yes. that.
i am exhausted. i have nothing left to give. i sat down after my shift today not having charted anything. ANYTHING AT ALL. i felt like i gave my patients everything that i had to offer, and didn't even come close to meeting their needs.
my brain injured patient has an ever-growing left arm that no one will address. he won't eat and hasn't gotten out of bed. he barely gets turned because he's a huge guy and just doesn't roll. he sleeps all day, except for when he's screaming out in pain. and i know he's brain injured, but it still makes me feel like a horrible person when he's yelling at me all the time that i don't understand his pain.
my admit has a room full of nurses and is herself "medical". she looked at me with accusatory eyes from the first moment i stepped foot in her room and right away i felt the need to prove my competence and live up to unrealistic expectations. when she said "that medicine isn't doing anything for my pain", it was obvious that she meant that it was ME who wasn't doing anything for her pain. and despite my ice packs and moving pillows all about and switching around pain meds and adding muscle relaxers and splinting her fracture, the pain got no better and i achieved nothing.
my sweet GSW to the chest has a necrotic liver, and just feels like crap all the time. there is basically nothing that i can do for her, and that feels like failing too.
so i sat down at a computer to do 10 hours worth of charting, and started to cry. the exhausted, frustrated, i'm crying about one thing but it has become everything kind of tears that don't stop. and as i sat charting and sobbing and blowing my nose and creating a mountain of used kleenex next to me, the door to the charting room opened and one of the oral surgeons walked in. and he sat with me and awesome coworker for almost an hour as i continued to cry and chart and try to cover my feelings with cheese bread and vent all my nursing guilt and inadequacies. he told me that it's ok to care, and that i am making a difference, and that i'm not a failure.
a surgeon. who has feelings. who is not scared by my ugly crying, but as i found out later heard that i was having a rough day and sought me out just to talk. there are no words for that.
when you live the kind life where you pour everything you have into other people and typically go home having been given nothing in return, receiving compassion and kindness for yourself is a shocking and wonderful thing.
my coworkers know and love me, and they are incredibly supportive. we take care of each other, and they are the only things keeping me at this incredibly challenging and frustrating job. but this doctor doesn't know me particularly well, and he doesn't owe me anything. yet for some reason he took it upon himself to offer me support and reassurance when i needed it.
and because of that, i have lived to nurse another day.
my sweet GSW to the chest has a necrotic liver, and just feels like crap all the time. there is basically nothing that i can do for her, and that feels like failing too.
so i sat down at a computer to do 10 hours worth of charting, and started to cry. the exhausted, frustrated, i'm crying about one thing but it has become everything kind of tears that don't stop. and as i sat charting and sobbing and blowing my nose and creating a mountain of used kleenex next to me, the door to the charting room opened and one of the oral surgeons walked in. and he sat with me and awesome coworker for almost an hour as i continued to cry and chart and try to cover my feelings with cheese bread and vent all my nursing guilt and inadequacies. he told me that it's ok to care, and that i am making a difference, and that i'm not a failure.
a surgeon. who has feelings. who is not scared by my ugly crying, but as i found out later heard that i was having a rough day and sought me out just to talk. there are no words for that.
when you live the kind life where you pour everything you have into other people and typically go home having been given nothing in return, receiving compassion and kindness for yourself is a shocking and wonderful thing.
my coworkers know and love me, and they are incredibly supportive. we take care of each other, and they are the only things keeping me at this incredibly challenging and frustrating job. but this doctor doesn't know me particularly well, and he doesn't owe me anything. yet for some reason he took it upon himself to offer me support and reassurance when i needed it.
and because of that, i have lived to nurse another day.
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