From left to right: PCA (2015), Student Nurse (2016), Registered Nurse (2017), Float Pool RN (4/6/2020).
In nursing school you study and memorize and cram and pass tests and try to retain every bit of information you possibly can so that when you finally become a Nurse, you’ll be prepared, but you never really feel prepared.
You imagine yourself in 1, 3, 5 years and think that’s it, that’s when I’ll be prepared. That’s when I’ll know as much as these REAL nurses.
You go to work every day with an uneasy feeling and hope and pray that you get through the day without incident. That you know enough that day, that you leave relieved and confident that you did everything right.
And then one day you don’t have that uneasy feeling. One day you’re excited to get to work. You are happy to see your friends, and your patients, and the doctors. Yes even the doctors, you wave to them on your way in instead of avoiding eye contact and hoping they don’t ask you too hard of a question that day. One day you actually do leave confident that you’re patients have been completely taken care of on your watch.
I’ve worked on the cardiac unit, the Nero unit, the PCU, the Sickle Cell/Nephrology/Oncology unit, the Ortho unit, the Inpatient detox unit and now the COVID-19 Unit, and I have learned more than I ever thought was possible in these last 3.5 years. More than I learned in all of my years in Nursing school, and I was comfortable. I had become the nurse I aspired to be all those years ago.
I’ve worked along side the most knowledgeable, courageous, skilled, compassionate, and dedicated people I’ve ever met. They make inappropriate jokes that get us through the day, they help each other when a task is too big for just one person, they lift each other up and have each others backs every single day.
And I know that wether you are a brand new baby nurse, or a comfortable Mama Nurse, or a back from retirement Strong As Hell Nurse, you came to work with that uneasy feeling today. And so did I. We were never prepared for this. We never could be. But we are still a team. We are still a family. And I got your back.


















