I've been retired for over two years now, but in a rare contemplative moment, here are a few thoughts on what being a nurse meant to me.
Lately I've taken to looking at my hands, which appear to have morphed into my grandmother's in recent years. They are well-worn and the skin is thinning rapidly, much to my dismay. While a layer of fat fills in the lines in my face, the same thing can't be said for my hands, which tell my life story without words.
And then I remember: these hands have held new life, and comforted the dying.
These hands have given the first bath...and the last.
They have been washed literally hundreds of thousands of times in the service of people I didn't give birth to.
They have administered the first feeding and the last dose of morphine.
They have rubbed sore backs, dressed wounds, smoothed fresh linens over feverish bodies.
They have fed, cleaned, stopped bleeding, performed CPR. They have also prepared the living for surgery, and the dead for their final journey.
They are the hands of a nurse. And even though my career is over, my hands will forever bear the marks of the noble work they once did.
Thank you for this wonderful story Nurse VivaLasViejas. You triggered the neurons in my brain and touched the strings of my heart. I'm still a baby compared to your accomplishments but please feel free to post more stories and inspire us.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Thank you all! You have made my week.
It's funny, I didn't realize how sentimental I was about nursing until I wrote this. The last two years of my career were pretty awful, but now that I've been out for awhile I really miss parts of nursing. I loved taking care of people and working with some great nurses over the years; what I DON'T miss are the politics and the ever-expanding list of duties (like fixing TV remotes, finding napkins for family members, and exterminating ants). I was a good nurse...a good employee, not so much. I break into a cold sweat just thinking about going back to nursing, which is not going to happen, but I still wish I could.
Long time lurker with very few posts, here. Viva, I've enjoyed every one of your articles and posts. You've had a long and fascinating nursing career. Whenever you write about your LTC days, I feel like that could be my workplace. One day, I want to do psych nursing, and I hope I can be as compassionate as you are.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Thank you. Psych nursing isn't as easy as it may seem on the surface; my experience was as a resident care manager for a young adult unit in an LTC. These folks had physical challenges as well as psychiatric disabilities---SCI, TBI, Huntington's, MS etc. Combine those with a personality disorder or bipolar or schitzophrenia (or all three) and you've got some seriously messed up people. Since we weren't a locked unit, the residents could come and go as they pleased, so some of them would go out to the bars in their motorized wheelchairs (and be brought home at 0200 by the police). A couple of the females had borderline and were constantly fighting---physically! They also were whizzes at staff splitting and manipulating other residents.
I didn't last long at this job because I wasn't trained in psych and neither were my staff. I was assigned that unit because I was new at the facility and none of the other managers wanted anything to do with it. I also had a custodial care unit and a few skilled beds to manage, and I felt I wasn't doing a good job with them because the young adult unit took up so much of my time. But I don't want to discourage you from pursuing a career in psych nursing; you may be a wonder at it. With 1 in 4 Americans suffering from a diagnosable mental illness, there is a critical need for psychiatric nurses. Wishing you the very best.
6 years into working as a nurse in the emergency and I'm now at the point where I started questioning whether there's a point at all in everything I do at work. It's safe to say, I may have been disillusioned by my calling.
This article made me look at my hands and gave me a bit of respite to not give up just yet.
HeatherCMA
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Beautifully written and well said!