The quick and simple answer is, I don’t know.
Since I moved, I have slept in my own bed every night (not on a couch with no blanket and pillow bc I was too tired to get one and I thought, “55 min isn’t enough, if I lay down right now I can have 59 min of sleep before I have to go back”; not on a bed that air-adjusts every 3 min so my over-chipped and potlucked ass doesn’t get a pressure sore; not on the chairs in the back hallway by the window -so I can get reception- where the lights never die; not in the middle of the day wearing a eyeshade and earbuds to block out the rest of the world so I can go back to work and spend the first 8 hrs of my shift doing something that will justify a bottle of wine. I see my husband every morning, evening and weekend (still not enough) and my son from sunup to sundown (a bit too much sometimes) as opposed to four days without more than a kiss and a cuddle for either of my boys. I haven’t eaten McDonalds since I’ve moved, I exercise everyday, I joined a Hindu temple so I can do yoga twice a week (no need to trade!) and I walk everywhere.
Since I moved, I haven’t laughed until I cried because the family at the end of the unit asked for a brain transplant for their loved one; I haven’t spent time with ppl who think my D&T is just par for the course; I haven’t seen anyone gently move a resident toward an appropriate treatment (because if they didn’t they’d be yelling for the crash cart in 30 mins); I haven’t come home and thought to myself, ‘I can’t wait to see how my pt is doing tomorrow ‘ (bc some amazing nurse just took report from me and they’ll have it all figured out and I’ll just have to dot the I’s and cross the T’s tomorrow); I haven’t had a day off all by myself or with friends (to say, go to the Xmas market and get my picture taken on what looks to be a bridge, just saying); I got’s no $$$ of my own (I blame NMC of the UK); I don’t get to sit in the breakroom and tell the most outlandish stories that can’t possible be true, except they are and no one but those in the break room would believe me (truth is most definitely stranger than fiction). Since I’ve moved I have lost a little bit of purpose.
It’s not like a grew up wanting to be a nurse. I fell backasswards into it. I thought about quitting all the time, then I worked in the ICU. That place will chew you up, spit you out, drag you back in and all the while you think “What is this monster of a place that I love and never want to leave?” Some leave, on purpose even, but they always seem to float back. Maybe because no where else has the kind of crazy that the ICU breeds (staff, family pt’s,you name it). Maybe those who stay have found their ppl (Hallelujah!), or God forbid, they really like being a nurse where anything can happen at any moment. It doesn’t really matter because you are in bed 33 and T is in bed 34 and A is in bed 32 and K is charge and B is making the best inappropriate comments down in 30 and W doesn’t have a pt so she happily helps you change the bed for the 3rd time and doesn’t laugh when you put in a rectal tube up to your wrist, and (mexico mamma) C, on her break tells you about Latin love, and L is in 31 and she’ll answer the dumbest questions without blinking an eye and tell you what a great job you are doing, and L in 35 with a straightface telling me about the latest family member asking for outlandish shit, (master) C offering her house and hottub if anyone needs to numb themselves, (expensive bike) C in 36 is stuck in the corner but too tired to care (I love asking her how she is doing just to hear her say she is tired, it never got old), (best laugh and smile) C (god there are a lot of ppl whose name starts with C, I’m going to go back and add better descriptors) is over visiting from B pod because that’s where she has been living lately and J/E appears out of no where because he sensed you needed a turn and that no one else was available. I miss those nights. Where it was a good night just because you worked with everyone you like and no one that you didn’t like (yes, thats a thing). I don’t miss ppl dying (or not and we should just let them go), or having to explain why I think someone needs a stat scan, or not eating for 8 hrs, or not seeing my family, or wondering if a better nurse looked after that pt would he be doing better.
I don’t have to be a nurse. I could be almost anything else. Maybe someday I will be, but today, working or not, I’m a nurse.
weRNtheBritzone 