When you come in to work a shift at the hospital, you always know who the senior nurse in the room is. It’s the person who has worked on the floor the longest – the person who’s the most experienced. You identify that person early on so if things go south, you’ll know who to look to.
It’s the person you want to ask if you have a question or a problem to solve. It’s the person who will offer to pass meds on one of your patients if you’re having a crazy night. Someone who will get up and just start helping you before you even ask.
Last night, that was me.
Above, me at nursing school graduation in 2007, with Two, who was 3 weeks old.
This past week, I went in for several hours of continuing education to keep my nursing credentials current. Due to some weirdness on my employer’s website and their internet sign-up for the class I was taking, I wasn’t sure until I arrived in the room whether or not I was even at the right building.
I was running a couple of minutes late. My education had to be completed by the end of the month or I would no longer be allowed to come into work. I had snagged the last spot in the class at 3 a.m. during a recent night shift.
What if I showed up at the wrong place for my class? Driving somewhere else would make me even more late! What if I couldn’t attend the class and had to find another one?
Last night, I lay awake in bed while my baby cried.
He’s at the tail end of a cold, and was actually less congested than when we’d put him to bed hours earlier, but he was having trouble staying settled. I fed him, my husband changed his diaper, I put chest rub on him, and gave him Tylenol. I held him while he flopped around restlessly, wanting to be asleep, but unable to wind back down.
Nothing worked. So we did something we haven’t done before with this particular baby. We put him in a room by himself, and let him cry himself to sleep.
I worked another night shift this past weekend, and a brief chat with another nurse on the floor that night reminded me how easy I had it with my assignment. I was busy, but I had time to take good care of my patients, and make plans for how I would spend my time over the course of the shift that, for the most part, weren’t waylaid by unexpected occurrences. At the end of the shift, I came in to say goodbye to one of my patients, and she asked if she could give me a hug. I said yes.
Since I work very part-time, if a patient is having a longer stay, there is a very good chance that the eight hours I spend with them will be forgettable. I do my best to make their lives better in the short time that I spend with them, but I don’t hang onto any expectations that it will make a big difference for them or their families.
Despite the fact that I obviously made impression on a patient, I left wishing I’d been able to do more. As I walked towards the stairs on my way home, I absently pulled my phone out, opened up Instagram, and started scrolling. One of my friends had tagged a post with someone else we went to school with. I clicked through to her Instagram, then to her website. If the site is any indication, she’s successful and happy.
I knew her because we lived in the same suite freshman year. She lived next door to me and for some reason, she didn’t like me. She took it upon herself to “fix” me, since I didn’t wear makeup or even really know how to use it, let alone how to shape my brows properly.
(My Not Kidding Face after a night shift)
I don’t consider reading people one of my gifts. When I need to, I can really tune in – and as a nurse, I have to tune into my patients in order to figure out things they won’t or can’t tell me with words.
With friends and acquaintances, I pull it together for conversation as often as I can. But I find this type of interpretation exhausting.
Sometimes, especially when I am tired or distracted, I can’t muster the energy needed to read folks and so I wind up feeling like I’ve missed something, without knowing quite what. I can sense a disruption in the Force, so to speak, but can’t tell what is causing it.
That happened this morning.
