in the beginning...

i recently came across this little gem from about a year after I had started nursing. it's funny to look back and see how i would handle things differently now. also how some things never seem to change. without further ado:


Why this week was the worst I have ever had, a litany:
o Milk and molasses enema…need I say more? I actually had to stir together milk and molasses, heat it up, pour it into an enema bag, and spend AN ENTIRE HOUR waiting for rock hard stools that I had to attempt to pull out of my patient. And then the next day, I got to do it AGAIN with a soapsuds enema. Fabulous.
o I have a big mouth that I can’t keep shut. I did an impression of a new resident, accent and all, that he overheard. So for the next year, I owe him, and he will probably hate me.
o Dr. {name removed to protect the guilty}. He is Irish. He is hot. But he has zero bedside manner. First he told me that I had to do an inappropriate discharge, then he alienates a family by talking down to a patient’s wife who has been a nurse practically longer than I’ve been alive. And who gets to deal with the aftermath of this? Me. Thanks.
o Above mentioned inappropriate discharge…my patient was 23. Pregnant with a perirectal abscess. Two other kids at home. No support system. Admitted for pain control. We kind of controlled her pain, then sent her home on the exact same meds she was on before that didn’t work. Had been back and forth to the ED every few days for the past two weeks. Was admitted as an Obs. patient, and had spent a day with us in which NO ONE DID ANYTHING TO HELP HER, and then she was dumped on me. She needed a social worker, she needed better meds, she needed a lot of things which I was unable to give her, and when I shared my concerns with Dr. {McMeanie}, he implied that he knew her, I did not, she is psychotic, and I should fall in line and do what he says.
o Families from hell. All week long. Demanding, rude, demeaning. Three out of four patients had medical people at bedside. I was referred to as “nurse” and ordered around by an orthopedic surgeon from {town an hour away}. He demanded I call the senior resident, because “he’s in house, and can stop banging the nurses to come talk to us”. Later, this patient’s son tells me, in a nutshell, that I don’t care about his mother and asks if I would treat my own mother this way. Leading me to-
o Yes, I cried in front of families this week. Twice. Once when Dr. {jerk jerk jerk} was rude to my patient’s wife and once when I was being chewed out for not emptying a hat in the toilet.
o ICU disaster…I transfer a patient upstairs for respiratory issues. He’s on 7 liters on a CPAP and is desating. He can maintain his sats only if his family sits at his bedside constantly and convinces him to cough and deep breathe. He doesn’t want to do this, because he just wants to die and is upset we keep “resuscitating” him. We have him up to 15 liters on the CPAP, at which point he is apparently sick enough for the unit. Of course he starts looking real good the second we start to transfer him. And by the time I get back downstairs, after working through my lunch, of course, the ICU is on the phone saying they’re going to transfer him back.
o At this point, I am done. I begin to cry, then sob, then hyperventilate. I breathe so fast that my lips turn numb, and I realize that not only am I coming off as a total crazy, but that if I don’t stop soon I will probably pass out. Such was my very first anxiety attack. And that was my week.

names have been changed to protect mahself from being sued and/or terminated. however details are in their original form, including my very embarrassing breakdown in the back room in front of a half dozen coworkers. i read this and i think:

THANK GOD the days when i would just cry cry cry all day long at work are over.

THANK GOD i've been growing a backbone to stand up to mean and arrogant doctors.

and THANK GOD i'm not a new nurse anymore.

seriously, if i would have known it would be that bad, i probably would have run screaming in the other direction. but i had no clue, and now here i am 2 years later WAY more prepared to do my job. and also more mentally stable :)

amen.