Sometimes I wonder why I chose this profession. I mean, let's face it: it's hard work, it can be gross, it can be utterly exhausting. There have been some days when I've left the hospital feeling miniscule and frustrated. I hate invading people's personal space on a daily basis. I don't enjoy feeling like I constantly fail to measure up to the standards that I should be meeting. I hate heparin shots.

Then I have days when I realize that everything I'm doing, no matter how challenging, no matter how not fun or how frustrating it can be, is worthwhile. I really love getting to take care of people. I like serving them in a way that they really need. I like the way being a nurse makes me think, the way it challenges me. I love knowing that at the end of the day, I made a difference.

The trick, I think, is finding the balance between the two. When I have a bad day at work, it's way too easy to get caught up in the stress of the situation. I can start to get worried because I can't do everything perfectly. I need to remember that I'm human, therefore I will not be perfectly able to handle everything thrown at me. And that's ok.

Lord, help me to rely on Your strength, not mine.

Hello blog-world! I don't know that I have so much to say... I just realized that I hadn't posted here since November...has it really been that long? Hmm... I don't know that I have much to report. 

Well, I've quarantined myself at home today to attempt to get rid of a cold quickly; let's hope it works!

Work continues to be my biggest time commitment and is one of the bigger sources of stress for me. I've been there for a year and a half now! We have had so much turnover though, I'm not really one of the newbies anymore. It's quite strange.

Also, on an entirely unrelated note: we have had an unusually early spring this year, which is certainly quite delightful. I can hear what sounds like a lot of birds chirping outside the open side door. There are lots of little flowers coming up and buds on trees. Things are looking much more green outside. Ah, spring, how I love thee.

"The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will, or knowledge; and to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible." -Virginia Henderson

During my last semester in nursing school I took a class on nursing theory. It was an intro level grad school course, so most of the people in the class were already practicing nurses who were coming back for an advance practice degree. I think most of us went into that class expecting to hate it. It was a about nursing theorists...people who did research...eww...(or so I thought). Most of the most vocal people in that class did hate it. I was very surprised, but somehow I found myself in the minority. I loved that class! It was a lot of work, but oddly enough, I found that I did really well and liked how it made me think. It was surprising to me that it seemed like almost everyone thought it was so painful.

It's strange, but for some reason people in clinical practice seem to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to anything "research" or "theory" related. I understand that reaction a little better now having be working in the clinical setting for a while now. A lot of times the theory or research seems impractical or not applicable to real life nursing. It makes me sad though, because it shouldn't be!

For the class, our final paper was to choose one of the mainstream nursing theorists and analyze their work. I did mine on Virginia Henderson and her philosophy of nursing. That quote I started this post with was one of her key definitions of what she saw as the primary functions of nursing. I loved it at the time because it was so practical. If you know me, you know that I like tangible, practical things. Reading that quote again today, I am struck with how much sense it makes to me still. I work on a med-surg unit. Most of my patients have had recent surgery. Everything that I do in my job, basically, is to help them regain independence as they recover. I help them get up out of bed for the first time after their surgery (all the while saying things like: "Yes, you have to get up. I promise you can. Look, you went much farther than you thought you could.") I teach them about the medications they will have to take. I try (though it sometimes feels unsuccessful) to make their discharge home go smoothly.

In my mind, all of that is summed up really well by what Virginia Henderson said. It helps me have a better idea of what my goals and priorities  should be. For a type-A perfectionist, that is a very helpful thing, since it is impossible to do absolutely everything. And since I would imagine that I am not the only type-A, perfectionist nurse in the world, I think more people ought to read and appreciate the work of Virginia Henderson and her friends.

If I ever teach nursing, you can bet my students will either love or hate her work, since they will most certainly be hearing about it a lot.

It's Official!

I have now been at my job for a year! Does that mean I'm not a new grad anymore? Woah, that's strange. It's still hard for me to believe that I've been doing this for a whole year already. I've learned a lot, that's for sure. It's actually pretty incredible to me when I stop and think about how different it feels now than it did a year ago.

One of the biggest ways I can see that I've really grown is in the area of confidence. During school and even the first couple months that I was working here I was so nervous to do anything. Some of the medications, dressing changes, patient education, and talking with doctors...oh my goodness, all of those, to varying degrees, were really nerve wracking. When you're a student or an orientee, you can sort of pass the buck in a way, when it comes to some things. Now I don't have the option. Not having the choice, I've been forced to step out of my comfort zone in so many ways. It's been challenging, stressful, overwhelming, and really awesome all at the same time. I don't know what the next year or years will look like, but it should be interesting!

It's been almost a year now since I started my first job as a nurse. Let me tell you, it has been one crazy roller coaster of a year. I love what I do and I have learned a ton in this year, but I still very often feel inadequate for this. There are still those days when I think: What am I doing?? Why did I sign up for this again? Why do I have a job that matters so much?

I think one of the things that is so challenging for me is that I feel like at work I'm sort of going it alone. I have some coworkers who are awesome and who are really supportive, but our approaches/attitudes/perspectives are so different that it's still frustrating. Sometimes it feels like I have two different lives...there is work, and then there is the rest of my life. I have no idea how to reconcile the two. There are a couple people who can kind of be the bridge in between, who will understand if I need to vent about something that happened at work, but most of the time I don't know how to talk about it. I often don't know how to verbalize the either the struggles or the cool things that I experience at work.

Twelve hour shifts

I have a love-hate relationship with 12 hour shifts. It's really nice to have more days off, but those days when I do work...let's just say, I have learned a new meaning of the word "exhaustion."

The transition to my new schedule has been both better and worse than I expected. On the one hand, I've really appreciated how almost all of my coworkers have gone out of their way to offer to help me and been really supportive. There are a lot of things that are different about day shift than evening shift. There is a lot more teaching to do, as well as just new routines to get used to. I have been really blessed with great coworkers who have been great about lending a hand with some of that, or at least talking me through what I need to do. I wouldn't have survived the last couple of weeks without them.

On the other hand, I hadn't anticipated that I would feel like I was literally running for about 12 hours straight every time I came to work. It's not that it's really busier than evenings, but it's a different kind of busy. Part of it, I think, is that we changed charting systems the very same week that I changed shifts, so there is a ton to get used to.

I am being forced to realize that: a) I am a perfectionist and hate to feel like I am not able to do absolutely everything for people, and b) I am not very good at asking for help. So, if nothing else, maybe I need to go through all of this to help me learn to stop trying to be super-nurse and let people help me. It sounds really obvious, right? Maybe it'll sink in one of these days...

Things that make me happy

I love daffodils. They just make any day better, especially a field of daffodils. I don't think that's something I've ever seen before. Mmmmm....so nice.