The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Many times I think the profession of nursing becomes a little romanticized.  I was completely guilty of this when I first decided to be a nurse.  I thought of the character "Abby" from ER as being the kind of nurse I wanted to be.  She was so cool, calm, seemed to always handle difficult situations beautifully.  It looked so easy and fun.  Little did I know what I was getting into....
The good part goes like this: Having a great patient load of 4 to 1 nurse.  Managing pain well with every kind of medication ordered.  Being available to family members not handling the hospitalization of their loved one.  Offering coffee.  Scratching your patients back, while they say "rub the hide off it" and you giggle.  Getting thanked.  Seeing that look in your patients eye.  Knowing you did something great.  Having patients family members forcing treats on you.  Knowing you will be remembered years from now.  Not always remembering every patient, but those rare few that you will remember forever, and knowing they'll never forget you.  Soothing the fear off a patients face with words and touch.  Holding hands.
The bad goes like this: Being unable to catch up with a patients pain because doing so would overmedicate them, when they are already over medicated to begin with.  Tripping over the equipment on the floor and getting a nice bruise on your thigh.  Repeatedly telling a confused patient you're just trying to help and not there to kill/hurt her.  Washing someone else's sneeze off your hands.  Pulling your legs on and off the bed because your unmotivated patient needs help.  Laying on the heating pad every morning when you fall asleep after breaking your back each night.  Frustrated over the chaos you feel.
The ugly goes like this: catching vomit in a pillowcase, running down the hall for the Zofran, Phenergan, Compazine, any anti-nausea med to make the vomiting stop.  Converting milligrams to micrograms to drops to milliliters.  I hate math.  Skirting around the fact that your patient has cancer but doesn't know it yet and having to ward off questions from family members.  Dreaming of a medication error and waking up in a sweat.  Getting a sputum sample- "Yep, hawk it up, yeah, just like that."  Crankypants doctors.  Crankypants nurses.  Giving suppositories.

You see, there is a lot of stuff that goes unseen and until you actually get a job and start taking care of people you have no idea what you are actually expected to do.  Being a nurse can often times be the most disgusting, embarrassing, most rewarding thing you'll ever do.  So I want to make one thing clear:  even though there is a lot of stuff I don't really like about my job, the good part is what I choose to remember, because if I didn't.....I wouldn't last one day in this job.