I have shed a lot of tears in the last 15 years working as a bedside nurse. Tears of joy, frustration, fear, devastation, sadness, happiness, heartache, love. Years of seeing people at their worst and best. Being there with patients and families on their most joyous and most devastating days. We can all relate to all these tears and how they’ve made us feel. I reflect on all the tears shed.
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All of that crying started right out of nursing school. That first year of nursing was hard, but those first few months were incredibly tough. Three months of orientation and I would cry and/or throw up before each shift. Looking back, I realize now they were tears full of fear, the unknown, and dread. It decreased as time went on, thankfully. The tears of fear turned into tears of empathy.
I spent 15 years taking care of fragile babies and their parents. Tears of joy. Tears of heartbreak. I’ve cried with mothers when they held their baby for the first time. I’ve cried with mothers when they held their baby for the last time. Tears of anger when parents didn’t act in the baby’s best interest by doing drugs or being neglectful. It was never my place to judge, but I cried for babies that we later found out died after being abused by parents. Tears of frustration, as we warned DCS to no avail. There were tears of disappointment when the manager’s response at times was “you can’t save everyone.”
Years went by
Tears went by. As the years wore on, I cried less. The job wasn’t easy, but it was comfortable. Each shift was different and had its challenges, but I knew the basic routine. Clock in, do my job, clock out. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
I took for granted the mundane shifts. The comfort. The familiarity. I took all that for granted until 2020. Covid brought with it a whole fresh stream of tears. More tears I had since that first year as a nurse, and then some. And, some more. And it ended with more tears than I ever thought possible.
Why was it so hard?
Especially in the NICU? Our babies didn’t have Covid. I shed tears though for Covid positive mothers that had their babies taken from them right after delivery and brought to our unit. These babies were term, healthy, and perfectly fine. Luckily, the CDC stopped recommending this barbaric practice after a few months, but it devastated me. I was heartbroken for those moms when all that was happening. We went from encouraging skin-to-skin directly after birth to whisking their babies away. Then placing them in an isolette and keeping them in a negative pressure room and away from their mothers. How traumatic.
Things got better, then worse again, then better, and worse than it was at the start. We then had to float to adult units. Huh?! I’ve only ever worked in the NICU. Nope, didn’t matter. Talk about being thrown into the trenches. This was a whole new terror than even that first year as a brand new nurse. At least as a new nurse, I had a preceptor and support. Having to float to the adult units, though? Those nurses were way too busy and overwhelmed to be answering questions from someone that didn’t know what they were doing. “I’ve only ever cared for babies, where exactly do I put this adult thermometer?”….. “Anyone?”…… “Bueller?” Honestly, I’m laughing now when I think back to it. I was asking the patients themselves how to care for them. I’m thankful most of them were kind and understanding. I enjoyed talking with them and they seemed to enjoy the company since they couldn’t have visitors. Then there were the Covid units, ER, and ICU. So much death and pain. There were months that our unit was so slow, we were having to float to the adult units every week or two. Absolutely terrifying each time.
I would cry ... then the tears stopped
I would cry on my way to work. I would cry at work in the bathroom or stairwell. Or that one little quiet place right off the lobby by the big fish tank. I cried because I knew the shift would be terrible, and it always was. I never left those shifts saying “it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting!” Never. I anxiously dreaded it every time. And then one day, the tears just stopped. Did I just not have any more tears? I then realized I was just tired. Tired of working long shifts. Tired of not knowing what I was doing. Tired of being scared. Tired of working nights. Tired of seeing and hearing so many tragic stories. Tired of wearing a mask. Tired of wearing eye protection. Tired of getting my temp taken before every shift. Tired of having to go through a different entrance than I had the last 15 years. Tired of being so short-staffed all the time. Tired of a new policy today that will change tomorrow. Tired of the pain. Tired of being tired. Tired of crying.
I’m too tired to cry.
There are so many that have been through a lot more. Those that were and still are working on the frontlines in those units. Those that lost one or more loved ones. So much hurt and pain. Are you tired? Do you let the tears flow?
