Hurting but happy

Published Apr 19, 2016

76 Posts

Specializes in psych and geriatric.

So I've just completed my first week of solo nursing at my new position. This week, I had a fall, a death and our wing went under quarantine, as 4 elders ended up with diarrhea within an hour of each other. The CNAs employed at this facility are pretty top-notch and handled the situations smoothly and professionally, so they were not the major catastrophes that I've gone through at my previous facility.

At my previous position, I had a minimum of 8 hours of paperwork each night, so after the initial frantic med pass, most of my 12-hour shift was spent sitting down working with the blankety-blank computer. Here, I work an 8 hour shift and spend 7 of those hours on my feet working with the residents and 1 hour on the computer. I now have time to look at the (fantastically adorable) quilt that one of my elders is piecing together, to clean the droopy eyes of another elder (who is so sweet that the residents argue over who gets to take care of her), laugh with the elder who laughs at me and asks to dance. I'm still busy passing those pills, but it is part of my job now and not the main focus.

My feet, legs and lower back are sure feeling the difference after 4 days of this! The shoes that worked for me at the other place aren't quite up to this job. I've ordered some others to try and otherwise try to not hobble too noticeably at work. I also have to get some better compression socks. But even with the feeling that someone slapped my feet with a 2x4 for awhile, I'm happier at this job than I have been with nursing for some time. These are just details that need to get ironed out, and losing some weight would go a long ways towards helping that. I've noticed that I eat far less than I did at the previous job--I am hungry and enjoy my lunch but am not snacking my way through the shift.