Re: Gentlemen (and viewing Ladies)
Nursing school will be tough without the support of your spouse. On the other hand, it would be tough even with the support of your spouse, and more than a few young women have gotten through with husbands who didn't understand, and you sound very motivated.
Maintaining my tradition of equivocation, I would like to both agree and disagree with KarenG's assessment. Nursing
will change you, but it won't change
you. I am still me after 2 yrs of school and going on 4 as a working nurse (total of 10 years in healthcare.) Can't really speak to the spouse thing, because I'm an old bachelor, but I did observe that the demands of school put a strain on some of my classmates' marriages. Most survived, some didn't. But then, marriage is pretty much a crap-shoot, in any circumstances, and I'm not convinced the divorce rate among nurses/nursing students is higher than average.
Still, I've learned an awful lot as a nurse, and I don't mean just the stuff in textbooks. I dealt with "the public" in my previous career, as a carpenter. I did home remodeling, so families typically lived in my workplace. I've seen a lot of women in their bathrobes. Spend a week or two remodeling a kitchen or bathroom, and you get to know people. And generally like them. But nursing involves you on a whole new level. Helping someone walk to the bathroom, or wiping their butt for them, can be a strange and occassionally wonderful form of intimacy--and that's some of the more superficial part of nursing. The part that affects me most deeply is when you are doing general maintenance on their bodies and trying your best to heal their souls. Because some of the people you meet are going through the biggest thing that has ever happened to them, and it ain't always good. You don't just walk away unscathed after spending 10-20 minutes holding the hand of someone who just found out they're dying.
Or, then again, you meet people with "minor" problems who are a major pain in your butt. Broken ankle, wants pain meds every hour. Even dumber stuff (I mean, at least you know that a broken ankle
does hurt, even if it's hard to believe it hurts that much.) Not to mention families, some of whom are overly demanding because they want desperately to help their ailing loved one and the only way they can express that is bugging you, and some of whom are just jerks. You can't let them run your shift, because you have other priorities, too, but you can't just blow them off, either. You want to say, "Yes, I can see you're almost out of ice water, but there's a guy down the hall in
excruciating pain from a broken ankle, and a lady in the next room who just found out she's dying, so you may just have to wait a bit." But you can't actually say that, so you say, "I'll bring some as soon as I can, or the aide will."
You get harder. It's hard not to after X times of saying, "I'm sorry, but it's too soon for more pain meds. I'll talk to your doctor, but I don't think he's going to increase your dose. Maybe we can put some ice on it." But, hopefully, you also learn to understand that the family who wants water for their NPO (nothing by mouth) stroke patient just wants to do
something, so you can show them how to swab their lips without aspiration and they can feel like they're helping.
I never did cry much, and I still don't. I pray more than I used to. I'm a lot quicker to tell the people I love that I love them, because I know I might not get another chance. Life is fragile. I'm a nurse. I'm still me, but more so.
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Re: Gentlemen (and viewing Ladies)
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