Shift Swap

Changed to evening shift from night shift I did. Yep. Imagine being a nurse in a hospital you like, with coworkers you like and in a shift you like. Imagine greeting patients during the afternoon to care for them instead of in the middle of the night when they bitch you out for waking them up. Imagine being able to be proactive with their care, talk to them, teach them, meet their families and actually build a relationship with them. Imagine seeing your patients awake and progress from sickness to health. Imagine patients that are able to describe their thoughts, feelings, goals and life with you... Instead of existing as a nurse on night shift... Watching your patients sleep... And honestly hoping to god you don't walk in and they are blue (not breathing or without a pulse). It is a great feeling and a great much needed change.

Huh?

Here is the situation. All women may have been created equal, but not all women are created with the same anatomy. See below the picture I have posted to see an appropriate/ what you EXPECT to find as the female anatomy below the belt:

 See how it goes in order from top to bottom...Clitoris, Urethral opening (pee hole) then Vagina (pole hole)... This is how it should look. Organized and separated. This is what they teach you in school. This information may seem a bit much...BUT being a new nurse....It is not enough information. See what I was failed to be informed about is that sometimes...A woman can not look this organized in her anatomy. Sometimes the pee hole (urethral opening) is sometimes not where is should be, but rather INSIDE the poke hole (vagina). I could not be making this up if I wanted to...They don't prepare you for this in nursing school. Instead, the first time you go to insert a foley catheter (tube +bag we put in the urethral opening to drain the bladder during surgery or acute urine retention) YOU CANNOT FIND THE PEE HOLE, you may panic. The first time this happen to me...I started to poke around at the clit. I was like...WTF? Where is this pee hole. This woman HAS to have a pee hole somewhere...UNTIL I learned from an older nurse...Sometimes anatomy is screwed up and you actually have to go in the poke hole (vagina) about an inch to find this pee hole (urethral opening). You can imagine my relief to know...IT"S YOU, NOT ME :) The ladies anatomy is screwed up and that is why I couldn't find the hole to place the catheter. Whoa. Glad we got that out of the way in the learning...Thank you nursing school for failing to educate me on this very common anatomy malfunction.

Crotchety

I guess I have always thought of the word as made up...But if you look up "crotchety" it is an actual word meaning irritable. This would explain my least favorite person on our whole floor. She has been a nurse for longer than I have been alive. This could be her problem. She is old jaded, bitchy and just overall the type of person you would not want as your nurse. She comes in half an hour early for her shift. I am not sure why. Does she need this extra time for the whole floor to hear her bitch? She will bitch about her assignment, type of patients, how we give her report, how there is no fresh coffee, how the unit is too hot, how the housekeeping staff is waxing the floor....I could go on. If there is something to bitch about...This old fart will find it. Even when I try to avoid her or keep conversation to a minimum, she will still get under my skin being such a bitch...BUT then have the balls to say I have an attitude. I just want to be like..."WTF is your problem? Maybe you should retire"...But in all honesty it is just not worth it. She is the type of nurse I hope I never turn into. The night she found out I was leaving night shift...Her reply was not..."JJ, I am so happy for you, maybe switching to evening shift will allow you to sleep at night, function like a human being and spend time with your husband". Instead she replies, "You're moving to evening shift?...Are you serious? (long blank stare from her old, non makeup wearing pasty face) I am going to tell Cathy (our nurse manager) to not hire any new nurses because you guys always leave and it's a waste of time!" What I wanted my reply to be is..."YOU are a waste of time. Your mom should have swallowed that load instead of allowing it to fertilize an egg, producing you". BUT I decide to take the higher road and walk off. This is not a battle I am trying to acknowledge or entertain. I am suppose to be the mature professional...As is she. But what she is showing me is if you do your job for 30+ years you become a crotchety old bitch. I use to hear her on occasion talking about her husband; She is hoping he will die soon then she can live off his insurance. I tell you what...If that guy ends up dead or missing I'll be the first volunteer witness on the stand to testify against the crotchety bitch.

Trust

They say nursing is one of the most trusted professions. I believe this. You can pretty much walk into any room, but your hands on someone, hand out pills, inject medications and tell someone about their prognosis....Without them even questioning it. 

Sometimes It blows my mind how quickly I will walk in and introduce myself and soon after that I've seen them naked and handed them medications out of my pocket and they are okay and trusting with this experience. 

It's not like I walk in and lift people's hospital gowns for any old sake. Usually after I introduce myself I do a full body assessment, which is required of us. Well the only way to do this is to see most everything...Especially if you are going to assess skin. Skin is everywhere. Or I've also had patients open up and be like ... "Does this look normal?" They are very trusted in me to not judge. I guess for them it feels safe to ask and be seen. We see people so vulnerable and at their absolute worse. Maybe that in some sense makes them hopeful to trust us and they hope we will not let me down or inflict more pain when they are so very vulnerable. 

I feel sometimes people are too trusting...Especially when it comes to diagnostics exams or medications. I notice sometimes when I begin to teach them about an exam or medication they brush if off and tell me "You are the nurse, whatever you think I need to do or have, I will"... They accept any medication from me or let me inject any medication into their IV's or skin without thinking twice about it. I imagine if this patient was me or my family member I would want myself or people I care for to know more about what it happening with their bodies. 

Usually I educate the patient in this moment... I don't write it off, just because they aren't asking questionts doesn't mean I don't have a duty to let them know what is happening to their body or what a specific test is for. One reason you have to communicate things is it could come back in a law suit and bite you in the ass...You can't just do something to a patient without saying anything about it just because they don't seem to care...In court all they are going look at is what you did or didn't tell the patient about what you were doing. If patients seem bitchy or come across like they don't want to hear another word out of my mouth I usually sum it up quickly and let them know I'm here if they need to talk or have questions. 

Frequently when giving medications patient's just seem so relaxed...Like they want me to shove everything in a cup and give it to them to swallow. No questions or buts about it. It blows my mind. 

Gumpy Old Men

Not all the men I take care of are grumpy and crotchety like the man I mentioned before. Some are actually quite pleasant and end up being my favorite patients to take care. These men are easy going and usually are playful, which I appreciate. They are easy to work with. To be honest it's nice they use a urinal in the middle of the night so that you don't have to get them up every 30 minutes to pee like the women we take care of...It's such a workout to get some women up! Not these men, they pee in a urinal and go back to sleep. My back appreciates this. 

I've had one gentleman tell me "You are pretty enough to turn a gay guy straight" ... or my favorite "You mean you have to work? ... I thought you were going to come and lay in bed with me... I was going to give you a thrill" It's okay and it's funny because both those men were in their 90's. If they were 25 it might make me feel uncomfortable, but since they are almost 100 and damn adorable...I am okay with this. 

The last old man I took care of kept pointing out things about me...How white my skin was, how soft my voice was, how blonde my hair was, how gentle I was and how he could tell upon first meeting me that I had a good personality. Now this conversation does not always go on like this with patients, but this particular man would just not stop handing me compliments. I went with it, I tried to turn the conversation around. I mean as nice as some things are to hear, I really am in your room to take care of you...And then he tried to convince me that he would pay me a big chunk of change to stay in his room and only take care of him that night. Lol, A LOT OF MONEY. Whether he had the money or not...I didn't care. I just thought maybe I need to do home health as a nurse and charge more! Lol. I declined his money and let him know I'd be back to check in on him. Every time I'd pass his door he'd wave like a kid. Freaking adorable. 

These types of patients are fun. Not because they compliment me, but because they are easy going, easy to work with and I have a great time talking to them, laughing and teaching them. It just makes my job so much easier and I have more fun doing it. Honestly patients who need me and are nice to me... I spend more time with them and I go out of my way more than I do with patients who abuse me or treat me like shit. That is just the honest truth. 

There is just something about these little old daddies (yes I call all my pleasant grandpa patient's that) I just love to work with. I'll never forget the one I had recently who told me he'd been to EVERY stated except West Virgina. I thought that was adorable. He goes around in his motor home visiting every state. I hope to do that one day. Hope he gets to his last state. 

My other mention of these men is I noticed I usually adore these grandpa's because that has been a void in my life. I had a grandpa by the name of Tony, but his presence in my life was short, he died when I was very young. The other who I considered a grandpa is Manuel, I didn't see him very much growing up and now he is in a nursing home. When these little daddies aren't yelling at me or extremely mean due to dementia... I usually have a fun time with them and enjoy being their nurse.