Considering going for my RN.

Hi all,

First time posting here. A little bit about me, I'm 25 years old, son of a life long RN, kind of having trouble finding a career path, I have 2 kids, ages 6 and 6 months. I grew up with ambitions of being a musician, even left my home in Jacksonville to head to Los Angeles to go to music school. 3 years later, I've figured out that this probably isn't going anywhere, so I'm considering the nursing field (my mom has tried to convince me to go for it since I was 18)

A lot of things about being a nurse appeal to me, my mom is a travel nurse, and gets to make amazing money, see the country, and pretty much call the shots in her life, I like that. Granted, I know that's not specific to everybody's case, but it appeals to me, I'd love to travel when I can, working agency and choosing when I get to work, all things that make me want to pursue getting an RN, plus my mom says that male nurses are in high demand at a lot of areas.

My issue is probably the same as a lot of peoples, I have issues I guess with messing something up. I know if I did something, or something happened that caused someone their life, it'd be something I'd never be able to live with. I think I'm overly sensitive, but it seems like it's in my blood, when I was 9, I started kind of my first steps towards this field when my grandfather moved in with us, and I was stuck helping out a lot, he was early stages of alzheimers at the time, and as he progressed I was often left giving meds, changing diapers, giving showers, feeding him, an awful lot for a 10-11 year old to be doing. I have the heart for this, but it seems like maybe my heart is too big, I know patient care and spending time with patients is a big part of things, and just the thought of getting close to someone then having them die a few days later, or die holding my hand, just breaks my heart already, and it's just things I don't know how to cope with.

My mom says that by the time I'm dealing with patients, if I don't know what I'm doing, there's something seriously wrong, and I'm sure after all the schooling I'd be more prepared than I am now. My mom being the CCU/ICU nurse deals with the issues that worry me a lot, but instead of helping me figure out if I'll be able to cope with these things, all I hear from her is money,money,money.. she just pushes so hard that once I get my RN I'll never have to worry about work again, and while that's important, I don't want to be stuck with an RN and then not be able to use it. I've also considered other fields of nursing, but I (not to sound selfish) want to go where the money is, I'd love to be involved with children, but I don't know enough about all the areas to speak on it much..

I don't know what I'm getting at, or if I'm venting, or just searching for someone to tell me that I can do this. I was also considering going to school for sonography, but I don't know much about job security in that field, but I've always been interested in that as well, and I'm a fairly technical person and that's also another area that interests me.. I don't know.. Any advice?

Thanks for letting me rant!
Since both my parents are also in the nursing field, I also got the constant lectures on job security and money! Don't go into it for the money though because even though the dollars look nice now, most nurses know that they are severely underpaid for the things they do and put up with. Go into healthcare because you want to, which it sounds like you do. Everyone has the fear of being able to handle the hard issues, but the good times of helping someone make up for it! I don't know much about sonography, but I can say that there are so many areas of healthcare other than RN that need good people so go for it! Don't know if it helps but if you want it bad enough you can do it!