I love what I do

I wanted and planned to be a nurse since I was young, probably around middle school age. I knew basically nothing about nursing, let alone the medical profession. I knew that nurses were nice people that took care of sick people. That's what I was basing my life plans on, and I got really lucky.

When I was around middle school age, I was a BIG reader, and some of my favorite books were written by Lurlene McDaniel, and they were about sick, and sometimes dying, teens. Morbid? I'm not sure. Most of the kids in these books had some debilitating or terminal illness, such as cancer, heart failure requiring a heart transplant, diabetes, hemophilia, and other such medical problems. At the time, people just thought I was a freak who liked to read about dying kids, but I really think those books are the reason I wanted to be a nurse in the first place, and why I love certain patients so much now.

The first nursing experience I had was my CNA class at Snow College. That was an eye opening experience and because it was actually pretty accurate as far as what I would be doing in my nursing career, it scared me. I won't go into details.

While I was going to school at Snow I also "volunteered" at the local hospital in Mt. Pleasant which meant that I wore a make-shift volunteer badge, and stood there begging for someone to give me something to do. They must rarely get volunteers, because I don't think they knew what to do with me. One evening I was "volunteering" and a guy came in to the little ER with a burn on his foot. He had poured a pot of boiling water on his foot, and had tried to manage the injury at home for a few days before he came in so it was kind of gross. One of the first things they did was start pulling the dead peeling skin off his foot and that was it. I almost passed out right then and there. I drove home that night resolved to change my major, I obviously couldn't be a nurse after that! But, because the idea of changing my major with all my pre-requisites done and out of the way sickened me, I stuck with it.

I have worked on a medical/oncology floor pretty much most of my nursing career, which means nothing really. We get just about anything and everything. We take patients from 16-100+ years old, with pretty much any ailment, and I've seen most everything.

My very least favorite patients are the ones that come in and right away lay out their list of demands as far as medications are concerned. They have a "bad back" and really need dilaudid or demerol, nothing else works. Also, they need something for nausea, and only phenergan and/or ativan works. They need benadryl because they are just so itchy, and something for anxiety cause they just can't stand to think about what is happening to them (sometimes that is understandable, but really, sometimes it's just a UTI), and oh yeah, they need something to help them sleep. As if all the other tranquilizers they have requested aren't going to knock them out for days.

Another type of patient that is particularly troublesome (It's not that I don't like these patients, they just present a certain challenge) is the 97 year old lady that doesn't know who she is or where she is, and will not stay in bed. To make matters worse, she not only can't walk, but can't even support weight on her legs so if she gets out of bed she ends up on the floor. She doesn't ever sleep, and stays up all night finding creative ways to crawl out of bed undetected, and yells at the top of her lungs. She also thinks we are trying to kill her.

When I was at Cottonwood Hospital I really enjoyed taking care of the cancer patients. They are sick, they are challenging, they are in pain, and they are a lot of work. But, they are (usually) the most pleasant, grateful people in the world. They love you just for the fact that you are doing what you can to help them. They have historically been my favorite patients, along with dying patients. Usually they are dying of cancer, but not always. I'm not really sure why it is that I love these patients so much. They are typically non-responsive, and most of the care of the patient is making them comfortable, giving pain medications and providing supportive care to the family of the patient. The patient is vulnerable and totally dependent on the nurse to provide him/her with respect and dignity in their last hours. I love talking with the family, hearing stories about the patient, telling them what kinds of things they should expect, what's normal and what's not, and what they can do to help.

I really love what I do, some days more than others, but I am grateful for the patients I have had that have taught me important lessons, and for my co-workers that are the most fun between the hours of two-four am, and make some of the hardest patients tolerable, even sometimes downright entertaining.