Do you feel so drained from nursing you just want to cry?

[Hellostudentnurssee]

I'm normally a tough gal. I am able to tolerant high maintinence patients to an extent but last weekend was crazy and I feel so drained..I just started crying. I am a nurse tech in a cardiovascular telemetry unit. It's my dream unit and I'm so lucky to be starting as a tech there and I wish and would love one day to work there as a nurse. The stress, business, and craziness is challenging but not a surprise to me, so I am able to handle stressful situations and move on. I'm lucky to be working with SUCH great nurses and we have such great teamwork. They're very supportive and we help each other out, no one is alone, especially with physical stuff like lifting. I worked two 12 nights in a row and they were insane to me.

I had to be one on one with a patient who has a heart device but suffering from stroke. He was a big fall risk victim. Within 4 hours (after a boost), he vomited. BP was going down and his primary nurse and I were in the room until minutes later a billion nurses were in the room. Long story short, he continued to vomit and have diarrhea and was transferred to ICU, including me. I spent the whole night anticipating vomit and diarrhea and cleaning it up. I was starting to get sick myself from smelling it so much, I felt like I want to vomit after that shift and was nauseous, which I did. The next night I had a 1 assist patient, big guy. There are many big guys who are independent but are labeled 1 assist, just in case for risk of falls. He was dangling from bed but when I tried to lift his legs to the bed, it was DEAD weight. No effort. I even asked if he could help me - no effort. He was big and lazy with a critical, nagging wife who would monitor you like a hawk. The minute I lifted (with proper body mechanics), I had to stop and asked his nurse and someone else to help lift. Minutes later, my shoulders were in pain and hours later, they were insanely hurting. I talked to charge and had the paperwork written up. I had myself checked down with the nurse practitioner. OH and on top of that, the patient from the previous night was confirmed positive with C.diff and he was not on any precautions (other than standard) when I had him until near the end of shift...great.

Now, I just find myself crying. I am not hurt emotionally...I just feel drained. I'm not one to feel sorry for myself but coming from a self love kind of way, I do. I want to take care of myself...be a nurse for myself and the other part of me just feels for what happened. I'm also re-taking a science class and had already emailed in my instructor in advanced but I HATE missing class or labs and I'm so worried it might effect my grade. Obviously, women are the BEST to vent to bc my boyfriend (as loving and supportive he is) is a man who lacks empathy in situations like this...he's a "let's fix it" kinda guy... I feel awful...I just hope everything will be okay

[rvanurse2]

Nursing is not easy. I think as nurses we have to have compassion for one another, and surprisingly enough since most nurses I know ARE caring individuals, we tend to forget to take care of one another. This is most starkly obvious when it comes to relationships between nurse managers and new nurses and/or nurse educators and nurses-in-training. I could go on all day about this.

Take time for yourself. Think about temporarily cutting back hours preferably BEFORE burn-out happens. Find someone who cares and team with them. What you do is soooo important! You're not alone.

[Carrie RN]

You did a good job. As long as you wore gloves and washed your hands you probably are safe from the c.diff. Many years ago, before nursing assistants had to be certified, I worked a small hospital. At night it was an RN and myself, my sixteen-year-old self. One night we had a car accident in the ER, a new delivery when we came on shift, and an older man on telemetry. Now the persons going off shift should have realized we weren't gonna make it, and certainly the RN taking report should have. Did I mention the place was also packed? Yep, not an empty bed. Well, the RN was back in the ER with the doctor, and it left me out with the masses. The OB needed to get up to go to the bathroom, passed out while I had her on the pot. The telemetry patient started to have weird rhythms. I called the DNS to help us, and she said to call someone else. No kidding. So I called a nurse who lived across the street, she must have known I was in trouble. She came right away. The telemetry patient died anyway. So yeah sometimes nursing sucks.

[serenitylove14]

I use to work in the MICU as a tech and use to think life would be much easier when I became a nurse. Unfortunately, it was the opposite. Sometimes we have rough days, I have found that being able to ask for help or flat out say no has always helped me. Sometimes people will use you and unless you stand up for yourself it will continue to happen.