Insanity

One of my writings I saved during nursing school...

"She used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things:

a one-track mind near the track's end of pure insanity;

mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances;

how dead a human being can get and still be alive . . ."

JamesAgee

Insanity. I have not reached it by any means.

It securely latches onto overwhelmed and surrounds my every thought and dream.

It stays in sight as an undetermined fate.

I've been strapped to this insane roller coaster ride and the ride no longer has me grounded.

It has edged me up to the highest point, pushes me over the edge and has me falling miserably, sickeningly and in a whirlwind...

I'm not ready for the next climb as I anticipated it in my heart.

What an adventure I've begun.

I'm in and there is no going back or being ejected before it is over.

Being ejected would be humiliating and represent self-defeat.

I'm stronger than it.

There is no going back.

Nothing compares to this. I thought in getting on this would be similar to all others...

But in reality, This ride is one of a kind.

I thought I had experience, But I had no idea.

I thought I was optimistic and hopeful...

Now I realized I'm overwhelmed and unsure of my own determination.

I began with the end in mind and now... I can't seem to see past the next decline.

New Hopes

Picked up my coffee today from the new coffee stand I found near our new house. It's cute and little and I would rather support them than Starbucks. And every 5th coffee you get is free. Free is good. One of the girls at the stand mentioned my scrubs today and asked what I did. I told her I was a nurse at a hospital not too far away. Her little eyes lit up. She explained to me that she was done with her pre req classes and was applying for nursing school. She excitedly continued that she has been volunteering in the hospital, that her dad was a nurse and he seemed to really like his job. Then she asked me how I liked my job... (Deep breath) Sometimes this is still a hard answer for me to give. I still hold on to the resentment of how I feel like how I put my whole life on hold to do school for the RN license, how I let myself go, how I ruined relationships and how I obsessed about getting a 4.0 when at the end of the day, it didn't mean much. Sure that 3.85 meant I got a different rope on my graduation gown and it is listed on my degree, but for what I sacrificed for it...I don't feel like it was worth it. The next thing I have resentment is being new and naive again about a new career and being eaten alive by nurses who had been doing the job as long as I had been alive. I had to grow thick skin to get through them and their criticism. I thought I already had the thick skin, the balls and the attitude to get through this new nursing roll, but I didn't have quite enough. And the truth is I probably didn't have enough of that to start nursing school. The first quarter was a complete fucking shock...and then my friends and I just went into survival mode to get through the next 5 quarters. The next thing that was hard on me was working nights. It was hard on me and hard for me to sleep, the money was not worth it. So here I am on evenings. I love my floor and my coworkers. I get more pleasant patients that I adore working with than not. But since injuring my back I am dying to get over to a baby nurse type atmosphere. I know it won't be easier, but it's my passion and lets be real a 9lb baby will not injury my back. I think the hardest thing will be dealing with mom and dad and learning to read the baby who can not always tell me what is wrong. You learn that though, just like I can tell when something is wrong with my pets, you get that feeling that something isn't right... So with all this resentment and feelings I hold for this adventure I've gone through... I reply to the excited young girl that I do enjoy my job, it is worth the school and that there are so many areas of nursing...if you don't like one spot you can move to so many  more! At the end of the day I sometimes regret giving up the EMT/ Firefighter role that I was so extremely proud of, but at this point I can't complain...And I made 3 really good friends out of the whole experience. I'll probably be friends with these girls for a very long time. It's nice to have them, they are the family I've chosen...And to the young new hope at the coffee shop I hope that she has a better survival through school than me and that at the end of the day, she too doesn't resent the journey or the school loans. And don't even get me started on school loans and the cost of those damn books...

W T F...?

Walked out of the med room at work and mentioned to a nurse in passing that the med I was about to give had an expiration date of the next day. (I wanted to toss it and get a new one. It was probably okay. I put it in a med cup to deliver to a patient). The nurse I mentioned this too replied "wow, that is probably a good thing to check the expiration right, I should really be better about that". I walked off, Partly because I didn't have a response that was appropriate and I really liked this lady. All I could think was really, have you been a nurse so long that you are so complacent about checking expiration dates on medications. Ew. I bet you check your expiration date on your milk though. 

My second Ew. is EVEN worse. I was in a room assisting a RN in changing clothes/linen for patient who was incontinent (pissed herself). My fellow coworker changed the wet clothes, wet bedding, wiped the patients front to back (girl parts to butt crack) with me... BUT WITHOUT GLOVES. I was so in shock through the whole thing. I did my part, took off my gloves off, washed my hands and walked out. All that I could obsess about is all the things she may have touched with that kind of careless care to her patients and that it puts her, them and me at risk. I am already OCD about touching things... BUT this just puts a whole new obsession in my head. Something needs to be done and said in time...It is just a matter of me figuring out how to go about it... 

...

A few weeks ago I had a patient who I absolutely adored. That seems to be a theme with me. But hey I get a lot of good patients and they take well to me. Sometimes I feel like it's my face that doesn't look like it should be thirty or it's my voice which doesn't should like I am more than 5. Whatever it is, or was, this patient I had was great to work with and hilarious. I had her for 3 days straight. I watched her struggle with pain, we tried every mean you could think of meds and nonpharmacological means to assist....but it seemed like nothing helped the pain she had in her knee replacement. One night I had her she was pretty sleepy so I went in at the beginning of my shift and did my thing, tucked her in and let her rest. I checked on her throughout the shift to make sure she was breathing and didn't need anything. AND then around 730 I get back from lunch and see her son standing outside her room. I approach him and inquire if I can help him with anything. He asks how mom has been doing. I let him know that due to pain and some other factors she hasn't been up much and has been sleeping most the shift. I could tell by the look on his face he was disappointed. So he came up with the great idea to get her up. Ugh. This is the shit that I get annoyed with. These patients are adults and I plan my care around them and what they want sure I encouraged them and educate them the importance of getting up but they make their own decisions. Since she wanted to sleep I had planned to do my med passes to my other patients as soon as I got back, but this had changed my evening. He wakes his mom up and convinces her she needs to get up to the bed side commode. These ones are my favorite family members. Hey son let me wake you up in the middle of the night  and suggest you use the restroom. It's like waking someone up to give them a sleeping pill. I let him wake her up and suggest the plan of care to her. Because she is so sweet she agrees. After 45 minutes of maneuvering in bed and attempting to stand on her new knee she is in so much pain she is in tears and keeps repeating " I should have never had this surgery ". I am thinking to myself, I know that she would have had to do this at sometime...But now newly awaken, it just felt like a bad time. We finally get her up, due to a coworker who practically picks her 250lb body up off the bed and swings her onto the commode. 30 minutes later she calls us to go back to bed. She couldn't pee and she is crying in pain. I had tried to get her off the commode earlier, but she wanted to stay there longer since it was such a fuss to get her up. No luck. My coworker comes up, does the same trick to move her back. She gets into bed and starts crying. I leave aggravated and go to get her whatever I can for pain medication. I go in and give the pain meds, tuck her in and and try my best to give her words of encouragement. She at this time, feels defeated.  The son takes a seat next to his mom's bed and starts to ball his eyes out. I felt my heart drop. There was something about seeing her cry, since she is pretty often in good spirits and funny...And it was even harder watching her son cry. I think anytime a man cries it is harder to take. It's not something you see very often. It was really sad. I think he felt bad for suggesting to get her up and I think he felt horrible watching his mom hurt so bad. They both thanked me for my time and I left the room. This stuck with me I think because I went through so many emotions myself and seeing him holding her hand crying was really hard. I felt the situation should have gone differently and it was my job to run the show, but I didn't want to get into a power struggle with the son. Sometimes dealing with family is the worst part of my job, especially when they don't understand why we do the things we do, when we do them, how we do them and when we think it's not the proper time for it...

Narcs

And by "Narcs" I mean narcotics, oxycodone. I give this medication out daily to post surgical patients and don't even think anything about it. Some I wonder if they only want it to knock themselves out so that they can escape the day and escape the responsibility of actually having to get up and work with physical therapy. Regardless of their reason, I had a reason to take it. I hurt my back AGAIN. I say again because that part of my body hasn't been right since I was 19. I was 19 working out and fighting fire like I was indestructible. In exchange I got an experience of a lifetime and a sore back. Well this time I blame an over sized adult who was unwilling to help us move her, so the CNA and I did the best we could to move the fat fake crippled up in bed. I hate those kind of lazy people. I just want to slap them in the face sometimes and remind them they chose to have surgery and are more than able to help out, but they feel like we should assist them with every little movement. Back to my point, hehehe "back" no pun intended...Here I am with a hurt lower back. Which was aggravated by sleeping on an air mattress for a week then coming back home to move. I am the kind of person who will keep unpacking and moving shit even when I know I should be resting because the sight of things unorganized in my house drives me absolutely nuts. So here I am. Taking oxycodone. It makes me so sleepy, which is not a bad thing if It helps me rest and relax my back...But shit does it make me loopy. I text people and post things on Facebook then have no recollection of it the next day. Thank god nothing inappropriate has been posted, but the likely hood of that happening was good. I always said I would make a good nurse. I have had a lot of injuries growing up and figured I would be able to relate to my patients. Well now we can bond over the oxycodone experience. Next time I give it and my patient says something completely off the wall I'll think of the oxycodone, set the bed alarm and call it a night. Doing this is probably more appropriate than leaving the room rolling my eyes and thinking WTF? 

REALNESS

I WISH I HADN'T SEEN THE REALNESS
I WISH I COULD HAVE STAYED WRAPPED UP AND PREOCCUPIED...
SURROUNDED BY THE HOPES AND OPTIMISTIC WARMTH 
OF IDEAS THAT MADE IT POSSIBLE TO GET THROUGH THE NIGHT
I WISH THE DARKNESS WAS NOT SO UN-ORDINARILY COMFORTING AND REMAINED MORE FAMILIAR THAN THE LIGHT OF THE TRUTH
I WISH IT HADN'T UNLEASHED ITS BEING INTO MY HEART SITTING VIBRANT UNDER MY MINDS SPOTLIGHT
I WISH I COULD OF STAYED NAIVE AND SYMPATHETIC TO OTHERS EXPERIENCING THE SAME REALNESS...
NOT THE EMPATHY OF ACTUALLY ENDURING THE PAIN
I WISH I NEVER WOULD HAVE HAD TO UNDERGO THE TRUTH 
OF ITS ACTUAL BEING
I WISH I COULD HAVE GONE BACK TO YESTERDAY AND NEVER WONDERED AIMLESSLY INTO THE REALNESS OF THE DAY CALLED TODAY...
I WISH MY HEART WASN'T LIFELESS
THAT MY EMOTIONS WERE NOT RUNNING RAMPANT
THAT THE WORRY AND THE FEAR WERE NOT SO RELEVANT AND HAD NOT YET
ENGULFED ME WHOLE HEARTILY
I WISH THE REALNESS WAS SIMPLY A FALSE PRECONCEPTION