Tuesday, May 24, 2011

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.