Hand Prints on the Walls

I am on the other end of nursing right now....A patient.
I had minor surgery on my feet. What is a nurse without good feet right?

The experience was a good one. Except for the pain of course.

There was also a very nice surprise in the OR. A nurse who has been retired and who comes back to work in the OR once in a while was on duty that day. Dee and I worked together when I was a brand new nurse. She taught me how to start IV's.

I barely remember the spinal anesthesia going in. Dee was holding me upright, my head was on her shoulder and we were talking about our grandchildren. It was so good to see her and I felt so safe and well cared for.

This past week has brought back some old memories of all the times we moved as a young family. I can remember cleaning the houses we left behind. The dirty hand prints along the walls where my kids touched them.

Each time we moved the hand prints were higher up of course.

Now I touch the walls as I try to keep my balance walking in these post op shoes. I think my hands are cleaner though. No hand prints to clean off.

I have gained a new respect for walker users. My elbows and wrists are hurting.

Ode to a co worker.

We met when I was 28 and she was 18. We had decided to start nursing school and we hooked up to do some sharing of rides and soon discovered that we would be sharing so much more.

We studied together almost every night. Let me clarify that. She and my husband drank a lot of beer and laughed a lot about the various anatomy courses while I studied. We both got great grades. I just had to work harder for mine.

Janice made nursing school a great adventure from the beginning to the end. We got a 10 minute break every hour in class and we lived for that 10 minutes. There was on instructor who would try to go over that but Janice fixed that. She hid an alarm clock one day under the teacher's desk. When it went off, the teacher screeched and looked right at Janice frowning. We were all smiling at her though so nothing bad happened to Janice.

They learned not to mess with our ten minute breaks after that.

Things haven't changed too much through the years. Janice is still demanding her breaks and getting them mostly. We have both lost our fathers and are taking care of our mothers and still taking care of our children. I traded my husband in on a wife, which I recommend highly if you have the tendency, and I have the joy of having 5 grandchildren.

We are great nurses, great friends, and still up for any funny business that we can get away with and still get laughs and have fun.

Sometimes I'm a Little up tight because I have a charge position and the director expects more from me than in the old days.

It is hard to find the balance between having fun, being part of my friends and co workers behind the scenes shenanigans, and upholding the trust my director has placed in me.

So I will remember the mustang we drove to clinicals in, the nights she spent on my couch sleeping over after all night "studying", my little ones sitting on her lap when they were so young and cute, waiting for the results after taking the state boards and the partying afterward.

I am happy and so glad we have stayed so close all these years. I will be 57 years old soon but when I think of us I still feel 28.

We are what we remember we are. And we were great!

A SET UP FOR FAILURE

You would think that after 38 years of washing my hands in a health care setting I would be pretty good at it. Second nature.

I have a pattern that has been endorsed by nursing schools forever. I wash my hands every time I cross a threshold.

However, they had to find a way to document and observe that we are washing our hands so they created a new way... a way that costs lots of money in new product and a way to deliver that product.

Foam in, Foam out. Since my hands are usually full of things going into a room, and full of things going out of a room, this is not conducive to getting me to wash my hands their way. Therefore, when the spies are watching, they say I am not washing my hands. (not true).

I had the humiliating opportunity to get instructed on how to wash my hands the other day. By a sweet young girl who should have been teaching at my grandson's school. There were two of us in the class. Both of us veterans. We could hardly contain our irritation. Let me go back. I definitely did not contain my irritation.

Here we are, mixing up your medications around a dirty sink next to a garbage can in our med room and they want to teach me how to wash my hands.

My bullshit cup runneth over.

The next day I saw that the hand washing inservice had been cancelled. I'll probably be called on the carpet for harassing the poor hygiene lady. Or maybe she caught a clue and went after real issues.
I can only hope.

"They aren't very nice here"

I heard a wife of a patient bend over her husband and say "they aren't very nice here". It was the end of a very busy 12 hour shift, I was down a staff member and carrying that load plus my own. I had given eye contact to the wife and greeted her when I entered the room which I thought was commendable considering my feet were hurting so bad my teeth were clenched with every step.

I apologized profusely and blamed it on the damn computer I had to chart on. I told them it was a curse that I had to stand there facing the computer instead of them. In my mind I'm screaming at the conglomerate I work for.

"You want patient satisfaction and high scores in that but you cut the nursing staff to the bones. We are the front door to that satisfaction. And the back door, and every door in between."

I also find it interesting and sad that one tired nurse can be the "they" in "they aren't very nice here". My shoulders are strong but I don't want to be responsible for branding the whole place with my inattentiveness in a tired moment.

So I buck up and pledge to be the best "they" I can be today and everyday.

The Universal Sign.

A car stops in front of the ER entrance, the back door opens and we see feet. The tech jumps in to check the man and we see him start chest compressions. The (feet first syndrome). A stretcher is brought to the car and the patient is pulled out onto it. We work on him until our protocols are exhausted but he dies.

The family will remain in my mind for a long time. I watched them go through the shock into the tears and on through to the planning stage smoothly, quietly, and together. When they were leaving, the wife asked if we were all okay.

In all my years I don't remember family members wondering how the death of their loved one affected us.

This day continued with several more critical patients among the non urgent ones.

And somewhere in between things a registration clerk came out of her office grasping her throat. (The universal sign for choking) A nurse saw her and grabbed her around the waist and did what we are trained to do and then went on about her business taking care of her patients.

The clerk was okay but shaking. Just another day in the life of a nurse.

On the porch with Jackson

We were waiting for his mom and dad to get home from Washington D.C.

Jackson- Will you tell me when you see them coming?
Me- I will. What are you going to do when they get here?
Jackson- I'm going to run and say "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!
Me- And Daddy, Daddy, Daddy?
Jackson- Yes, and where's my present?
Me-Jackson, you should tell them you missed them and that you are glad they are home. And ask them if they had a good time.
Jackson-Yes, and where's my present.

When Marsha and David got home, Jackson went running. I watched, confident in my coaching skills.

Jackson- Running, jumping into his daddy's arms. Where's my present?

What a gift this child is to us all.

Team Work

I was permitted to change my work schedule when Marsha got sick. I was given a charge position in the ER twelve hour shifts on Friday, Saturday, and Sundays. This allowed me to spend Monday through Thursday with Marsha. Her dad came in on Thursday nights and stayed through Friday. David was home on the weekends.

On Chemo days, David's parents took Jackson for a couple of days so I could concentrate my energy on Marsha during those tough days after Chemo.

Tonya came often to play with Jackson. Now Tonya is his, he thinks. Whenever they are together she belongs to him. She sure helped keep the focus off his mom and keep his little life normal and fun.

Jackson is better now but for awhile after Marsha was done with treatments and I would come over he would get cranky and didn't want to look at me. I guess he thought I was going to take his mommy away, which I sometimes did.

We had a great routine going. David's job was to keep working and providing that great insurance. We wanted him to save his vacation days or time off in case he needed to help us.

He sometimes felt like he should be with his wife and that was understandable. Other than a stomach problem, also understandable, David was wonderful and strong.

I recently read in a book a phrase that will forever be in my heart....

"Physical causes are too wrapped up in their emotional results to be disentangled."

David's stomach problems are gone now I think, now that Marsha is well.

It all seems like a bad dream sometimes. But the fear and rage and pain and disrupted life and a loss of direction seem to be my left overs.

But I have not lost a daughter to cancer. I have gained a strong friendship with a kick ass woman who is an inspiration to all who know her.

"Fuck Cancer!"