Licensed Nurse; Questionable Writer

A nurse's life is a colorful life; within and outside the four walls of the alcohol-fragrant, rapport-based, high-stress institutions, we healthcare professionals call home and everybody else prefers to stay away from. Yes! We love our job.

[nurseantics]

Work has just been a lot to handle lately. I admit I have a very fragile resolve. Blow after blow of near misses, miscommunication, and disappointments are giving me feelings of incompetence and not feeling good enough for my job. My morale is low, my energy to keep going is utterly drained, and my anxiety an all time high. I need a pause. I need a recharge. I need a great cup of coffee.

[nurseantics]

Today was just a shitty day that started horrid and never let up. Coming back to my unit after transferring a patient to another ward, I was just plain exhausted. My shoulders drooping and my face defeated, I saw my patient’s relative walk towards me with a smile. She said, “let me give you a hug”, and I just let her and hugged her back. I needed it today.

[nurseantics]

When you work in a clinic and you can’t go home on time because your diabetic patient thought he’d skip his 34units of humulin M3 in the morning because “we’re gonna give it to him in the clinic anyway” and now his blood sugar is unreadable!

[nurseantics]

Question:

I just finished my ILS refresher course today. While going through the cardiac arrest scenario, the lecturer says, “The self-inflating bag in the BVM is between 1.5L to 2L, we only squeeze 1/3 of the bag to avoid over-inflation of the lungs”.

I’ve been a nurse for 10 years and I’ve heard this over and over but I suddenly had a thought today.

In a real life scenario, a cardiac arrest gets everybody’s adrenalines pumping and their is a high likelihood that people can get overexcited. Responders can count too fast when giving rescue breathes and inexperienced responders are likely to overinflate. If overinflating can cause bloating, then vomiting, then aspirations, why do the self-inflating bags contain between 1.5L-2L of air/oxygen? Why has it not been modified to have a little over the above average volume needed to inflate the lungs to simulate normal respirations?

[nurseantics]

Context: I work in an elderly assessment unit where most of my patients are above 65 years old and have dementia. I needed to transfer my patient to another bed-space and to be more efficient, I transfer them with their beds.

Me: Hi patient, the other room is ready for you now. Would you like to lie down and I’ll give you a ride?

Patient: gasps*. At my age!?

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Can you guess who’s NOT the nurse in this flat? 🤣

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You know you had a busy day when you come home with faded tattoos on your arms. 🤣

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Employers nowadays are more concerned of diversity over competency. Don’t get me wrong. Diversity provides equal opportunities to minority groups (BAME which I am part of). But if competency no longer holds value because diversity takes precedence, institutions start to fail.

[nurseantics]

Patient: It was nice meeting you. You are always smiling and laughing.

Me: Thank you. That was my coping mechanism. 😂

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Asking a student nurse how she is doing on a busy day when really, I am asking myself how I am doing coz it’s f***ing chaos out there.

[nurseantics]

Converations with family be like...

Mom: Can you check on your grandma? She said she’s not feeling too good.

Me: (After checking on her) Let’s bring her for a check up. She might need some medications.

Mom: I have some herbal medication that a friend gave me. I think that will help.

[nurseantics]

Grief

I lost my father to lung cancer a little over a month ago. I, being 29, am old enough to understand what was going on. My youngest sibling is 18, just beginning legal age, barely an adult. Everything is still fresh in our memories; all the loss, the guilt, and the longing. Death has not just taken my father. It has taken my drive. It has taken my determination to push myself further. I am resigned and exhausted.

  Being a healthcare professional means dealing with death throughout my career. I have seen it with my own eyes so frequently that it has reached a certain normalcy and I developed a certain detachment as does everybody. I have washed bodies and prepared them for the mortuary while having conversations that people have over a cup of coffee. A death means another patient coming in to be cared for. We do our due respects, we finish paperwork, and move on to the next job at hand. I thought my career has prepared me for a personal loss. I have never been more wrong.

  Struggling for air through a nonbreather mask at 15 liters of oxygen, my father asked me if I thought he might be able to live through the week. His left lung no longer moved with respirations. His right lung was losing against an infection. I knew he wouldn’t last long while I cried and wished he would. My nursing instincts kicked in and I started handling things the way I do at work. I liaised with the medical team regarding plan of care, I did all that I could to make my father’s passing as comfortable as possible, and I appraised my family. I signed a DNAR in tears while my father was desaturating to 77%, fully understanding that he might die right there and then. I was the healthcare professional of the family and I had the technical understanding of what was going on. I felt the responsibility of strength and levelheadedness for my father and my family’s sake. I was more nurse than daughter because I needed to be, and I maintained that role even after his funeral.

  Death is inevitable. It brings with it a silent darkness that no one expects. Going through the process of grief and grieving, I realize that Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance is not a straightforward process. I realize that knowing more does not mean hurting less and that understanding does not equal acceptance. And I wonder how the permanence of loss can change us forever.

[nurseantics]

To The Nurses Who Forgot:

We are a noble profession.

We take pride in our degree, because it represents the hardships we surpassed to attain the title we have now. We wear our uniforms with confidence, parading down the corridors, knowing that every exhausting shift is a reflection of our calling.

We have the ability to act independently. We were taught to assess thoroughly, think in anticipation, and to respond accordingly.

We are to be part of a team. We have sworn servitude to the people in need, not to other professionals we work with.

Most importantly, we have the capacity to do good; to bring comfort not only to those afflicted, but also to those affected. Kind words and genuine concern, subtle they may seem, aids healing.

We are not without mistake. No one is. But we continue to strive for excellence in our field, to consistently achieve quality of care. We uphold a standard of professionalism, and still maintain our sense of humanity. That is what keeps us true. That is what keeps us noble.

With nothing but love and respect for our humble profession; sincerely,

My father’s daughter.

[nurseantics]

Worst Fears

This is my dad’s chest x-ray. My heart sank when I saw it. It’s been sinking every day since then. 

I have never seen my father in a position of vulnerability. He is always that figure of intellect and stubbornness, unwilling to be defeated. But hearing him ask the doctor how much time he has left to live, with his voice cracking and his eyes close to tears,  it broke me completely. I struggle to keep my eyes dry writing this. 

PLEOMORPHIC SARCOMA. Whatever the fuck that is. Apparently it is an aggressive type of cancer and my dad only has 18 months to 3 years to live. 18 months to 3 fucking years. And the clock ticks everyday. 

I became a nurse with the vision of serving my family when they need me. Now I am living my worst fear - unable to take care of my own family, my dad who needs me, because I work so far away from home. I could have organized his appointments and his medications. I could have flushed his chest tube to make sure it doesn’t get blocked. I could have changed his chest tube dressings properly. I could have made sure he eats well and takes his supplements so he doesn’t lose any more weight. I could have checked on his vitals regularly. I could have done measures to help him breathe better. I could have given his wife, my mother, the emotional support she needs. I could have been with his children, my siblings, through what is going on and help them understand the situation. But I’m not home, and all these things I am doing for strangers.

It angers me knowing that there are people out there who do not appreciate how lucky they are to have free healthcare. Coming from a third world country where, a lot of times, life and death is determined by how much you can pay, I feel stuck not knowing what to do. I want to go home to take care of my father, but that would mean spending money that I could otherwise send home to help with medical bills. Coz maybe, that money can pay the chemo that buys him more time to live. Maybe, it would save his life. I am terrified of the thought that I will not be able to afford to keep my father alive. And nothing breaks me more than that. 

Maybe I don’t want to go home because I am afraid. Work keeps me busy. Being far away is my escape. Going home means seeing my father in his current state, and facing the reality of our lives everyday. Because maybe I am still in denial, hoping that tomorrow I will wake up realizing that all of this is a dream.

[nurseantics]

Did you know that the nurse to patient ratio is the worst in Germany? On average, there's 1 nurse for 13 patients. As a german nurse I can tell you: it's fucking exhausting.

Oh trust me that is not the worst. 3rd world countries have it the worst. 1:20 is just normal, sometimes minimal

[nurseantics]

Sometimes I wonder whether my confused patient is having hallucinations or paranormal activities in the middle of the night

Post Nightshift Delirium