dreams

i get asked all the time if i'm a floor 'lifer'.  i guess it's because i've been on my unit for just shy of four years, which is an eternity in the land of trauma.  in four years, i have the most seniority on the PM shift.  when our veteran day RN retires in august, i'm up first for day shift.  but here's where it gets tricky.

i don't want it.

i hate days, always have.  when my eyes open before 8 am my first thought is 'kill me now, i just want to die'.  i hate driving when everyone is on the roads and the commute back and forth to work is an hour instead of 30 minutes.  i hate the thought of being a day vampire in the winter, where you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark.  i hate everything about day shift, and while i'm young, single, and childless i don't have to feel guilty about living the PM life...sleeping in, staying up late, going out for drinks after work at midnight if i feel like it.  days is out for me.

and don't even get me started on grad school.  if there's one thing i do know for sure, it's that i belong at the bedside.  i have lots of respect for NPs, i just am not meant to be one.  we'll leave it at that.

but i'm starting to feel stagnant.  i've watched nurses leave the floor for ED or ICU or float pool for years. i know i could never do float pool...changing floors everyday would make me crazy.  and ED is not a place for someone who is (yeah i'll say it) kind of high strung.  but the ICU...now that calls to me.

well, it calls quietly.

truth is, i'm terrified of leaving the floor.  i still don't feel like i've got it all together there.  i learn new things all the time.  codes still make my heart beat practically out of my chest.  i don't know how i could possibly be ready for the ICU.  and when i start thinking about having to start all over?  forget it.  if i knew four years ago how hard this job would be, i don't think i would have done it.  i would have found a library and started shelving books, living out my librarian dreams.  and the thought of changing jobs just when i'm finally almost comfortable?  sickening.  

i'm so jealous of people who can make the ICU transition without even flinching.  who don't think twice about all new coworkers, or being faced with vents and pressors and half-dead patients, or starting out paying their dues on the night shift.

i hate change, HATE it.  passionately.  but i also hate feeling like i'm settling.  i hate feeling like i've plateaued, like i'm doomed to live a dreamless life of quite complacency.

i am a damn good floor nurse, let me tell you.  floor nurses don't get any credit, usually.  people think that we're not smart, and doctors often don't take us seriously.  the floors are the trenches, people.  i have 5 patients to take care of, no big glass rooms so i can see them all the time and no continuous monitoring.  i hang heparin drips to treat PEs and take care of VACed open abdomens and give blood and have patients with four chest tubes and three broken extremities and my patients are busy.  if this were ten years ago, these patients would be in the ICU.  heck, if i didn't work at a level 1 trauma center, these patients would be in the ICU.  but how i would love to collaborate with a physician about patient care instead of being treated like an annoyance.  and how i would love to do some of the things i hear about from the ICU nurses...mass transfusion protocols and codes with cracked chests at the bedside and hypothermia...wow.

now i'm not one for cheesy quotes (ok so i am.  don't judge.), but lately i've been thinking of one.  if your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough.  i haven't been scared for awhile.

but maybe it's time.

so back to the question: am i a trauma floor 'lifer'?  four years ago i would have said yes.  four years ago this was my dream and i was scared.  every day.  but now i'm not so sure.  and that, for now, is as close to an answer as i have.