Ok, ok, yes, I know I need to fight for my lunch but yesterday was sooo crazy. I'm a new grad and got two patients that were supposed to be split. Had to leave the floor with one for over an hour for STAT tests, etc. Didn't know about the supposed split till later but oh well that is how the cookie crumbles, right?.
"One of those days" the other nurses say.......Problem is, this is nearly everyday. Maybe not staying late but fighting and clawing for your lunch, struggling to dart into the potty to pee, feeling your tongue stick to the top of your mouth cuz you can't remember when you had a sip of your water last. Running like a madwoman with people/family/pagers/doctors/patients in your face CONSTANTLY. I honest to God cannot keep a straight thought. I think to myself, "how in the hell do people do this job and LIKE it?". Sure, I like to keep busy. I like to work hard. But 14.5 hours of frantic "I'm-running-from-a-fire" pace? This is for the birds!!!! I used to enjoy taking care of myself, working out and eating right. Now I don't even give a sh*t anymore and am too freaking exhausted on my days off (or migrainous from the stress or lack of food) to do much of anything at all. I'm giving everything of myself, 120%, but in the end is not enough. This job is sucking the life out of me after only 9 months. How will I ever get to 5, 10, 20 years? I feel like I run, run, run, have all I can do to keep up with latest labs and test results let alone talk to patients/families, and pretty much just BARELY keep my patients alive. The end of the shift will come sometimes before I even realize my patient has a pacer! I mean, my gosh!! I miss the cash register job I used to have where someone actually gave a crap if I got two 15 min breaks or a lunch!!!
And the most depressing part: I'm a caring nurse, but I just can't keep up. I'm in elite shape and I JUST.CAN'T. KEEP. UP. It's not getting better either. I understand the flow better but time management wise? Not. I see the writing on the wall because the other, more experienced nurses are running too (maybe not quite as much). There are just too many tasks and too little time. So much charting. The acuity of these patients is not going down and were supposed to do more with less. How will how I am feeling ever change? Is this really just being a new grad or nursing at the bedside? No wonder people want OUT or burn out. I honestly just don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I think when experienced nurses say "it gets better" it really doesn't. What gets better is your ability to keep putting up with the sh*t. Kind of like conditioning, learned helplessness. You figure out you can't change it so you just roll with it. How long before it kills you though?
It's not getting better either. I understand the flow better but time management wise? Not. I see the writing on the wall because the other, more experienced nurses are running too (maybe not quite as much). There are just too many tasks and too little time. So much charting. The acuity of these patients is not going down and were supposed to do more with less. How will how I am feeling ever change? Is this really just being a new grad or nursing at the bedside? No wonder people want OUT or burn out. I honestly just don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I think when experienced nurses say "it gets better" it really doesn't. What gets better is your ability to keep putting up with the sh*t. Kind of like conditioning, learned helplessness. You figure out you can't change it so you just roll with it. How long before it kills you though?