A Nurse’s Blog

WOW Called off on Easter Sunday!

It’s really cool.  I haven’t been home on Easter Sunday since before Andrew was born.  I work weekends in an ICU unit in a Jackson, MS Hospital.  My husband is glad I am home and it was neat to actually see the kids find their eggs in person this morning.  Usually I see it via video recording.

We are working on our house to get it ready to sell.  So I am  painting today.  I really don’t know how but I said I would do it for my husband.  He really thinks I know how to paint but I don’t.  He never reads this blog.  Not saying that he will never read it but now he doesn’t bother with it.

I am still working on my writing career.  Hopefully Working Nurse will let me do some more articles for them.  It was a piece of cake really…just hope that they were impressed enough to invite me to do some more.  If not it was a learning opportunity, I can always try another.  I met my deadline and rewrote it to their specifications.  Just have to wait and see I guess.  The article will be published the middle of this month (April).

Happy Easter!!

Rant

I am not sure if it’s the weather or what.  I have been feeling so depressed lately.  I used to get this way during the cold dreary winters in Canada.  Anyhow, I have been inviting these negative thoughts in and over the weekend I got a ton of really negative and hateful comments on my hubs.  How’s that for Karma?  I am sure that is what it is.  I have invited it by thinking negative thoughts.

I am really looking forward to my visit to New Orleans next  week.  I need a break.  I have to get my article for Working Nurse done today.  I hope I can get in touch with the contacts that I have gotten.  I tried on Friday to get in touch I will have to be more persistent today so I can get it done.  It’s already written I just have to add the opinions of my contacts in California.  I Hope it’s good enough.

Work Week

I made it through another weekend at work unscathed.  I made the mistake of telling one of my patients my name and he insisted on yelling it out every five minutes.  Later in the afternoon I even tried to get him to call for someone else but it didn’t work, he still hollered my name every five minutes.  I was reduced to cursing after a while but I couldn’t blame him he just felt comfortable with me there constantly I suppose.  Thank goodness for coworkers who believe in sharing other’s burdens to get through those long hours.

Working Nurse Magazine

Yes, someone’s giving me a break into journalism .  I am so excited I’ll be writing an article for the April edition.  I am just thrilled that someone is willing to give me a chance being as green as I am.  I will be interviewing at least three Nurses who work in critical care, and making a 1700 word article with a 400 word sidebar.  They will supply the art I just need to supply the words.

Last weekend was pretty much uneventful.  Everyone was out sick with the Flu though.  Got to work with some new and fresh faces.  A refreshing treat…really nice to get to know new people.  Sounds kinda strange coming from a self-proclaimed introvert doesn’t it?  I have started on some short stories that I am planning to publish.  Hope I get some good feedback.

Pink Glove Dance

I am posting the Pink Glove Dance on this page because, any time I need some inspiration I watch this video.  It gives me that wonderful feeling deep inside.  You know the one you feel when you look at your partner or you kids.  I know Nurses need some inspiration from time to time just to keep doing what we do best.

A Reflective

It’s a crazy life being a Nurse.  I have my daughter wanting to sit on my lap right now…Okay now she’s on my lap making it difficult to type.  But hey sneak in the one on one time when you can.

This weekend was difficult to say the least.   Threatened with bodily harm by a visitor. We were escorted to our vehicles by security when the shift was over.  Do you ever wonder why nurses even bother trying to save people’s lives or give comfort to the suffering.  I guess because we care.  I know if I dwell on these miserable facts it makes me really depressed.  So we become a little more detached from the living.  Or so it seems.

Why do people do this to other humans?  Biting the hand that comforts.  It often makes me step back and look at myself.  Is this why that higher power has put those people on earth to make us look at ourselves a little more?  I am no theologian that is for sure.  When someone treats us badly do we not ask ourselves what did I do wrong?  I often ask myself that question.  For instance, let’s say I have this little old person in my charge, who is depending on me for a lot of his basic needs.  I have fed him, bathed him, helped him to the bathroom (and provided the normal hygiene required for that task), given him medicine, turned him, pulled him up in the bed, changed the sheets, et cetera, et cetera.

Now a family member comes in and demands to know why the water pitcher has no ice just water.  Wants the oxygen cannulae changed because he says it is too rubbery (what that means I have no clue).  I explain about the water that the room is warm and the ice melts quickly, they counter with well you know heart patients are always cold, I said nothing.  What do you say?  It’s a lose-lose situation you take it and just go on.  Needless to say I went to school for a very long time to be what I am. What that is sometimes I fail to understand.

I will never treat people as though they’re lesser than me ever.  I don’t understand people who do.  Threats of bodily harm because you are trying to save someone’s life are totally unacceptable.  Who is there to watch our backs and keep us safe besides the almighty and each other.  There is really no one to stop someone from coming in and going postal on us.  I know it happens.

On second thought at least if that happens I was doing something to help others and I can believe I will go to a better place. The tortured soul who believes that we need not be on earth anymore is probably not going to a better place.  Does the higher power forgive the mentally insane?  Why do I feel as though something is chipping away at my soul?  That emptiness has grown over the years.  You know that empty feeling you get after a bad dream it is ever more present as time goes by.

Is this a post traumatic reaction to being in the line of work that we are in.  I know stories that would curl your hair, but I cannot tell them, not as myself anyway.