With all the Ebola mania, nurses are being thrown into the spot light. I thought I would share my personal thoughts (meaning MY opinion) about nursing through a series of blog posts. This first post is a bit of a general (scattered) insight to how I became an RN and my feelings about nursing.
I LOVE nursing. I think the idea and act of nursing is a beautiful thing! I haven’t always thought this. My mom was a nurse. I heard her stories growing up, and they weren’t all that interesting. So when my mom picked my major for me 9 years ago, I would have never thought I would love of nursing as much as a do.
From a young age, I wanted to be a pediatrician. When it came time to choose a major, my mom wouldn’t let me go pre-med. “You are not getting a chemistry degree and then decide you don’t want to go to med school. Then what are you going to do? Do nursing then apply to med school.” So away I went to college. I figured out quick that I didn’t want to be in school for 10 years so med school was out. Go Mom!! In the spring of my sophomore year, I applied to just one school of nursing that only accepted 1/3 of the applicants. I kept hitting roadblocks when trying to apply to other schools. My grades weren’t stellar: a straight B average. Compared to the other 300 applicants, I landed right in the average section. With the situation I created, I thought ‘if I’m meant to be a nurse, I’ll get into this school’. I went home for the summer, and worked on plans to change my major expecting to have to take a 5th year victory lap. Then the craziest most miraculous thing happened: the large manila envelope (not the small white envelope) showed up with the stamp of the school of nursing. I cried when I found out. I’m still not sure if it was from sadness, happiness or just plain terror.
Fast forward 2 trying years of nursing school, and I am an official RN. Woot! I had my name on the board next to 4-6 patient names (what I was the most excited about all of my 6 week orientation!) It felt amazing. Those first few months were fun! Learning all the stuff you don’t learn in nursing school. Like how to actually start an IV, how to deal with a crazy momma (the bane of peds nurses), how to deal with a difficult physician and make friends with the rest, how to time manage the care for 5 kids and oh by the way you have a new admit on the way. Such a trying and exciting time in a young nurses life!
Those first few years, I was just going through the motions, but while going through the motions something happened. I began to take extreme pride in my care. I would go above and beyond. I would advocate and refuse anymore lab or IV sticks for my kid. I was threatened with an insubordination write-up once but stood my ground (the write-up never came, and the baby got to sleep without anymore lab sticks until the morning). I’m proud to say that in 4 ½ years of nursing, I have only been fired (what we call it when a family requests to not have a nurse again) once in that time. And in that situation, the family was verbally abusive towards me so the feelings were mutual. They left AMA the next day. The Lord really knows when to intercede! Doctors began to respect me, and I respected them. We worked together to take care of these sick, sick kids (ok, some days it was just a butt abscess, but I changed that dressing like a pro and taught mom and dad how to, too!). I grew to see how a nurse could really impact a life. We aren’t only caring for our kids (I prefer kids to patient because they feel like mine at times), but their crazy mommas. I began to see that a lot of times if you take the time to sit down with said crazy momma and hear her out, you can begin to empathize with why she is so crazy. Isn’t that a part of being a nurse? Empathizing with your patient and family?
Nursing is a beautiful, but tiring concept! We really do miss lunch so that we can give you your unprecedented amount of PRNs. We develop UTIs because we do not get a bathroom break in 12 hours because of twenty admits. We miss holidays to take care of your loved ones. We are underpaid for the number of hats we take on.
But there are AMAZING times, too. When that one patient who has been shy for 3 days gives you a secret smile at the end of your 3rd shift. The mom who stops you in the hallway to give you a hug and thank you because you sat down to listen to her. The patient who overcame cancer and comes to visit, but you don’t even recognize because he has a head full of hair and grew a few inches. Those are the moments that make nursing the awesome passion it is. I try to remember these while in yet another code brown (explosive poo situation), and usually it works. I crack a joke and my fellow code brown team laughs and the duty of cleaning up poo becomes a little more enjoyable!
Ponderings of a RN 