How do I continue to do this career? I feel like I’ve tried every available, reasonable option. I’ve worked the floor, I worked the E.R, I’ve travel nursed, I did clinical coordinator, and now I do Home Health....suppose to be part time but never is. I’ve driven 1.5 hours to get to work and I’ve worked 30min away from my home. I have been a nurse for 11 years this month and I’m just tired of trying to make it work. Part of my pain is something that has nothing to do with work...and yet does a little bit. Because I was traveling around and trying to find a fit, and because I can count on one hand the amount of men I have worked with, I did not date much and thus did not get married until I was 33. My husband and I have been trying to have a child and it isn’t working out well. We have been told that IVF is our only realistic option but we can’t even get approved for a loan to do it due to my husband’s previous debt. And unfortunately I only make 50k a year and only have a house payment in my name, but they tell me for my husband and I to get approved for the loan we would need to make about 130k a year. My husband is a tradesman and we have never made more than 80k together in a year. However last year he did not have any work at all (Trumps great economy my ***.) Adoption is about as much as IVF and since my husband and I are older also a kind of long shot. (He is 57 and I am 38).
Yes I could probably go back to travel nursing or return to the ER and make more money than I do now, but I’m just tired. Travel nursing was not terrible, but it is always having to learn a new place, system, doctors, and hope you are following their policies correctly when everyone is to busy for you to ask questions. And it is lonely as my husband can’t get work if he is traveling with me. The ER was okay until my dad died 2 years ago and then all the sudden it got very hard to take care of codes for me. Now I do Home Health which is a cake walk compared to my hospital experience, except the charting. Like I can see all my 6-7 patients in 8.5 hours, and I do try to chart as I see them, but I usually have 2-3 hours of charting to do every evening once getting home. Not to mention that I always have to work a little the day before calling the patients with visit times and organizing my day (my agency requires we call the night before between 5-9pm). I usually drive 80-100 miles a day. And thus I feel like I never get a real day off because either I’m catching up on my charting or I have to be home to receive my schedule (we have EPIC and no longer get the schedule emailed to our phones, it is only on our work computer and I’m not carrying that around everywhere) by a certain time. And if the people doing the schedule are late putting it out then I can’t get to things I want to do like yoga which is from 6pm-7:30pm. As I don’t have a full team of patients that are mine, I always have 4-5 people on my schedule that I am unfamiliar with. So unlike full time people who kind of know who they are going to see day to day, I almost never do.
I just feel there is no winning with nursing. In all of my jobs I almost NEVER get out on time. I almost ALWAYS have more patients than agreed to be caring for in my interview. I mean hell, when my dad died at 11am it took until 6pm for the hospital to get things squared away so I could leave without fear of abandonment. I actively now screen my calls and I NEVER pick up, then get ***ed at for not being a team player. This last job in home health I made it very, very, very clear that my time comes first. It isn’t about money, although I definitely deserve the money they are paying me plus some. I gave back a 10K bonus and was like ‘All I want from you is a work load that allows me to have my life back.’ Needless to say there is always some excuse why I have 7 patients instead of 6, or why my 6 patients are 80-100miles of drive time. I’m just done. There is always some reason why we (me and my coworkers) need to do more and be better. There is minimal education with outrageous expectations. I am just done. I am a good, reliable, safe, and compassionate nurse. I have worked many, many jobs and have maybe met a handful that I could not describe in the same manner. It isn’t us not doing the work right or well or fast enough that’s the problem. It’s the institutions and their ***ing nut job expectations. It is patients that go to hospitals called ‘Hospitality’ (that is the real name of a hospital in the Houston, Texas area BTW) expecting a spa day instead of care and business minded idiots who set up that expectation from the get go by naming their ***ing institution Hospitality. I just want to go to work, do my job, and be allowed to leave on time 90% of the time. I want to be able to pee regularly and have a regular lunch break, and lastly I want to have enough energy when I get home (or the next day) to have sex with my husband so I can hopefully have a family....so I can have my life.
Sadly I just don’t see that as a possibility as a nurse without just being a real ***. Like I am just going to have to say no to being in any committee, to staying late EVER for anyone else, to working extra or working over. I find this really hard to do because I believe in team work. I know that team work is how we make it through, but if I stick to my own I can get done. If I do nothing extra I can be with my husband and not be quite as exhausted. I just don’t see how helping others means I have to sacrifice myself this much and I really don’t see humans as worthy of the sacrifice of myself as I once did when I was 22 and really idealistic. I believe everyone deserves good, data based, compassionate care, just not at the expense of my life and desires....ever.
Wow, sorry to hear. I don't know where you live or who you work for but here in Naples FL the basic salry in home health is 72K-75K with all the benefit of health insurance, paid PTO, vacation, miles, phone reimbursement. Patients are 6-7 every day yes but we never drive more than 20 miles. We get assigned our load of patient but we schedule the visits to patient-RN convenience. We start 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. I never had trouble fitting in all my ptes in that time frame because the driving is not at all long. Not to mention in the hospitals here if you work as a seasonal nurse (Sept-April) the pay is 56 an hour average.
I forgot to mention, that in home care here once you meet your productivity of 30-32 points a week (a SOC is 2 points, a RV is 1 point, a DC/ROC/Rec is 1.5 points) anything above that is bonus. You work to meet your productivity or you work to over productivity, your choice. I have 2 RN colleges both are into making money so they pick up all the extra they can get (abaout 8-9 ptes a day) they do start at 7 am and finish at 7 pm (their choice) but they both made last year around 110K, so there you go. Weekend calls are paid extra.
Also, don't know if can do it, not everybody can but Hospice (admission nurse) pays really well too. Few friends of mine in Ohio are in the 75-90K as case managers in Hospice. Sorry I just want to give example of things I know and have experience with.
I am not sure where or why you think I am "mad". We have a difference in opinion. I didn't call you out with rude words, gestures, "loudly wrong" accusations. I offered a difference in opinion by stating I was uncomfortable with your estimation of a selfishness on the part of the spouse.
Some of the things said were downright below the belt,sorry,and that is my opinion.
Specializes in Surgical Specialty Clinic - Ambulatory Care.
23 minutes ago, Leader25 said:
Agree,if you in Texas ,Phoenix is a good agency.
How does ‘block time’ work? I currently am part time. I work 3 days a week, I don’t get to choose the days as it is based on need. I have a small team of patients I case manage...like 8-10 that are specialty infusions or monthly foley changes. I am suppose to see 6 points a day, a regular visit is 1 point, admission is 3 points, recertifications and resumption’s are 1.5, miles over 75 are also 1 point. However what I often find occurs is that I get 6 points assigned to me and have a 7 point day as I often drive 80-100 miles. They pay for the car and gas, and I am paid hourly....which from what I’ve read I’m pretty fortunate. BUT that really doesn’t help me with the fact that I’m spending more time at work than I care to be. I’m suppose to work 48 hours per pay period and I often work 70 to 80 without picking up. Oh and I’m on call 2 nights a month which is pretty much mandatory overtime because that always means you are going to have an after hours admit. And one weekend every 4 months I’m on call all weekend. I work every 3rd weekend.
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
On 6/17/2019 at 2:24 PM, TriciaJ said:
This might be way out there, but have you considered fostering? There are a lot of throw-away children out there. Is it in the realm of possibilities to take one in and possibly adopt that child eventually?
I was going to mention foster to adoption. In my state (CA), it is a relatively simple process to become a foster parent. And some agencies will help by only placing children with you who are up for adoption.
How do I know? I used to be a foster mom. I was single then. While I did not adopt, I did chose to take in children who were hard to place.
Specializes in Surgical Specialty Clinic - Ambulatory Care.
Thank you for all the replies. I think this has been the most supportive experience I have ever had on this site. I appreciate that most of the responses have been respectful even if I don’t agree with all of them and mostly tender to my current state of distress. I am doing much better since I made the original post. Thank you all so much.
Okay, this really hit home. I became a R.N. in 2006, with the hope of bringing in big bucks to afford, IVF! I was 39 at the time.
Well, that didnt happen. I made okay money. Nursing was very stressful and I could only tolerate a job for about a year before I quit. At 40 I found out my eggs were shriveled up, not useful.
My ex and I weren't in the financial position to use donor eggs or adopt. We were also older and not a traditional couple, so birth families were less likely to pick us.
I pushed for us to become a foster family. Instant motherhood. Our first placement was a 14 month old little boy. We adopted him after 22 months.
Today I foster medical babies. When I have to work it's part-time. Mostly, I'm just Mommy 24/7.
To be honest I despise nursing. For me it didnt matter if I worked in a hospital, clinic, home care, or school. I grew tired of the demands on my time, body, and sanity. Politics and punitive management everywhere.
Good luck to you. I hope you won't give up your dream of motherhood. There are ways to become a mama that don't cost you a thing. I truly believe raising a good, happy child is the greatest occupation of all!
Stress and circadian rhythms strongly affect trying to get pregnant, (stress strongly affect a LOT but, I know you know this.) A break from nursing sounds in order.
In my case I really wanted children, although catching mumps from a patient while working at a Chicago hospital, (although with 3 other nurses who caught it,) caused ovarian failure and menopause. It took a decade to come to terms with it.
I don't think it's nursing that you are wanting out of. I think it may be your marriage. You have been adjusting your nursing career to fix your marriage and motherhood situation, when it's really your marriage situation that needs to be adjusted. None of the adjustments in your nursing jobs has helped...right? That's because that's not what needs to be changed. Your husband had bad credit and doesn't have a job now? That is not Trump's fault. The unemployment rate is at 3.9% which is the lowest since 1969. None of the nursing jobs work for you and you blame all the places you have worked? You are blaming your problems on everyone but where the problems lie. You chose a man who is much older...what did you think what going to happen? Were you a nurse when you married him? If so, you should have known the possibility of not being able to conceive a child with him. You need to think out your life and plan. Maybe you really didn't want a child and subconsciously sabotaged yourself. I don't know. But, *you* need to think it out.
I don't think it's nursing that you are wanting out of. I think it may be your marriage. You have been adjusting your nursing career to fix your marriage and motherhood situation, when it's really your marriage situation that needs to be adjusted. ... You need to think out your life and plan. ... I don't know. But, *you* need to think it out.
I really do like when someone pulls out something that I overlooked. There is definitely something to this to ruminate over. There are a lot of things that the original poster has in her thoughts and maybe the one she hasn't isolated yet as a possible factor that needs attention is the elephant in the room?
Not saying you need to do anything drastic but, maybe this is a huge possible area of dissatisfaction, or causing the inability to be happy with other things.
Ximena2008, RN
128 Posts
Wow, sorry to hear. I don't know where you live or who you work for but here in Naples FL the basic salry in home health is 72K-75K with all the benefit of health insurance, paid PTO, vacation, miles, phone reimbursement. Patients are 6-7 every day yes but we never drive more than 20 miles. We get assigned our load of patient but we schedule the visits to patient-RN convenience. We start 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. I never had trouble fitting in all my ptes in that time frame because the driving is not at all long. Not to mention in the hospitals here if you work as a seasonal nurse (Sept-April) the pay is 56 an hour average.