Dealing with the Illinois, Texas, and California nursing boards.

First let me tell you that Illinois does not have a nursing board. Due to this fact everything takes wayyy longer there. This summer with only 6 weeks left to obtain a permanent license from Texas I found out that my license had not been verified from Illinois yet. Normally the verification process takes 4-6 weeks from Illinois. I called them, and they told me that it took at least 10-14 days to even get the info entered into their computers after receiving the verification form in the mail. Texas told me that once they received my verification it would take another 10 business days. If it took the maximum time then this could have taken 10 weeks, naturally I panicked, but here's what I did.........

I sent my verification form to Illinois by certified mail requiring a signature when they received it, inwhich the signature was scanned and sent to my email address. This way I had proof it was received, and who had received it incase I needed a contact person. I also sent a prepaid stamped and certified envelope for them to send my verification to Texas, so that I would know when Texas had received the mail from Illinois. Certified mail can always be looked up by a tracking number on the USPS website. It costs a $1 extra if you want the signature emailed to you. This process worked so fast! Forget the 10-14 days of entering it into the computer that they had told me on the phone. I sent it out on Monday, Illinois received it on Wed, and mailed it on Friday for Texas to receive it the following Monday. Within 3 weeks my license was verified to Texas.

Now let me address California......

If you have a conviction on your record of any kind. I don't care if it's a $300 speeding ticket have documentation sent from the court system. California does have a clause on doing an extended background check if you have a traffic ticket over $300. In my case I got caught with possession of alcohol 4 months before my 21st birthday while attending Iowa, the Big Ten party school. Once again make sure all stuff is sent certified!!!! They will send a letter that says it will take 4 weeks to process after receiving all documentation, but I talked to a lady that said it would be right away. Well after 10 days had passed it still hadn't been done. I made 2 phone calls and left a message, then my recruiter called and left a message as well. After 3 phone calls in 2 days they processed my license. Here's the catch. I drove 9 extra hours to show my face to the California Board and see what the hold up was to find out they had processed it 2 days before. I don't know how well it'd work, but maybe if you ever leave a message say something like "I will be driving 350 miles tomorrow to visit you if I don't hear back from you today!" You might save yourself a trip. Sometimes it requires showing your face to get them to move!

I had planned on my California licensure process going quickly and smoothly. I had called in advance and asked if I needed to send documentation regarding my possession of alcohol that happened 11 years ago and no longer applies to me since it's now legal for me to possess alcohol. The lady on the phone told me, "No, a simple explanation should be enough!" I found out 5 weeks later that they would need additional court documentation. So send it all up front. California is notorious for losing your application, so I asked for tips so this wouldn't be a problem. The lady told me that people often send all of their stuff separate, so it gets lost. So my advice is to send your application, check, fingerprints, and any necessary documentation all together and certified. While at the post office send your transcript form to your college. After doing that go home and do the online nursys verification from another state. Get it all done upfront and you will be issued a permanent instead of a temporary license. If you wait until last minute to complete the process I can guarantee you'll be frazzled! There are certain requirements for a temp, the transcript is not! You have 6 months after receiving the temp to get a perm license.

Fingerprints are also another issue. My recruiter sent me 2 California fingerprint cards that they had got extra from the board. You might check with your recruiter to see if they have any, because California may take awhile to send you some. Many people have had their fingerprints sent back for smudges, cards bent, etc. You can either go to a Livescan in California to have this done, which processes in 72 hours and no worries of your fingerprint card being denied. Since I was in Texas that was not a convenient option so I went to the local sheriff's office to have it done. I took 2 cards with me and was explicit in saying these have to be perfect with no smudges. Afterwards I slid them into an envelope, and the sheriff told me to let them dry for an hour before mailing them out. Voila! No return on my fingerprints. I still had a spare set of fingerprints incase they decided to deny the original set. If that would have been the case I wouldn't have had to wait until the next available fingerprinting day at the sheriff's office. I could have been to the post office with my spare set in 5 minutes had that been the case.

I hope this will help someone else with less stress than I've had in these licensure processes!

Long Beach

So I have finally arrived in California and residing 2 miles from the ocean in Long Beach. I had 5 long days of driving to get here. My first day of driving was from Iowa to Denver. I spent 3 days there with my nurse friends I met in Haiti. We went up to St Mary's Glacier. I had no idea that there were actually glaciers on the mainland. We went to Idaho Springs, Red Rocks park and ampitheater as well.

My next drive was from Colorado, across Utah, to Page, Arizona on the Utah/AZ border. If you have a GPS you may it programmed to show you the fastest route. The faster route might not be faster. I programmed my GPS to take me the shorter route, which was 70 miles shorter. 70 miles on an already long drive is an hour less of driving, and by

the end of the day you'll be thankful for that hour. I believe GPSs estimate that your highway driving time will be 55mph, most of the back highways

I drove had speeds limits of 65-70mph. In the end I honestly don't think the faster route was any faster, but I did save 70 miles worth of gas and saw some awesome scenic scenery I wouldn't have otherwise seen. All of my videos are posted on Youtube, just search "iahawkette" and all my public videos should pop up.

The next day I drove to the Grand Canyon 140 miles further south. For reference it is $25 to drive through and they prefer debit/credit cards as form of payment. There are probably 12-15 scenic places you can get out of your car and look out into the canyon. I probably spent 2 hours at the most getting out of my car and driving around and through the canyon, but you could easily

spend 4-5 hours there. I was on the south brim of the canyon. The north brim is only 10 miles away from the south brim, but by car is over 250 miles away. The north brim is 1000 ft higher, but is closed October-May due to snow.

I drove next to the Hoover Dam on the Nevada/AZ border. It had construction done in 2005, and I arrived after dark. However the dam is lit up at night, and I would have been scared to drive over that bridge if I would have known what I was driving over in advance.

I stayed at Circus Circus in Vegas that night. I got the room for around $33/night, which included the resort fee. Of all the hotels I stayed in last week it was the cheapest and nicest room. The hotel not only has a casino and restaurants, but an amusement park, massages, on the roof pool, etc. Parking in Vegas is also free and easy to find. The one thing I have never done before is wait in a long line to check into my hotel room.

I will explain the licensure process for California and Illinois later, but as of Wed my California license still wasn't issued. My company had contacted me by email on Monday night and I didn't get the message until Tuesday night telling me that because my license hadn't processed I couldn't begin my new job until Dec 6th. I was like, "Nooooo, I've already driven 2000 miles, haven't worked in 7 weeks, and can't afford to stay in a hotel for 3 weeks!" So Thursday I spent driving an extra 9 hours to go to the Board of Nursing in Sacramento.

Once again I drove the back roads. It was scary for awhile, because it was just me and God. I might have drove for atleast an hour before I saw another car or person in sight. The little remote mountain towns had gas over $4/gallon. The plan was to drive through Yosemite National Park, but all the roads were closed due to snow. I did drive through a couple other national forests and parks. One forest looked like it had been in a forest fire.

A couple years ago I went skiing for the first time. Afterwards I thought it would be fun to take a ski trip to Lake Tahoe thinking it was in Utah. Much to my surprise I found myself driving by Lake Tahoe on the California/Nevada border. If you have never driven into California before be prepared to stop at checkpoints as you enter in the state. No fruits/vegetables, firewood, or things made of ash are allowed into the state. Be prepared to pop your trunk.

I spent a night in Sacramento and drove Friday to Long Beach where I checked into my new apartment.