I have been reading so many articles of the trials and tribulations and I can relate to more of them than I want to.
In ways, I wish I read the articles in this website before I put myself through the very tough nursing school. I am only a one year LPN, with 7 months under my belt.
In this short time, I had several jobs, homecare, facility, hospice. I took on the role as an HHA in the home care one, I was summoned with a bell to give the patient her meds when she felt she wanted them, not when they were scheduled. I left that position with the agency saying this is dangerous, they returned a response of "please don't make waves for us, just do as she asks". This meant bringing my own toilet paper, doing laundry, vacuuming, washing their lunch and dinner plates and sitting in an unheated room with my own blanket.
I did the facility gig, pushing the med cart. sitting in a dirty depressing break room and watching my trainer guzzle a sandwich quicker than anything less than normal. My feet expanded like a good year blimp, my throat was dry from lack of fluid which I guess is the point to limit bathroom breaks. When set on my own, I just could not keep up with the meds and treatments. The day passed well, but the cranky night nurse gave me trouble. I quickly replied "you can yell all you want, but I am not coming back here tomorrow". The other nurses laughed, not at me, but that I stood up to her. That was week enough for me.
Then I rested with hospice as a field nurse. This came with great relief. I worked independently, probably more than I should have. I took the job on with such joy, I was helping people and no one ever made a complaint. The patients were all so happy to see me, this meant so much to me. My case manager would send me to so many patients even though we were supposed to have a split schedule where each of us visited the patients once. However, she saw me as the gopher, sending me twice and gathering my data to enter into the system as her own visit. I would speak to her on the phone throughout the day to report in and hear her parrot in the background. I really didn't mind. But, then I became the brunt of bullying, over compensated punishment, viral emails reporting a trumped up issue. Long story short, I lost the job (as I posted this last week). It was shocking although it shouldn't have been.
Perhaps what shocks me, is that my case manager never stepped up to advocate for me. To clear the accusations or have them dismissed. For the 7 months, I covered for her, we went to dinners, had personal talks, she would call me until 10pm. Now that I'm gone, I have not had one phone call. Simply, I was used. Well, I guess now she needs to do double work and has no time to sit around with her parrot all day.
Honestly, I wish I never went to nursing school. Nursing is not what I thought it would be and from reading the posts here, I'm not so sure there are any happy nurses.
