Some nursey notes...

Being a nurse is a strange thing so far. On one hand, your hands are tied in so many ways. You have to have an order for everything, even compression stockings. If a patient takes a drug at home they take it, but in the hospital they can’t if it is on their medication administration record. On the other hand, you are free to make clinical judgments and deviate from the plan as needed. They don’t give you a lot of rope, but it is enough to make you a rock star or hang yourself.

One of the very things I have loved so far is the patients! It is true that I will not like all my patients and not all of the patients are going to love me; however, this has not been the case so far. I love that I don’t know their religion, personal politics, or even their views on ham sandwiches. We get to be just a couple of human beings working for the same goal for a few short hours of their lives. They most likely won’t even remember me in a few months from now. So far, most of them just love to talk about their families and pets. I have had some great patients. I have also had some demanding patients, but when you see what they are going through you tend to have some compassion about it. I guess that is easy to do when you only get two patients a day though!

There have been some strange transitions for me with this job. I spent more time at Children’s hospital than anywhere else in my last year of nursing school. They monitor those kids so much that I am not used to just getting one set of vitals at the beginning of the shift. I also was never allowed to give narcotics, so med passes were much regimented and the scheduled meds were scheduled so that you weren’t passing meds back to back hours. That isn’t always the case at TG, but I do find that there are ways to help that as well. I also don’t have parents to work with…for the most part and certainly not in the same way. The patients tend to be a little bigger too…just saying.

Today I go to work and I don’t know who will be my preceptor. I don’t know if they will let me even take patients, although I would think since I have already been taking patients that this would not be an issue. I do hope that the next time I work with my regular preceptors that I will get three patients. I feel ready for it. 

Work, good times, and girl on girl crime!

So much has happened I don’t even know where to start. I am still making the rounds to try to spend time with friends and family. My schedule is way better than school, but my days off vary and my hours are from 3-11:30 pm.  It can be still be a little hard getting my schedule to match with others.  At any rate,

Work…work has been so great. The floor I am assigned to is very busy and can be overwhelming, especially for someone new like me. I have been getting used to how things get done. I will say that there are a few things I am seeing that I don’t like and will try very hard to not take on as a habit when I am done with my residency. I also know that is easier said than done; however, there are many good things I see as well. Regardless, I am so excited that Michelle will be starting soon. I am so excited to be working with her!

 I am very impressed with the CNAs. Most of them are very hard working and really do a great job. I hope to always be the nurse that recognizes them and their work. I never understood people who treat those under them as though they are not as important. CNAs do the work they do so that I have more time to do the things I need to. Often those things are the more time consuming and dirtier jobs. That doesn’t mean I don’t or won’t ever do those things, but I have other things that are needed to be done that only I can do.

BSN…I was accepted into Bellevue College’s RN to BSN program. I will say I was very honored and excited to be accepted; however, I decided it was best to decline at the moment. I have spent the last 4 years giving up a lot of my free time to studying, including studying on vacations, and lived in a constant state of stress trying to make the grades to get into and pass the nursing program. It is so nice to have my free time to myself without worry or extra added stress. Alan is also happy to have is happy go lucky wife back. We are truly enjoying just being together. We also want to start a family. We have to wait until at least April so that I can get my paid maternity leave when the baby comes. I also think that trying to work fulltime, being pregnant/new mom, and going to school would not be the best idea.  The other consideration is that I am a new nurse with a residency and contract to work FTE 0.9 for at least 1 year after my residency. I really want to focus on becoming a great nurse. It is a lot to take on right now. I feel like school would detract from all of that. I have decided that I will take the next couple of years to enjoy life some, start my family, and become great at my job. Those are my priorities right now.

Troutdale…Alan and I headed to our favorite concert venue, Edgefield McMenamin’s , to see Death Cab for Cutie. We are not diehard fans or anything, but we like them enough. We want to go to one concert every summer at Edgefield and that was the one concert we both liked enough to go.  The venue is one of the best outdoor venues either of us has very been to, and the property is super fun. If you ever go I highly recommend going to the outdoor seating restaurant and getting the Cajun tots! They are amazing. We stayed in a hotel over night and got some breakfast at the Black Rabbit. Again…the food there is also very good. We had a great time!

BBQ…I had my BBQ to celebrate all things nursey in my life this summer. It was pretty awesome. There were 2 notable absences, but as they were both really unavailable…they are forgiven! It is really amazing how many people Alan and I have in our lives that support us. We are such lucky people. The weather was just great and Alan did so much to make the day run so well.

On a side note…I am really working hard to become the person I want to be. One thing I am trying to do is be more kind. Part of being more kind is not talking negatively about people and also accepting people for who they are.  It is a work in progress. There are still a couple of people who I still have some negative feelings for or at least have a hard time accepting the things I find negative about them. I am guilty of some girl on girl crime, especially when the hate force flows strong during the ultimate girly time; however, this is not acceptable to me.

I don’t understand why we girls continue to be ok with talking about each other behind each other’s backs or judging each other in such harsh ways. It may feel juicy at the time, but what does it really do to us and our friendships when we do this? I have lost more than one friendship to it. Once you start to judge harshly and talk behind the other person’s back, it isn’t too long before you have talked yourself into not liking that person or have talked someone else into not liking them. One friend in particular I feel I am no longer friends with because their friend did not like me. Instead of this other person coming to talk to me like an adult about any offenses I caused, she just continued to talk about me behind my back while being so very sweet to my face. Before you know it, my friend stopped being so nice to me and it wasn’t long before we were no longer friends. I in turned then was not nice to her behind her back, but in fairness…I wasn’t really nice to her face either.

My point is, why the girl on girl crime? Why do some girls just accept that is the way we are (yes, I was informed of the fact that is is just the way we are) and why does it seem that there is such a resistance to not be this way? When I suggested to a group of girls that maybe we try not to be that way, I was looked at like I was a leper!

Needless to say, I was really taken aback. I even tried to make an example of how I disliked a store, but I didn’t judge people who shop at this store because the fact they shop at this store is inconsequential and just because I have very negative feelings towards the store does not mean I have to have negative feelings towards the people who shop there. I couldn’t even make my point because they were all offended when I mentioned the store…which became very obvious that they all shopped there pretty quickly by their offended looking faces. They did not like feeling judged as I said exactly why I hated the store, but all of them had all just been very judgmental and talking badly about someone else. They had even laughed about being able to judge other people and then talk about it behind their backs at one point in the conversation.  Of course none of them saw the irony in this.

My goal is to not partake in this kind of conversation anymore. I might slip up here and there, but I hope that any true friend of mine calls me on it when I am not meeting my own standard. I would also challenge my friends to also try to give up the negative, gossipy conversations. It is time that we stop beating each other up and start realizing what is it in us that makes us act this way. At the end of the day…the judgments you have and make about others has nothing to do with the people you make them about but is 100% about you. This is the hardest thing to realize and to figure out sometimes.