10 Things

So I am being a little nostalgic these days and have had some pretty interesting experiences and emotions felt at work, so why not blog about it right? ( I know that most of you or the one of you that reads this out there is thinking "it's about stinkin time" So her it goes:

Background info: So when I was in high school, I played the clarinet in the concert band, and every year you played at graduation. So 6 years of playing at graduation and my senior year I heard a total of 7 graduation speech's. Let's just say I had down pat. First was whole part about cherish the memories you have with your classmates and times here. Then came the accomplishments of the particular class. Then comes the "the future is yours, take every opportunity and always keep dreaming." The standard model. Well there's one graduation speech that sticks out in my mind vividly.

Mr. Brunsons: The Top 1o Things you won't miss and will miss about going to Laurens Central School. So in honor of that speech and my nostalgia and just all out emotionalness related to being a nurse I decided to write this blog along smilier lines My title:

10 Thing I Wouldn't Miss About Nursing , and 10 Things I Wouldn't trade for anything other Job in the world.

Kinda lengthy I know, but remember nursing not English here!

10. I wouldn't miss the constant busyness of the days. The constant being on my feet for 12 hours. Not peeing or eating for 12 hours. Putting my needs on the back burner for 12 plus hours. The fact that I go home after 12 plus hours and feel guilty because I forgot to get 22 some orange juice at 8 am this morning. I wouldn't trade the fact that no day is the same. I never know what I am going to encounter. Each day is different than the one before. No two patients are the same. I love it I love that I learn something new every day. (Plus I can hold it for almost 16 hours!) P.S I do not endorse this practice at all!!!

9. I won't miss the constant, "nurse, get me this?", "nurse, I want that, " , "nurse I am not doing that." First of all I have a name and it's written on the white board. I am not my job title. I am not a slave her to play fetch for you. I am here to help you/care for you/ keep you safe and help you get back to your previous health status. I wouldn't trade anything for the world that I am a part of something bigger than myself, that being the nursing community. There's such a sense of belonging, such a sense of community. Just the fact that, they get it, they get and they've been right there with you in the trenches.

8. I won't miss getting food thrown at me. Whether it be pudding, applesauce, ginger ale, mashed potatoes, corn, or stead. Food is meant to be consumed not thrown, tossed, spit at, or vomited at a person. Enough said. I wouldn't trade anything in the world for Friday Breuggers day. Or the fact that I truly believe that any resident, attending, nurse, patient, family, or general population person that brings food to nurses is truly blessed by God. The way to a nurses heart is through food preferably in the form of pizza, bagels, bacon, pelligrinos subs. Not like I am suggesting someone being in something.

7. I won't miss switching shifts. Working days, evenings, and night shifts in one week should be outlawed and punishable by death. My poor circadian rhythm sometimes is my biggest enemy. I apologize to it daily, sometimes twice a day. Trust me she needs it because the switching messes with your head. Plus I cannot wait until the day I do not have to take something to help me sleep. I wouldn't trade some night shifts for anything in the world. The laughter, the dancing, the singing, the to-do lists made on progress note paper. NACHOS GRANDE!!!

6. I won't miss wearing scrubs. We'll this one is kinda both statements combined in one. So before you have to wear scrubs every day, they really are the most comfortable article of clothing in the world. Then you start wearing them daily, your laundry is consumed by scrubs and they then become associated with work. So therefore in plain English scrubs = work, not comfort. So yes I do look forward to the day when scrubs mean comfort again.

5. I won't miss cleaning up any type of substance that comes out of a hole in the human body. Trust me you don't want me to expound on this. I've thrown away a pair of scrubs because of this, bleach and the washing machine wouldn't cure it. People ask me all the time, "oh your a nurse, you must enjoy cleaning up poop?" Umm, for real people? Usually I stare at time forever with this look that they have 3 heads and then they get their answer. I will say though I wouldn't trade that feeling you get when you walk into your patients room and its a mess stuff everywhere, and they smell horrible. Then when your 12 hrs are up. The room is spotless, supplies are in order in the drawers on the table. There linens have been changed. The patient is bathed, hair washed, and actually smells good is sitting up in chair before 7am, with a fresh water pitcher ready for breakfast.

4. I won't miss tirely fighting with doctors to get something for my patients, or get them to seem my patient. I shouldn't have to fight, and I shouldn't have to call more than once. I shouldn't have to fight and be mean back. I shouldn't have to. When I say some thing's not right, it's not right. I have a license and I am going to protect it with my life. I know this is going to sound prideful but it isn't mean to. Its that moment when you get it right. When your hunch was right, that gut feeling was right. That calling a rapid response while the team was on the floor so the patient didn't have to get intubated paid off. Again I don't mean to sound prideful but there is nothing like it, that moment of getting it right when it comes to something that's going on with a patient.

3. I won't miss codes/rapid responses. They are stressful, loud, sweaty, smelly, scary, long, exhausting, and down right disruptive to a type A person trying to get their work done. Plus there is too many people in white coats that get all excited and try and be a leader. I wouldn't trade anything for those codes that we do bring the patient back and they survive. That feeling of knowing that you saved someones life. When we get it right and it works like a well oiled machine, that other nurses don't even know its going on because it just flows so well. ( I am never checking a BG in a code again. Nope not me.)

2. I won't miss residents and I really won't miss residents in July. The orders written, the your a nurse, and I am a doctor complex, the "I have an MD after my name complex, the ambivalence. I can honestly say so that some of the residents I work with are amazing human beings. I have to remember that they are learning just like me, and that they are a person just like me. We are colleagues working together for our patients. It took me a long time but I've realized that if you form a relationship and you trust each other, it just works out so much better. Plus .25mg PO Haldol orders never happen, I usually get 2mg IV Haldol orders. Shout out to the current R2s at strong. Your the best!


1. I won't miss those most difficult conversations to have with families/or looking a family member in their eye after their loved ones have passed. The newly diagnosed cancer patient, the comfort care conversation. Those moments when patients can't remember their loved ones. Those moments when all I want to do is go cry in my "secret spot." I wouldn't trade anything in world for the family that says "thank you" Whether its thank you for keeping my family member comfortable. Thank you for getting them orange juice. Thank you for being with them when they got the diagnosis. Thank you for making sure they weren't alone. Thank you for spending Christmas with my family, even though I know you weren't with yours. When a chief resident remembers your name and says thank you for helping him tell a patient they have cancer. Thank you for doing what you do. I wouldn't trade it for anything that I get to do.

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts. -Florence Nightengale.

Running vs. Eating

2011

Well, I know it's already about a 2 months into 2011, but I guess now is a good time to do a new year post or a catch up life post as I call it. These past two months have been a little crazy. I've visited Flordia, Connecticut, NYC, and home. I've accomplished a bucket list item. I've started to train for something I've never thought I could do. I've learned a lot these past couple weeks at work. I've felt emotions very similar to those that I felt in September/October, and have fought like crazy to not go back there. I've laughed a lot. Cried a lot. Thought a lot. This reminds me of the great Jimmy V:

"If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, your going to have something special."

"Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

For those of you who don't know Jimmy Valvano, he was a the legendary coach at North Carolina State and ESPN analysit that battled cancer. Won the Arthur Ashe award and gave an amazing speech, in which these two lines above are found.

LAUGH:

Everyday at work there is laughter. We laugh at each other, when we dance at the med counters. I attempt to sing a song at the med counter. At night when we spill stuff on the floor. We can when your change a dementia patients and he pees all over you friend shoes, and doesn't even realize it. You laugh when a patient asks you a silly question. You laugh with a patient. You laugh when you get pudding thrown/spit at you with meds in it. You can when you've had three codes and you listen to the Barney song. You laugh when a lady crushs a gingerale can over you. I laugh when my cute 80 yr old lady says, "Are you old enough to be doing this?" Or when the 97 yr old lady says "You look like your 40" and politely say back, "actually I'm 23." You laugh when who knows what bodily fluid ends up on your shoes/clothes. You laugh at doctors orders. You laugh when you realize it's 6:30pm and you haven't peed since you left he house at 6:00am. You laugh when your at your wits end, with your patients, doctors, family members, other staff when all you want to do is cry becuase laughing is so much more fun.

CRY:

We cry when were overwhelmed. We cry when we come to work sick. We cry when it seems like we can't do anything right. We cry because we've spent every single moment of our 12 hour day trying to "meet" a patients need and it's still not good enough. We cry because at times we don't understand someones choices but we have to respect it. We cry when a patient says, "I just want it to be over, I just want to die." I cry when people think I'm not good enough. I cry when I just want someone to do care for me. (I know selfish) I cry because there's nothing I can do for a patient except watch them die and hold their hands. I cry because I want so desperately to never, ever make an error, but it happens, I'm not perfect. I cry when I can't understand. I cry when I see a friend in a hospital bed, that shouldn't be there at 18. I cry because I know what each tube that he has in him means. I cry because I know that the numbers on the monitor aren't the best. I cry because all I want to do is get a hug from him just one more time. I cry because I held it together for his mom. I cry because his mom inspired me in the 10 minutes we chatted. We cry at the Barney cage. I cry when my feet hurt a lot. I cry because I can't hold things in well. My secret spot: the stairwell.

THINK:

We think about what we should do. We think about all the things we want to do, but can't because there isn't enough time. We think about all the pain we cause patients sometimes that isn't necessary. We think about what if you were a DNR/DNI. We think about our families when we work Christmas/Thanksgiving/Mothers Day/Fathers Day/Our Family and Friends Birthday. We "critically" think as they say. We think about whether or not the order we are about to follow should be followed. We think about things and try like hell not to say them, because we would get fired if we did. I think about all the things I do wrong. I force my self to think about the good things that happen. I think about these patients stories. I think about that place I was in, in September/October. I think about quitting, daily, but in no way, shape or form will I. I think/wish I had thicker skin.

These are only short paragraphs of what I laugh about, cry about, and think about while I am a nurse. I feel like this is what I should tell people about when they ask me "what do you do?" or "is it really like grey's anatomy?" (UMM NO!!!!!!) You laugh, cry, scream, think, hope, pray, with people. I know this saying is a little cheesy, but it's the truth so I figured I'd end with it.

"Nurses beneath their scrubs, beat the hearts of warriors."