My sister-in-law had a great post recently. Here's her blog if you're interested: http://www.demasiada.blogspot.com/
Lot's of her posts are good, but this particular post's name is Energy.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
On the way to work last night...
Mormons tried to convert me, and a random man tried to sell me drugs. I mean I was right in front of the medical center, wearing my scrubs, and the man came up to me and just started talking. And I, being the nice person I am, talked back. And then he introduced himself and stuck out his hand to shake mine, and I went to shake it and at the last second, I saw that there was something in his hand, and I quickly retracted mine and said, "What is that? Are those drugs? I don't do drugs. Get away from me." I looked around to see if there was a policeman handy, but there wasn't. I realize that lots of people have been approached like this before, but not me. I'm not from the big city. It just surprised me that this dude was doing this right in front of the med center to medical professionals. I've heard the statistics that there is a lot of drug abuse among medical professionals, but I guess this experiece brought it home for me, seeing that someone was actually targetting medical professionals. From what I hear, I'm sure this won't be the last time I get offered drugs while living in San Francisco. It probably won't be the last time the Mormons try and talk to me about the Bible either, since their church is just a block or so from my house. That's fine. I would love to talk to them about the Bible.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Night of Never-ending Should'ves
The following was written at 5:45 AM, when I finally got home from my little adventure:
So, Brad and I went to San Jose tonight for a young professionals retreat. If you have your own car, San Jose is about an hour south of San Francisco. If you don’t, it can take quite a bit longer… So, upon arriving at the hotel where the retreat is being held at, we promptly ask the front desk if they have information on Caltrain’s departure schedule, because we wanted to make sure to leave in enough time to catch the last train out. Well, the clerk looked it up and told us that there was a train that left every 30 minutes all night long. (Should've #1- We should've questioned that, because a train every 30 mins all night long would be quite something.) So, at 1:00 AM someone dropped us off at the station, where Brad and I proceeded to wait for ANYONE to show up for 30 mins. There was a train there, and it was running like it was going to go, but there was nobody around. Anyhow, finally a maintenance guy showed up and told us the last train left a 10:30 PM. (Should’ve #2- the 5 P’s- Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance). So, we decide to go back to the hotel to figure out what to do. We get in the taxi, and he tells us that it’s going to cost $30 to get to the hotel and about $80-$90 to get to San Francisco. We thought, well, it’s a lot better deal to just go back to San Francisco, because otherwise we were going to have to pay for hotel rooms. (Should’ve #3- Why trust a cab driver that says that? San Francisco is far away. OF COURSE it’s going to cost a buttload to get there! Plus once we get out of San Jose, this dude isn’t going to be familiar with the streets.) So, once we surpassed the $100 mark, we were getting antsy to get out of the cab. We thought that we had arrived in the outskirts of San Fran. We were at San Bruno Blvd, and from the map it looked like a bus was going to pass right by. We say goodbye to the driver. (Should’ve #4- Know where the stink you are! We were not yet in San Francisco. We were in San Bruno. And no public transportation runs that late there.) So, this nice guy that’s a tow truck driver offered to give Brad and me a ride to the taxi stop. (No worries! There are no should’ves in this part of the story. Praise God!) So, this guy takes us to some taxis and that saved us some extra money. We get in the taxi and Brad asks about how much it’s going to cost. The guy says $20-25. We start going, and then I notice the meter isn’t running. I ask why not, and the driver gets all mad and says that we agreed on a price. Well, for fear of being kicked out on the side of the interstate, Brad and I gave in to $20. (Should’ve #5- Look at the meter right when the cab starts to see if it’s running OR bargain some more if you’re already in the situation. I bet I could’ve gotten him down to $15. Oh well.) So we get the that bus stop we wanted on the outskirts of San Fran, and then a group 5 teenagers rolls up in a taxi and get out. 2 of them begin to get into it. They were shoving each other and things seemed to be escalating. Brad and I crossed the street to the gas station and called the police. The police come, the kids had suddenly calmed a lot down, and the police leave. Great. Brad and I are left behind, too afraid to go to the bus stop, because these punks HAVE to know that it was us that called the cops. (Should’ve #6- I don’t even know, because although the fight didn’t escalate even more, it could’ve.) Thankfully, these kids finally gave up on the bus and crossed the street and got a taxi. Right at that very moment, the bus Brad and I had been waiting for came. Praise God! Because we weren’t going to get on the bus with that group, and we weren’t really sure another bus would come tonight. We had already been waiting at 45 mins. So by now it is also drizzling. And by the time we get to my stop, which is about 4 blocks from my house, it was raining quite steadily. (Should’ve #7- Brad needed his own umbrella. As it was, mine didn’t keep me dry with the wind and every thing, and Brad should've brought a coat with him. I would have liked my scarf too.) Now I’m home safe and sound, and this will be an expensive night that I will never forget. The retreat was just awesome and I wish that I could be there tomorrow (or today, now), but I can’t because I have to work the night shift tomorrow night. So maybe Brad and I should’ve just gone back to the hotel where the retreat was. Maybe I should’ve planned better in the first place.
So, Brad and I went to San Jose tonight for a young professionals retreat. If you have your own car, San Jose is about an hour south of San Francisco. If you don’t, it can take quite a bit longer… So, upon arriving at the hotel where the retreat is being held at, we promptly ask the front desk if they have information on Caltrain’s departure schedule, because we wanted to make sure to leave in enough time to catch the last train out. Well, the clerk looked it up and told us that there was a train that left every 30 minutes all night long. (Should've #1- We should've questioned that, because a train every 30 mins all night long would be quite something.) So, at 1:00 AM someone dropped us off at the station, where Brad and I proceeded to wait for ANYONE to show up for 30 mins. There was a train there, and it was running like it was going to go, but there was nobody around. Anyhow, finally a maintenance guy showed up and told us the last train left a 10:30 PM. (Should’ve #2- the 5 P’s- Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance). So, we decide to go back to the hotel to figure out what to do. We get in the taxi, and he tells us that it’s going to cost $30 to get to the hotel and about $80-$90 to get to San Francisco. We thought, well, it’s a lot better deal to just go back to San Francisco, because otherwise we were going to have to pay for hotel rooms. (Should’ve #3- Why trust a cab driver that says that? San Francisco is far away. OF COURSE it’s going to cost a buttload to get there! Plus once we get out of San Jose, this dude isn’t going to be familiar with the streets.) So, once we surpassed the $100 mark, we were getting antsy to get out of the cab. We thought that we had arrived in the outskirts of San Fran. We were at San Bruno Blvd, and from the map it looked like a bus was going to pass right by. We say goodbye to the driver. (Should’ve #4- Know where the stink you are! We were not yet in San Francisco. We were in San Bruno. And no public transportation runs that late there.) So, this nice guy that’s a tow truck driver offered to give Brad and me a ride to the taxi stop. (No worries! There are no should’ves in this part of the story. Praise God!) So, this guy takes us to some taxis and that saved us some extra money. We get in the taxi and Brad asks about how much it’s going to cost. The guy says $20-25. We start going, and then I notice the meter isn’t running. I ask why not, and the driver gets all mad and says that we agreed on a price. Well, for fear of being kicked out on the side of the interstate, Brad and I gave in to $20. (Should’ve #5- Look at the meter right when the cab starts to see if it’s running OR bargain some more if you’re already in the situation. I bet I could’ve gotten him down to $15. Oh well.) So we get the that bus stop we wanted on the outskirts of San Fran, and then a group 5 teenagers rolls up in a taxi and get out. 2 of them begin to get into it. They were shoving each other and things seemed to be escalating. Brad and I crossed the street to the gas station and called the police. The police come, the kids had suddenly calmed a lot down, and the police leave. Great. Brad and I are left behind, too afraid to go to the bus stop, because these punks HAVE to know that it was us that called the cops. (Should’ve #6- I don’t even know, because although the fight didn’t escalate even more, it could’ve.) Thankfully, these kids finally gave up on the bus and crossed the street and got a taxi. Right at that very moment, the bus Brad and I had been waiting for came. Praise God! Because we weren’t going to get on the bus with that group, and we weren’t really sure another bus would come tonight. We had already been waiting at 45 mins. So by now it is also drizzling. And by the time we get to my stop, which is about 4 blocks from my house, it was raining quite steadily. (Should’ve #7- Brad needed his own umbrella. As it was, mine didn’t keep me dry with the wind and every thing, and Brad should've brought a coat with him. I would have liked my scarf too.) Now I’m home safe and sound, and this will be an expensive night that I will never forget. The retreat was just awesome and I wish that I could be there tomorrow (or today, now), but I can’t because I have to work the night shift tomorrow night. So maybe Brad and I should’ve just gone back to the hotel where the retreat was. Maybe I should’ve planned better in the first place.
Friday, November 03, 2006
BEING GROWN UP
I HaVe To ReMeMbEr tO TakE CaRe oF MySelF! I HaVe To RemEMbEr To PaY AlL of My OwN BiLLs! JeEzY PeEZy tHiS iS hArD WorK! WhO KnEw? WhEn DoEs THiS eNd???
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Struggle
I’ve gotten a glimpse of dealing with life and death. I haven’t had a patient die yet, but a lot of my patients are facing death in the next few years, and some are facing a more imminent death within a year. Illness makes people act in ways they never imagined. Long hospital stays produce a struggle between patients and nurses. Patients become very particular about how they want something done. They are grasping for any opportunity to have control over something, anything in their lives, because so much at that point is beyond their control. They’re scared. Nurses are used to doing things a certain way, and they like it that way. Plus, they don’t have time to be bending over backwards to do things differently because a patient has emotional problems. It's a struggle because you became a nurse because you care and you like caring for people. It's a struggle because you don't have enough time to just be with patients for very long. You always need to be getting meds or changing dressings or taking vital signs or something.
Then you have your really needy patients. Literally every 2 minutes they want the nurse back in the room to do something for them. They’re lonely. They’re scared. But we as nurses don’t have time to just sit there or time to grab a Kleenex for them on one trip and then 1 second later grab some ice and then 5 seconds after that move the table to the other side of the bed. It really can get a little ridiculous.
One woman really weighs heavily on my heart. She doesn’t ever use a call light. She just calls out, “Nurse, nurse,” louder and louder until someone comes. It’s a bad situation because nobody is exactly running to her bedside, because we know that it’s not serious, but what if one day it is serious… well, if it is serious she won’t be able to call out, I guess. So anyhow, you get to her room, and she’s laying there, unable to do anything for herself. She’s hooked up to oxygen that’s going in through her trach and she’s got nutrients being pumped into her stomach because her swallow and gag reflexes are gone, and she’s got lots of meds being pumped into her veins, and you can see the fear in her eyes. And she says, “Will you stay with me?” She wasn’t my patient, but I stayed for a few minutes. As long as I could and talked to her.
I don’t want to live that long. Don’t hook me up to a feeding tube! Let nature take its course. I would rather be dead than confined to a bed with a million tubes coming out of me, lonely and scared.
Then you have your really needy patients. Literally every 2 minutes they want the nurse back in the room to do something for them. They’re lonely. They’re scared. But we as nurses don’t have time to just sit there or time to grab a Kleenex for them on one trip and then 1 second later grab some ice and then 5 seconds after that move the table to the other side of the bed. It really can get a little ridiculous.
One woman really weighs heavily on my heart. She doesn’t ever use a call light. She just calls out, “Nurse, nurse,” louder and louder until someone comes. It’s a bad situation because nobody is exactly running to her bedside, because we know that it’s not serious, but what if one day it is serious… well, if it is serious she won’t be able to call out, I guess. So anyhow, you get to her room, and she’s laying there, unable to do anything for herself. She’s hooked up to oxygen that’s going in through her trach and she’s got nutrients being pumped into her stomach because her swallow and gag reflexes are gone, and she’s got lots of meds being pumped into her veins, and you can see the fear in her eyes. And she says, “Will you stay with me?” She wasn’t my patient, but I stayed for a few minutes. As long as I could and talked to her.
I don’t want to live that long. Don’t hook me up to a feeding tube! Let nature take its course. I would rather be dead than confined to a bed with a million tubes coming out of me, lonely and scared.
tHe HoSpiTaL
It’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s not for lack of things going on in my life or new thoughts on current events. I just find that life is keeping me really busy and when I take some time out, I just can apply my thoughts long enough to write, although I’ve been longing to put some of this down on paper, or computer.
Being a real live nurse is very different from nursing school.
You go into nursing with all these high hopes and you know that people are not always very nice, but you believe that if you act a certain way, you can get anyone to soften a little, or you won’t let their mental illness get to you. Well, yesterday proved me wrong. Sunday proved me wrong. Saturday proved me wrong. I’ll just share about one patient.
This guy is going to go home on hospice care. So, there’s a lot of psychosocial issues there for anyone, but he was already mentally “off” before that. He doesn’t have an actual psychiatric diagnosis, but he’s on an antipsychotic medication and another one for anxiety, and it doesn’t take very long interacting with him to figure out that this guy is not all right in his head. One minute he’ll be acting like a fairly decent human being and interacting in a courteous manner, and the next minute he’ll completely go off and just be mean and rude. Anything can set him off, and you can’t do anything except for hold in whatever you’re thinking and come back later. After a few minutes he’ll be alright again, usually, and sometimes he’ll even apologize for his behaviour. I actually thought I enjoyed being around psychiatric patients, but this guy was ridiculous. I find myself wanting to get sucked into an argument with him, but you just have to hold it back. Smile and say stupid stuff like “I’m sorry I wasn’t here so that you could take a shower sooner.” I mean, I feel for him. It’s hard being in the hospital and not having control over your life, down to when you can even take a shower, but it’s hard to feel too bad for someone when they are going off on you, and the reason why you couldn’t come earlier is because you were getting HIS medication that he has to take in order for his heart to keep working. Not to mention I DO have other patients that need care too. So, from an objective place right now, sitting in my apartment, I can feel a lot more empathy than I do when I’m in this patient’s room getting told off. Too bad he had to wait 20 extra minutes. There’s nothing I can do about that, and he doesn’t have to be belligerent. And so the day was filled with lots of stuff like that. One minute he’s happy and the next he’s really mad. I kept reminding myself that he really had a lot of issues and couldn’t control himself (either b/c he physically couldn’t or b/c life taught him to be that way). The shower thing actually didn’t upset me in the morning. I took it in stride, knowing this patient’s mental history, but after you spend 13 hours interacting with a guy like this, you just want to scream or cry or both, but you definitely don’t want to spend another second around him. He’s been on the unit for a long time now, and none of the nurses want to have him. He’s so mean some times! We’re all there because we want to help, not hurt! We shouldn’t have to deal with people being mean to us! Nursing is already hard work without that. So, yesterday made me wish that I was working in pediatrics instead of with adults. Kids are a lot easier to love sometimes. They may not like you, but it’s because you have to stick them and they don’t understand why, and it’s not because they had to wait 20 mins to take a shower. I should have started praying when the guy first was difficult to handle, but I didn’t do it until I was just completely filled to the brim with frustration… "God, help me to love him as you love him. Let me see him as the child of God that he is." And then I was repeating to myself, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” That verse didn’t have a ton of meaning for me in the past, because I don’t have any enemies and nobody persecutes me. Now that I have to interact with some very difficult patients it takes on a whole new meaning. Not that these people are my enemies or persecuting me, but at some points during the day it’s a little difficult to tell the difference.
I don’t want you to think that I had an awful day yesterday. I didn’t. My other patient was very sweet and her family was great. Her family brought her a bunch of really good Mediterranean food. I know that it was good, because they made me eat some every time I went into the room. There must be some rule against that, but oh well. I tried to say no, but they insisted, and they were so nice, and the food was actually really good. I felt so bad for her. Her IV went bad, and she really had no veins. I didn’t even try and stick for a new one. Two very experienced nurses tried, and after 10 tries, they got an IV in. The woman was crying by the end. I know it hurt her so bad. One stick hurts, much less 10. And the place where they finally got the IV in is a really painful spot to get stuck and an awkward place for an IV.
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