Once upon a time I graduated nursing school and moved to Charlotte, NC and started working at a real life hospital as a real life nurse.
It was great.
Sometimes, at night when I am getting ready to go to work, while the rest of the world is simmering down for the night, I start to romanticize about all the incredible and life-saving things I am going to do on my shift. At night, when the world is dark and cold and starlit, there is hum and a buzz about the hospital. Of course, (because I am an expert life-saver at this point) i have a well thought out and well developed plan of how my night is going to go on the floor that night. I get my six patient assisgnment, I memorize all their meds, when they are going to be given and all of their medical history. I know all of the doctors on a first name basis AND how to spell their last names. I make rounds on roller skates and hand out lollipops and pain medications without a trouble in the world. It also goes without saying that all my charting is done exactly on the hour for each and every patient. If there are any issues, I call the doctors and never have to fumble and look up a phone number. My job is effortless and fun and I have time to bake cupcakes and organize the supply closet and refill the medcart between med passes. Everything is rainbows and unicorns.
Scratch that.
Usually, I start getting ready at 3 in the afternoon, just because my neighbors routinely think that this is the appropriate time to sit in the parking lot and honk their horn for 10 minutes straight. As a result, I tend to be a little more haggard around the edges. After about two cups of coffee, I feel more like myself and my outlook towards the night is getting rosier and much brighter. I can do this! I can make a difference. Tonight I could save a life! I get to the hospital, and really and truly it does strike awe in me that we are responsible for the care and keeping of these lives. That all these people in this humming, glowing, metropolis of a building play an important role in sustaining and preserving and healing life. So thankful. After my moment of thankfulness and awe, I’m on the floor. I get my 5, no 6, no…5, Ok Definitely 6 patients. I write down their meds, try to find their history and muddle through the pages of pertinent orders. Close enough? ok, great. Time to get report…. The nurse before me had a terrible day…she warns me its going to be a hard night. (thank you for all the warm fuzzies, that confidence I may have had, just evaporated) By the way, the empty room I had just got filled, and the patient is sleeping, meanwhile the family (all 12 of them) need blankets, sodas and ice. O and is there an order for some pain medicine, cus he’s in pain.
Cue mental breakdown number 1.
Its only 7:05.
After I get report on all my patients, I rush into the new patients room and tell them I’ll be right back. (30 minutes later) I return with half of the things I am supposed to have remembered and half that i never needed originally. I get my patient admitted and manage to go and see all my patients before 9. Half of my medications are already late and I havent even started yet.
Its 9:03.
All my patient call lights are on. They all need me at once. Remember how they tried that cloning thing that one time? now would be a good time to have a clone. I start to pass my meds and remember 4 of my 6 patients are on isolation. Time to don the yellow gown. Gown, on. I enter the room, thus I am “contaminated”. But mrs. Jones needs gingerale to take her medicine, not water. I call my tech to bring some, she’s busy. I ungown, wash my hands, get the gingerale, regown, enter the room, help her to the bathroom and hook her back to all of her machines and answer all 856 of the questions her daughter is asking me. I only know the answer to about 6 of the questions and tell her I will try and find out the answers to her other questions. I will forget all of these. She will page me in 5 minutes to remind me.
Its 10:07. I have 5 more patients to medicate and one that needs to have a CT scan.
I tear off my isolation gown, medicate my patient as hes being rolled off the floor and remember suddenly, I never clocked in at the beginning of the shift.
Mental breakdown number 2.
I clock in. My tech tells me that my patient that was admitted at change of shift has a blood pressure of 91/57. What was his doctors name again? I spend 15 minutes trying to find his number. I get some orders and am getting ready to medicate him when my patient across the hall tries to get out of bed and her bed alarm goes off. I run to rescue her from the slippery-hard-as-stone-broken-hip-inducing floor and get her settled into bed. I run back to my other patient only to realize he doesn’t have an armband. I go to the front to get one, but the printer is broken. I spend 15 minutes on the phone with the tech guy and finally get one printed. I slap it on my patients arm, get his fluids going, Check his blood pressure and his blood pressure is improving.
Its 11:47. My call lights are blinking again. Somehow I lost my phone.
I check all my patients get them all their pain meds and sleeping pills and sit down to chart. I get half way through the first patient. The computer system suddenly tells me that it is having “mandatory down time” from midnight until 3 am. Great.
I then realize I forgot to pack a lunch/dinner/awkward midnight meal.
I eat chicken noodle soup and peanut butter crackers for “dinner”. I learn to read paper orders since the computer is down and realize my patient is now scheduled for surgery tomorrow. I get all my stuff together, papers, information packets, etc. and go to the patients room. He is on isolation, so i need to gown up, but there is nowhere to put all the stuff in my hands. I awkwardly juggle everything and drop my phone and my stethoscope twice. The patients room is an inferno and I am instantly sweating. great. We get the consent signed, I answer as many questions as possible and leave them be.
Its 3:02! four more hours.
The computers are back on and I race to finish all my charting. I feel utterly exhausted.
I finish the rest of my shift uneventfully and without having to call the doctor anymore. Success.
I leave the floor that day feeling like i had little impact.
But as I drive home and try to avoid potholes and falling asleep, i am thankful that nothing “crazy” happened. Patients are people and people are complicated, especially when they are sick. There were crazy things that happened, but, I prevented a patient from falling, I helped a patient get a good night’s sleep. I cleaned a wound. I didn’t save any lives. I didn’t do anything extraordinary at all.
I did my job.
I laughed.
I didn’t cry.
And I’ll be back tomorrow.
corbeauti 
