Nursing = team sport

"NO MAN IS AN ISLAND"

This is what our instructors told us during our pre-clinical meeting and it's been playing in my head ever since. I was very hesitant to go into junior year because of all the hype of what you had to do, how little time you had to do it in, and all that you have to know. Three weeks in and you know what I've learned, no man is an island. I don't have to do this on my own. Not only is God holding my hand through this (yes I honestly believe He is holding my hand - leading me to the finish line otherwise I'd be a big baby running in the other direction) but I have my classmates to bounce ideas off of, ask questions, and talk through situations that arise. God didn't design us to be "islands," He gave us each other and I constantly have to remind myself that.

Even though I'm heading into week four I have only had one patient. Mr. Mason cannot talk, is contractured (which means his muscles are stiff so he doesn't move), and is completely reliant on nursing staff to take care of all his needs. It kind of broke my heart to know that when he left the hospital and headed back to his nursing home that he wouldn't be taken care of spectacularly. Because he can't talk or move he is the prime candidate to be over looked. What a humbling experience to bathe another grown human being, to change their soiled diaper, to feed them through a PEG tube (this tube goes directly from outside the abdomen into the stomach), and to physically position him until he is comfortable (guessing of course since he can't really communicate). I often wondered as I was talking to him what he thought of this student nurse that kept waking him up to move him around!

It's hard sometimes as you are smelling the foulest of smells to thank God for the opportunity to be His hands and feet but in the end I know that this is what I'm suppose to be doing.

I have learned that if you want to be a good nurse you will also have to be a bath giver, diaper changer, hair dresser, masseuse, call bell answer, linen changer, dental assistant, counselor, drug dispenser, case breaker, feeder, ear to listen, hand to hold, news breaker, life saver... I never gave nurses the credit they deserve BUT I will from here on out.

*The CNA on our floor just loved on us students all day long. She jumped at any opportunity to share/show us anything "cool." Most of all she loves her patients and is very attentive to their needs (CNA's are also under appreciated especially by the RN's a lot of the time. I hope I will always appreciate my CNA's because they do a lot of the dirty work. AND I MEAN DIRTY!) Well her thing is to take new students down to the morgue. Yes, that is kind of morbid but I hopped right into line to follow her downstairs. When we walked into the morgue I felt like I was in a TV set. I'm not going to lie it was pretty sweet down there. However, the awe of being down there quickly came to a halt when she opened the door to the freezer to show us where we would place our dead patients and we saw a body bag. This wasn't your typical body bag it was one of a child. I know as a nurse we will be faced with death quite often but I was not ready for that. We looked at the record book and sure enough it was a 6 month old baby boy. I could not even begin to process that and wanted to leave to get back to the floor pronto. My heart broke (still breaks) for the family that had to say goodbye to their precious baby. They say you get more accustomed/almost numb to death the more you are around it but at this point in my life (and in experience) I'm just not sure I will ever be numb to death nor do I want to. Death means that someone's somebody is gone from this earth and I want to be sensitive to their grief, not just treat it like another notch on a stick.