we are waiting for the sofa. So the sofa is going to come on the 19th of March I think. So when that comes it's going to look a lot better. Oh my god I'm so excited for this sofa. Cannot wait. And then my next thing I'm going to do is sort that out. I'm going to repaint. We've got that and the TV stand is that colour as well. So I'm going to sand it all down and make it look amazing hopefully. In my head it's going to look amazing whether it turns out amazing. I don't know because I've never done anything like this before but I'm loving it right now so yeah. I've done this all myself with a bit of help from friends Dali and Dali's cousin helped me wallpaper oh my god. We smashed that wallpaper I'm not going to lie. I'm really bad at wallpapering but actually we did a really good job with that one so yeah so thanks to Dali's cousin for that. I just wanted to do a little update about what I've been up to, how work's going and all of that jazz because I think I'm six weeks in now and I haven't done a sort of work related video in a couple of weeks so I just thought I would update you what's been going on, what's been happening, a lot of you have been following my Instagram stories and have seen that I've been feeling a little bit low lately. So yeah I just wanted to explain that and just yeah update you all basically. And just before I start I just wanted to say that this is a disclaimer. This isn't reflecting of my workplace or my job I still absolutely love my job. This is purely my own pressures that I put on myself as why I'm feeling so low. My colleagues have been amazing, the workplace has been amazing, I love my job in general GP nursing is amazing. I have been feeling really low lately and the last few weeks, two, three weeks I've been really fatigued, I've been going home exhausted and literally just jumping into bed and sleeping at night. I haven't got time to sort of speak to people. It's been tough to be honest, I've had a really tough tough time with it. Today I feel a bit better, I feel a bit more like me today which is amazing to hear from myself and I think it is just all the excitement of moving to a new job, to a new location, leaving uni and then I was excited because I got my dream job so then I started my dream job and then I was sort of looking forward to getting on my blues so then I had that to look forward to and then once I got my blues after that period I sort of started to dip down because I was like right I'm here now, that's it what else have I got and I think I put a lot of pressure on myself because I did get a couple of things wrong, not major things but I did make a couple of mistakes where it just happened, I was exhausted, I was tired, I felt awful for doing that and when someone told me that I'd made that mistake I was like this isn't good and if I can make a little tiny mistake like that, what are the mistakes can I make, what else have I done wrong, maybe no one's noticed it yet, maybe it's going to be picked up later so I started panicking about that and then there was just a couple of little things like that that I'd been doing wrong and I thought you know what this isn't good I'm getting really fatigued it could be the traveling as well because I travel to my job it's about 22 miles from my house, it can take anywhere between 40 minutes to oh just over an hour to get to work which I knew before but and I've always on my placements I've always had to travel for my placements they've all been nearly two hours long so I thought actually this is a bonus that it's actually closer than my placements have been, I didn't think it would affect me but I think doing five days and plus the traveling on top it can be quite a lot I think so I think that's really got me down a little bit and the pressures I'm putting on myself because I'm thinking I should know everything already when I shouldn't know everything already I'm a newly qualified nurse I only know so much just like any nurse everyone is sort of not eligible about bits of little things so I just need to be a lot more kinder to myself and use all of my advice that I give to you guys which I'm really bad at doing I'm sorry I don't take my advice and I need to start doing that never excuse this light as well it's a bit funny at the minute so yeah so I've been beating myself up like crazy putting a lot of pressure on myself and going home worrying about things unnecessarily and it's all about me and myself and sort of putting myself down and that's not okay I shouldn't be doing that and I have been speaking to people about it I've spoke to the nurses about it that really really really helped me out I spoke to the one nurse and told her how I was feeling she said you know what we all feel like that after being qualified for so many years I still ask questions I still go to the other nurse because she's an expert on something that I'm not and I keep saying this as well in my vlogs like we can't know it all that's what makes teamwork because we help each other out so I just need to remind myself this constantly and yeah I'll get used to it and just speaking with other newly qualified nurses as well some of them who have been qualified for six months some of them have been qualified for a year now have all said the same thing that transition from student to newly qualified nurse is the toughest because you're suddenly not a student nurse anymore you are the nurse and sometimes some patients don't understand that they don't understand the transition process that actually you're still learning and they expect a lot more from you and I think that's what I've had as well I've had one patient who just asked me some questions and I was like I don't know and that's when I was like why don't I know this I should know this I've been just uni for three years and I think that's where it all started a couple of weeks ago as well we're just having those questions thrown at me so yes it's about reminding myself and you if you're going to be qualified to or if you are newly qualified and struggling you need to remind yourselves as well that we can't know it all and it's okay if we make these little mistakes sometimes but as long as we're getting help and support and don't struggle through it alone that's the main thing so like I have I've spoke to my family I've spoke to the nurses at work about it and we are actually going to now sort of adjust my hours around I'm either going to be doing four long days instead of over five days I'm going to condense it to four long days and have a day off in the week or I'm going to go down to doing just three long days Monday Wednesday Friday and then it will give me that day in between because another thing I'm realizing is I'm not doing sort of my GP ambassador stuff as much as I would be doing I'm not vlogging I'm not vlogging as much as I was doing before I think having those little social things that I did before taken away from me is also having a little bit of an effect on me and I need to sort of get back into that because I feel like I'm not helping students anymore I feel like I'm not doing enough for student nurses anymore and that's my big passion and I want to do more of that so if I could have those two days off in between and I could focus those two days on helping other people that's going to make me feel a hundred times better as well which sounds weird doing more in a different way is going to really really help me and that's what I've always done on my course as well I haven't just focused on my nursing degree I've done everything around it to keep me motivated and keep me going and I feel like I personally just really need that in my life right now and you know what if I can't do three long days that's fine four I think doing the four long days and having that one day as well in the week so I've got three days then I think that's going to help me massively sorry I feel like I've waffled on forever about my hours of work I'm so sorry guys and I just wanted to update you how I'm feeling where I'm at because I did put a couple of Instagram posts as well like I said about just feeling a bit run down and tired lately but I want you to all know I'm okay I'm fine I'm still living my job it's still amazing nursing is still amazing but I was feeling very low and very exhausted so yeah but I'm okay and it's still early days like I'm only six weeks in I've felt like this on most placements I think so it's reminded myself about that period and that time that I had on placements and actually it I improve and I get more confident as the job goes on and yeah I sort of come on my shell a bit more which is nice Dylan what are you doing you little weirdo come here and say hello Dylan say hello say hello nix say hello Denix okay you can stop now sorry guys I'm going to stop talking now because I feel like I've just rubbed it on about rubbish so I'm really sorry about that guys but I just wanted to make you aware that there are tough times when you qualify and that transition is really really hard but just make sure you get that support that you need talk to your colleagues about it talk to your friends about it because that's the main thing is that you have to get support and not just shy away and say this is expected of me I should be feeling like this because no it's not normal it's not a nice feeling it makes you feel really really rubbish so please speak to someone get support if you need it and get all the help you can for that smooth transition process to newly qualified nurse because I've got an amazing team and it's really really helped my process so I shall say goodbye for now if you want me to do any videos in particular please comment below let me know what you want to know more of not coronavirus I'm not doing anything on coronavirus because it's ridiculous right now and there's way too much information out there go on the who website public health england website proper websites don't listen to the rubbish here on social media or the news just go by the proper websites and what the government and advising and listen to the advice quarantine for 14 days build your immune system up and hand washing infection control guys come on but if there's any other videos that you but if there's any other videos that I can do for you and I haven't covered yet that maybe I've said I've covered in a previous vlog that I haven't done yet please remind me because I am forgetful and I'm a little bit rubbish sometimes so comment below let me know and I will get those done for you but for now