For Sale: Used Nurse. Dirt Cheap!

It's taken me a dozen years to get here, but I have finally decided that I'm no longer a "new" nurse.

I'm not sure if it's because I was a good deal older than many of my classmates when I graduated from nursing school and found out very quickly that I was nowhere near as smart as I thought I was, or if it's merely because I'm in awe of nurses who are around my age and have practiced for many more years than I. But whatever the reason, the road to success in nursing has been a lot harder, not to mention longer, than I expected. And I'm sure there are those who wouldn't call me successful at all, seeing as how I'm back to where I started, as a charge nurse in a long-term care facility.

I, on the other hand, see it as having come full circle.

As a newly-minted RN, I was ambitious and eager to move up, and with some life experience going for me, I progressed swiftly through the ranks in the years following licensure. I sampled nursing much like a smorgasbord, starting out in LTC but then "graduating" to the hospital, then to a mid-level management position in residential care, and on to senior management in LTC. I returned to med/surg nursing for a few years, but then went right back to management---this time in assisted living---and there I believed I would remain until retirement. I missed using my nursing skills, and I wasn't fond of the 24/7 nature of management, but overall, life was good; I was earning more money and assuming greater responsibilities, and some of my superiors were beginning to talk of my potential as an administrator.

Unfortunately, I was missing the whole point..........only I didn't know it until my career basically crashed and burned in the fall of 2008. I'd left a job I was more or less contented with to take a similar position with another company that lured me with promises of increased prestige and the kind of salary I'd only dreamed of. At first, I was literally wined and dined with expensive meals, a showy all-expenses-paid seminar, a trip to San Francisco, opportunities for advancement. I was wooed with flattery and given stock options.

But as I've learned many times, when something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.......and when reality set in, a mere two months into the job, I realized that I had been set up to fail by both my immediate supervisor and the company itself. It was inevitable---I was working 50- and 60- hour weeks, scrambling to keep up with impossible demands............and most of them had nothing whatsoever to do with nursing. I might as well had "Public Relations Person" on my name badge instead of R.N. To say that I hated this with a pink and purple passion would be an understatement; I hadn't gone into nursing to kiss VIPs' rear ends, conduct tours, or take orders for lunch with a cloth napkin draped over my arm. I hadn't gone through the rigorous training of nursing school so that I could sit behind a desk, answering the phone with "It's ALWAYS a great day at (blank) Assisted Living, how may I direct your call?" instead of teaching the care staff how to administer medications correctly.

So when I made the decision to get out, I went to see an old friend who had just taken the DNS position at a local nursing home, and begged her to put me to work. At this point I didn't even mind going back to the floor, even though I was certainly not in good shape physically and wasn't sure how long I'd be able to do it, if indeed I could at all. I didn't care about the pay, the hours, the weekends...........all I wanted was a job. My friend, being a nice woman who just happened to be in need of staff, obliged by giving me one. And as it turned out, a chance to be a nurse again.

Life, as most of us discover at some point, is really weird sometimes. Just about the time you think you've got everything wired, the proverbial rug gets yanked out from under you and you find yourself questioning every assumption you ever had. I thought I was supposed to be ambitious. I thought I was supposed to want more responsibility, more money, more everything. I didn't. I wanted to take care of people. I wanted to be able to turn over the keys at the end of a shift and not worry about it until the next day. I wanted to do a good day's work and accomplish the goals for that day instead of always worrying about the long term. And I wanted to know my residents as people again..........not as names on a checklist.

Who knew that one could find redemption in an old, rundown building that sits on what must be the West Coast's largest ant colony? But that is exactly what's happened in the seven months since I shook the dust of Snootyville from my feet and returned to nursing as I first practiced it, twelve years ago.........only better. The bloom is long off the rose---I know what the workload is---and I'm OK with the lack of glamour in it. However, I also find myself much more patient with residents, staff, AND bureaucracy than I used to be. I never call in. I don't leave stuff for the next shift. And my fears about being too old and out-of-shape for floor nursing have evaporated in the reality of being over 40 pounds lighter.

I don't know what the future may hold, or how long I'll stay where I am---hospice nursing has been calling to me for some time now, and its voice is becoming both louder and more insistent. But for now, I'm "too blessed to be stressed": I'm doing something I love, and my time off is all my own. Wealth and position are lousy substitutes for golden afternoons playing with the grandbabies on the freshly-mowed lawn, eating supper with the family, and enjoying these last precious weeks before my youngest child embarks on adulthood. I missed so much of life when I was spending all of my waking hours either at the job or thinking about the job; nowadays, I have less money, but what I've been given in exchange is well worth the cost!

So while I'll probably never retire---I can't afford to now that I've given up my souped-up 401(K) and my stock options---I have essentially retired from the rat race. But if you're a hospice agency and you need a good used nurse, dirt cheap.......well, I could be just the one you're looking for.