My Introduction

I am starting my blog with an eye on the future but my mind filled with experiences of my past. I'm sure I am like many... I have a lot to share but stumble to get the controls to the right vehicle.

So, let's try a blog! Informal, yet professional looking. Economical (ie: free) and easy to use yet with the ability to reach the millions of eyes out there cruising the internet. What do I want to get out there?

Ahh... that is what it's all about!

My name is a start. It is Emily Goggin. Born as Emily Borneman, married as Emily Flynn and remarried as Emily Goggin. The last time - and I do mean last time - I debated changing my name because I had worked many years as a professional with the last name Flynn and shared the name with my 2 boys. But I am wholly committed to my husband and our future, so gladly changed my name and this is where it will stay until it adorns a shiny marble stone far in the future.

I am an only child and my mom kept a detailed school scrapbook. On my first grade page it asked what I want to be. "Nurse" is scribbled in the blank and a nurse is what I became. I grew up in a Chicago suburb but went to the University of Iowa for my training - a truly great school. I wrote my boards and got my first job in Naples, Florida, following my fiance and his family to the sunny state.

I started at Naples Community Hospital (NCH) on a medical-surgical floor, quickly got accepted into a critical care internship, and landed a night shift in a progressive care unit. My first son was born a few years later and I followed a friend into home health care and spent a great 4 years working for a terrific agency which has since dissolved. The co-workers and friends from that job are with me still. I returned to NCH to a telemetry floor, and after a few years, in 2000 started in the emergency department. I have left briefly for a cardiology office job and home health intake coordinator job while I tried to navigate parenting 2 small boys and 12 hour shifts, but the ER is where I am to stay.

Somewhere in there I studied a home course and took an exam to become a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant because I'm always looking for more - more experiences, more money, better hours. And this field offered it all! But beware, you don't put down the pen from the exam and start billing $100 an hour! There is this little thing called marketing which I think should be a 4 letter word! I did what I was told to do in the course (though I don't know how well) and got no where. I did start a website and paid to list myself on a page of experts and did eventually get some work. One of the parties that contacted me is a story unto itself - for another time. But I got some experience reviewing cases both for the plaintiff and the defense and was deposed one time. I collected my fees and then let my marketing lapse. I figured it wasn't for me.

I have always kept my eye on a Yahoo group listserve and saw a posting for a group looking for nurses to review records at home. I contacted them and before I knew it, was on a conference training call and then working from my home for an hourly rate, the same as that at the hospital. It wasn't big bucks, but it was constant work and no 45 minute commute. I have been working on a class action suit since last April and have learned a lot. We were on hold for 2 months before Christmas while the company debated if they would continue litigation, so I also learned to not quit your day job!

That brings me to the present! I still want more! I'm working 50 hours a week - 24 at the hospital, 30 at home. But being at home, it doesn't feel like I'm putting in such serious hours. I would like to get myself back out there and market myself for other consulting work. I have admired other nurse's websites - hospital nurses and legal nurses, and want to start my own.

So here I go. Bear with me and I'll try to make it interesting and fun. Because ultimately, I want to have fun... get up late... have a maid... a summer home... and travel to Italy, Greece, and Egypt. So I have lot of work to do!