I hate lovin’ my job. (yeah you read that right)

I love my job. In fact I brag about what I do, and where I work to fellow colleagues, friends and family.

I work as a Senior Staff Nurse on a 22 bed Level 1 Surgical / Trauma ICU. (Yeah, it get’s a lil busy where I work) We treat and see just about everything under the sun. Everything Surgical you can think of post-operatively.. Ex-Lap, Cholecystectomy’s, Tracheostomy’s, Post Heart Cath, Esophagectomy’s, Carotid Endartectomy’s, etc. The list goes on. On top of the Surgical portion we have the Trauma portion of my job. You name it we take it. Traumatic Brain Injury, Gunshot, MVA, MCA, etc. And there is just an innumerable number of injuries that can and do happen with Trauma. Orthopedic, Spine, Vascular, Plastics, Neuro, Neuro-spine, Ortho-spine, etc, etc.

The only thing we don’t treat directly.. is a fresh post-op open heart surgery, fresh post-op transplant surgery’s (which include the IABP and ECMO).

We do bedside surgical procedures that most hospitals and facilities would take to the Operating Room.

The list goes on. As a nurse we have an amazing amount of autonomy, the physician-nurse relationship is above par.

OK

So here’s why I hate lovin’ my job.

My job is 70 miles away in one direction. Yeah. I have to spend close to an hour and half one way in my car now due to the congested construction traffic in the city.

So my 12hr shift translates into a minimum 18hr day. AND that is dependent upon me getting out on time for my shift. (we all know how often that happens) Now think about if I have to work 2 days back to back. 2 12hr shifts = 2 18hr days, therefore I’m left with MAYBE 6 hrs of time outside of my drive and my work.

As you can see the drive alone is quite a burden. I have been doing that drive and working at my job for 2 yrs now. At first, just the midnight shift would be the problem. I would get too tired on the drive home, so I would have to pull over to take a nap, just to get home safely. Eventually that nap became a standard with my nightshifts. Well now I’m nodding off during the day shift drives. In fact I nodded off so bad on two separate occasions that I started ‘brail’ driving. (Yeah, y’know waking up to the sound of the rumble strips on the side of the road under your tires)

I was willing and able to look over just about everything to keep up my job, until my personal safety came into question.

So after a long sought summer. I found and accepted a job closer to home. Luckily I get to stay with the same Hospital System. I’m simply moving to a different campus. A campus that is 3.3 miles away from home! So with this new job, I can walk faster to work than driving to my old job!!!

It unfortunately will not be a comparable job position to the one I currently have. I don’t live in the city, I live in the smaller community area. So I’m transferring from the big rural city hospital of 13 floors and 8 wings per floor to a 3 floor small community hospital. Heh heh.

I’m transferring from the ICU setting to the PACU (recovery room).

So a huge adjustment, but a very big sigh of relief.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. I start in 2 weeks!

Carpe Diem

I wanted to share this article I received months ago. It’s an article written by Gina Bret, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It’s describes the response some nurses had when told ‘Patients aren’t always satisfied with how well nurses communicate, according to a recent Medicare survey.’

Here’s what they had to say:

Come walk in our shoes for a 12-hour shift. Come see the joy, the tragedy, the comedy, the 100 ways we are pulled and pushed, then rate my "pleasant greeting," "answers call light in timely fashion," "states name of patient."

Use the bathroom now, because you might not get the chance again until your shift ends. Wear comfortable shoes. Don’t worry if they’re clean. They’ll end up with blood and vomit on them.

We are the patient’s advocate, the doctor’s eyes and ears and everyone’s scapegoat. We can page your doctor, but we can’t make the doctors magically appear. We check your stitches, wipe your blood, drain your pus and empty your bedpan.

Nursing is a tough job, but we’re tougher. We’ve been yelled at by administrators, supervisors and doctors. We’ve been kicked, slapped, punched, spat on and sexually harassed by patients in various states of delirium, mental illness, arrogance and intoxication. We’ve even had chairs and food trays thrown at us.

We work mandatory overtime, weekends and holidays. We eat Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with co-workers.

We deal with families who ignore visiting hours, bring food to patients on restricted diets and insist on staying the night even though it’s not a private room. We deal with the Florida son who orders us around to show a parent he’s neglected for years that he cares.

We cannot be at your side every waking minute.

We have 10 other patients. We cannot answer five call lights at once. We can’t stop doing CPR on a patient because you ran out of tissues. We are not maids, beauticians or cocktail waitresses. We are professionals with college degrees.

We hate that we can’t spend more bedside time with you. Swearing at us will not make us move faster. Taking better care of your health would help. Quit smoking. Lose weight. Start exercising. Stop drinking.

How do we survive? We ignore the nasty comments, the demanding relatives, the crazy staffing grids. We count to 10 before speaking. We pray every morning for strength and wisdom, patience and empathy. We drive home tired and frustrated, telling ourselves over and over, "I’m not the nurse I want to be, but I’m the best nurse the hospital staffing allows me to be." We fall asleep praying for the ones who won’t survive the night.

There is no finish line, ever. Nursing is demanding and fulfilling, and we can’t imagine doing anything else. Nothing beats washing blood and glass off a car crash survivor, stabilizing a broken neck, saving a diabetic’s leg, keeping a cancer patient in remission. The day we send a patient home we relish the unbelievable resilience of the human body and spirit.

We did not become nurses for the hours, the salary or the glamour of it all. We became nurses to make a difference.

We don’t ask for much. One sincere thank you makes all the thankless hours worth it.

I think this wonderfully sums up A LOT about what we do, what we endure, and how we feel.

Have a great day.

Carpe Diem

We all have our nursing vices. That one thing that we as a nurse have to ‘gear-up’ for just to make it through the experience. We have to ‘stomach’ some pretty disgusting things throughout our day, and for the most part we don’t think twice about it. BUT there is always one thing that every nurse has a tough time with.

Me?

Decubitus Ulcers.

I mean the really bad ones. Like a stage IV that is necrotic, tunneling and oozing the most mal-odorous funk-da-fied drainage known to man.

Yeah… ya know what I’m talking about. That ischial or sacral ulcer that is tunneling so bad that you can fit your fist as far up as your elbow in there.

I blame my vice on nursing school. LOL

There was a particular patient that every student had the pleasure of taking care of. We all had our rotation of taking care of this certain patient, since the patient was almost a permanent fixture in the facility.

The patient had 2 very large stage IV’s on their backside that were exactly as I described above. And due to the lack of help and staffing, we all teamed up on a daily basis to change the dressings. I loss count on how many times I saw those two horrifying sites. They are forever burned into my brain, as well as the foggy aroma that emanated from them!

So what was, or what is your vice? We all have one.

Carpe Diem