I actually like going to work!

I really do! I'm on a rehab unit now at my hospital and ever since I transferred to it about one month ago, I've been really happy at work. I had a rough start in nursing. I graduated in September '05 and started at a big city hospital which was an excellent hospital but my floor was a bit crazy. After two months there I came to my current hospital where I was on a general med-surg unit. I don't know how to explain it other than that feeling that it really wasn't my thing....again. I was thinking that maybe nursing in general wasn't my thing but one of my good friends suggested that I try the rehab unit at my hospital rather than throw in the towel on being a nurse. I'm so happy that I gave it a try because I love it. I really feel like I'm making a difference to my patients.
Last week I was just making a routine type of call to the primary doc for rehab about a pt's vitals being tachy and a little off and that pretty much set off a whole chain of events that lead to a PE being discovered. (I did an EKG which wasn't the best looking EKG ever, then called up some more docs, got more orders, so by the time the pt started c/o symptoms later in the night when my shift was done, all the docs knew him and he was whisked off to telemetry immediately.) I did insulin teaching today! It was great. I kind of picked up where my coworkers had left off and figured out that my poor pt couldn't physically see the tick marks on the syringes so he couldn't draw up the proper amount of insulin. He hadn't had his eyes checked in over 5 years! I made the phone calls and such to have that remedied. I feel like a detective sometimes but I like it. I also actually like being charge nurse. It's crazy but I rather enjoy helping solve the various problems that come up during the shift. There are so many resources within the hospital and people who can help out. It's just a matter of contacting the right people and it usually comes together! Every once in a while I have a patient who says that they can tell I like my job. I'm happy that my patients know that really care about them. Since I've been on my new floor I just feel like I've a nursing epiphany of some kind. Sure not every shift is perfect, like today was a little hard but I'm cool with that. At the end of the day, I am so proud of my work. It's almost like how an artist would be proud of a painting. But there I go getting all mushy about it. I just really have to love what I do, and now that I have that, everything is coming together!