Why I want to be a Nurse!!!!

hi my name is linda, i really like what u did for the lady that was 103 years old i think thats what u said ... anyway i just wanted to say that my mother is a CNA and she put so much love into her job and she come home talking about how happy she feel when she make a person at her job feel better or just the fact of her knowing she did a good job not just doing it because its her job. She mad a friend there but soon after he die and she come home crying she said my friend pass away, she use to tell him funny things do he will forget about his pain but anyway i look up to my mother and want to be just like her. I like helping people

am new in this page so i dont understand what i have to do 6/1/08 my 1st day here

Sometimes taking that extra time to find out what makes the "difficult" ones ticks can open you up to a whole new world... I had a similar story about a pt of mine in LTC when I was an aide... It was an elderly man who had recently come to live at the nrsg home... NO ONE wanted to care for him because he was mean & crabby to the staff & he would yell & refuse care... well since I was only casual I got the chore of getting him up... I work nights & we were required to bath & dress 5-6 residents before we left in the morning. He was on my list... So I approached him & asked him what clothes he would like to wear this morning... @ first I received no response... I stood there looking around his room, looking for anything to get him to let me get him ready for breakfast... I noticed he had several handmade clowns hanging in his room... they resembled laurel & hardy & other older comedians... so I mentioned how well made they were & how I had never seen anything quite like them... that man looked at me with tears in his eyes... his wife who had passed away recently... made them... it had been her hobby... shortly after she passed away he was forced to come to live @ the nrsg home... the poor man was heartbroken, lonely & lost... we had a long conversation as I got him washed & dressed that morning... he told me about how he met his wife, pursued her & on & on... when it was time for me to go, he grabbed my hand & said thank you... needless to say I chose to care for him in the future & I never had any difficulties with him after that morning.

Great story eccentricRN,
I had a similar situation and I had no problem working with crabby old guy, he couldn't talk due to the stroke, but he found many ways to show his appreciation and was always smiling when I was taking care of him. He passed away 1 or 2 months after I left my job and his relatives found me on the day when they had his burrial. I took care of him almost for 3 years. I was working at the home health care as a caretaker. I passed my NCLEX 2 months ago and became RN.

thanks for sharing us your story
i think it is great to help others
this is the same reason that made me choose nursing

Why I became a Nurse? It seems like for this simple question I have a complex answer.
There were few life experiences that prompted me to become a nurse. The earliest that I
could remember myself is when I was 4-5 years old, I broke my arm. That was my first
experience with the hospital setting that I could remember. I was so frightened and
scared of the people in the “white uniform”- that is what doctors and nurses were wearing
at that time because I was afraid of shots. I met a nurse who was so sweet
and very caring. I immediately built a trust with her and I became very calm and stopped
crying. I only experienced the feeling of safety when my mother was around but that
particular nurse managed to make me feel the same way. She gave me some medical
equipment to play with explained about the procedure and gave me a doll to play with
and it changed my world, I was no longer a “chicken” who would cry even before the
nurse did anything with the needle. I had my cast for a while and played with that doll
for a long time. My parents bought me a little doctor’s kit (we didn’t have a nurse kit at
that time for sale) that I loved to death and played many years with. My parent’s friends
and relatives that would come over our house would always see me playing with that kit
and would say that our family will get a nurse or doctor some day. We didn’t have
anybody from my close family in the medical field. Time passed by and I became a
teenager and around middle school I became fascinated with art. I loved to draw, to
paint and sculpture. The paintings and pictures that I drew were always hanging on the
walls or sent to some art exhibitions. My art teacher suggested for me to go to Art school
and follow my career with art related fields. I was seriously looking into my future
career involved with art but some family event changed that decision.

My parents would send me to the countryside to see my grandparents for summer break
and every year was same as the previous, lots of fun. The year that I turned 15, I also
was with my grandparents and one day my grandmother didn’t feel so good and told me
that she was going to the hospital. I didn’t know what was wrong with her at that time.
Next day my grandfather and I went to visit her at the hospital and we spent a lot of time
together. She asked me to bring her some fresh strawberries that she had
grown in her garden. She never really complained to me about the pain she
experienced and I didn’t know how serious her condition was. I remember when I
came home with my grandfather and I went to her garden to look for strawberries, that’s
when I got called by the neighbors who had told me that my grandmother had just passed
away. It was so shocking for me to accept this sad news. Right then I went straight to the
first stage of the grief process - denial. I couldn’t believe that my neighbor was talking
about my grandma. I told her that she was mistaken and I had just seen my grandma just
an hour ago. I couldn’t accept that tragic news. Then I went through anger and
bargaining and I thought at that time if I only knew about her serious condition I would
call my mom so she would take my grandma to the bigger city hospital and she would be
saved. I blamed myself that I didn’t do things the way that I could. Time passed by and
bargaining led me to depression I was very sad and cried for sometime when I would
think of my grandmother. Finally, acceptance came and sometime between bargaining
and acceptance I decided that I would definitely become a nurse, so I would keep my family and other people’s families safe and I could prevent these tragic losses. These are just two examples of my life, but there were plenty more of experiences that influenced
my decision to become a nurse. I stopped thinking about career in art and was 100% sure
that the Nursing career was definitely the field that I wanted to go in. Later, after I
graduated nursing school I learned that tragic accident with my grandmother could be
easily prevented. I was right when I said at my bargaining stage that I wished that I could
call my mother and then grandma would be taken to the bigger hospital and be saved.
My grandma had gangrene of intestine, which could have been treated if she would just
get help right away and had immediate surgery (resection of part of the intestine) along
with antibiotic therapy. Since she was in this very tiny hospital on the weekend and staff
didn’t considered her condition as being very serious, they let her wait until Monday,
business day when the doctor would come to work for the scheduled surgery, she
developed gas gangrene. The infection spread through the blood stream
which by statistic, I learned 20% mortality rate it means she had 80 % chance to live.
Many years passed by since my grandmother died and every time I see strawberries I
always remember her.

Being a nurse is a very challenging field