Shift 40

The shift started off ok. Busier than the day before but by no means crazy. I covered for one lunch and basically just floated and helped for the first five hours. Then came change of shift. I picked up a 3 room assignment and the patients started coming in. I never had more than 4 patients at a time, but I kept hearing the tech ask the charge nurse for rooms and I kept hearing fire rescue call us on the radio. It was steady until 12am. Busy, busy. At one point I got three patients at one time. Luckily, they were all pretty minor cases- 2 sick with upper respiratory infections and the other had a strained muscle. But at one point I had two patients that both needed a lot of meds, both patients needed my time for different reasons. One of the two patients I was worried about because she came into the ER via fire rescue in respiratory distress, and you just never know how that's going to turn out. We were short a tech because another floor needed him, so while we had a good staff of nurses, we were short somewhere else. That always seems to be the case. Either that or we have too much help on a day that turns out to be slow and not enough help on a day that turns out to be busy.

My respiratory distress patient turned out ok, although she had to be admitted for sure. There was a time where she started yelling, "Help, Help!" So I ran into her room thinking she couldn't breathe. It turned out she had a terrible cramp in her leg and she begged me to rub it. So I did. I rubbed her leg for a good 10 minutes, all the while thinking to myself how I have other patients to take care of, yadda yadda. But then after a little bit it dawned on me, that really I was actually, FINALLY doing real nursing care. That is what nursing is all about- helping our patients feel better, feel more comfortable, giving them care that makes them feel like they are the only patient we're treating, because in actuality, for the moments we are with the patients, they are our only patient. The only patient that matters. And thats how we should treat each and every one of our patients. But it made me feel like for once, I made a little bit of a difference. I helped someone feel better, even if just for a moment. And when she yelled for a second time later on, because her other leg cramped up, I rubbed that leg, too, just as if I didn't have anything else to do in that moment- even if I really had a million other things to do.

And thank you to Mrs. X for helping me remember what my job is really all about, and why I wanted to be a nurse in the first place.

(stay tuned for more, as I have 2 more shifts in the next 2 days, bleh, but then a glorious 5 days off to follow)