Everything I Know About Life, I Learned From Nursing

........I've learned that nursing is a great metaphor for life. It's both rewarding and frustrating, utterly fascinating at times and dull as tombs at others; it's funny, sad, beautiful, ugly, dramatic, unglamorous........and sometimes it outright stinks.

........A little effort can go a long, long way. Investing five or ten minutes in a needy patient at the very beginning of the shift sets the tone for the entire day, and pays dividends in decreased anxiety for them (and less call-light use for you). This principle also works for nightmare-plagued toddlers, frustrated spouses, and picky in-laws.

........Age has its advantages. Having been orphaned at thirty-one, I didn't know how much wisdom and life education I'd missed out on until I began working with the elderly. Through their stories of the past, I've discovered much about where I came from, who I want to be, and the legacy I want to leave my own children and grandchildren. I only wish I could bottle whatever these people are made of, because our generation and those coming after us could certainly use a dose or two.

........No situation has ever been made better by panicking.

........If it weren't for drugs, alcohol, fatty foods, and human stupidity, we'd all have to go out and get REAL jobs.

........The longer you're a nurse, the more warped your sense of humor becomes. And a warped sense of humor can get you through almost anything.......even the worst code brown in history.

........No matter how crazy your shift has been, there will always come a time when you get to hand over the keys and let someone else take care of the patients, put up with the families, fight with management over staffing, and deal with the paperwork when the LOL in room 205 is found on the floor for the third time today. Remembering this is the only way I can maintain my sanity and still keep coming back, day after day, to do it all over again.

........Teamwork is a great idea in theory, but rarely practiced in everyday life........and that failure to "jell" as a team is not merely a nursing issue, or a female issue. If anything, it's the American way---we're raised from the cradle to value individual achievement and make the attainment of personal goals our driving force. Group-think isn't natural to us---especially Baby Boomers---so I hope we can be forgiven for taking a little while to adjust.

........I finally understand what the expression "thinking outside the box" means. I don't care what the powers that be say---I'm not going to force a 90-year-old nursing-home resident to eat his meat and vegetables before he can have his dessert, or put him in a nightgown when he wants to wear pajamas. I'm OK with bending rules, and I've taken my share of "verbal counseling" for doing so, but I'm simply not going to let anything so petty as facility policy trump my patients' rights to determine: a) what they may eat, drink, wear, sleep in, listen to, watch on TV, or read; b) how late they may stay up; c) whether or not they will take a shower on a given day; d) who may visit them; and e) which activities they want to be involved in (or whether they will participate at all).

.......People will generally live up---or down---to your expectations. This includes nursing assistants and MDs.

.......And yes, I've found that the Golden Rule is applicable to every possible situation, whether in nursing or in life: Treat everyone you encounter with the same respect you would want for yourself or your loved ones. Everyone who ever lived is, or was, someone's parent, someone's sibling, someone's child, someone's friend. What's more, we are all members of the human race---including the three-hundred-pound diabetic who smokes like a chimney and doesn't take her insulin and the homeless alcoholic who hasn't changed his socks in six weeks. We judge them only because we fear, deep inside, that "they" could just as easily be "us".........but for the grace of God and perhaps a few strokes of plain good luck.

So many lessons........so many opportunities to grow in compassion and wisdom. Thank you, Nursing!