“When life gives you lemons, keep them, because hey, free
lemons!” So actually, I’m not sure this
quote has any pertinence to this particular blog post, but I saw this quote
while perusing the internet (I have to do something to stay awake during night
shift), and I thought it was a great way to look at life handing us these
proverbial “lemons” that we sometimes just can’t seem to stave off. Also, you could make lemon cream pie… just a
thought.
Sadly, this post is not one in which I revel in one of my awesome
traveling experiences. However, I just
think that overall it has been a good week that is worthy of being talked about…
or written about, as the case may be.
To start the week off, I went to the gym, where I squatted
155 pounds, which is more than one of me, and I deadlifted 195 pounds… which is
way more than one of me, and this makes me awesome. Also,
I threw around some other weights, which may not be worthy of mention…
yet. Give me a year and I’m sure they will be!
On the work side of things, life has been so good to
me! The other night when I called a
doctor about one of my patients, I was actually thanked! And not just a polite “thank you,” which is a rarity in and of itself, but the
doctor actually called back to thank me again!
It’s a miracle, and it’s highly unlikely to ever happen again, so this
is a first that may also be a last.
But more noteworthy than an appreciative doctor are my awesome
patients...
Where I work, we often get NATO patients; and this
week was no exception. This week I was
able to take care of a Polish and a Lithuanian patient. As I was leaving at the end of my shift, I
went to say goodbye to the Polish patient, who was flying home, and he gave me
two of the patches he wears on his uniform.
Now maybe this doesn’t sound like anything overly special, but it’s an
honor to know that you’ve made an impact on a patient like that. I walked out of work feeling pretty great
about things that day!
The next night I had a patient who was involved in an IED
blast. These soldiers often come in with
multiple injuries, and this soldier was no exception. As he was trying to go to sleep that night,
he hit the call bell; when I went to the room to see what he needed, he asked
me if I had just heard the “big boom,” I told him that I hadn’t, and he
proceeded to tell me that he couldn’t sleep because he kept seeing the IED
explosion he had just been through. This
made my heart hurt. This poor patient
was reliving his experience over and over; it’s bad enough to go through it
once, but to keep seeing it again and again has got to be torture. So I spent some time just talking to this
guy, and he was finally able to fall asleep.
The next morning when I went in to do my morning nurse-ly stuff and say
goodbye, he stood up on his one good leg (Eek!
Falls Risk! I tried to get him to
stay in bed, I swear I did!) and gave me the biggest hug and told me that he wished all his
nurses could be like me. This just put a
huge smile on my face. What a great
reminder about how nursing can really impact our patients for the better or the
worse; it’s not about the medications we give, the IV sticks or blood draws we
do, or the thousands of appointments we run our patients to throughout the
hospital, it’s about being there when they can’t fall asleep, or listening to
them when they need someone to talk to.
Nursing can be rough, but this week reminded me why it’s so awesome!
I guess I'm just a lucky girl! What a great life I have! I'm sure that not all weeks will be quite as awesome as this week, but I guess the bad weeks just make you appreciate great weeks like this week that much more!
