6th night in the ER series

[guest042302019, BSN, RN]

3/15/2010(6th night)

I pull up to the hospital, and many cars are parked in the lot. Either it's a monday and more staff are here, or there are more people ailed. I would later find out, the latter is the case. I get out of my car, and say fairful for I wont see it in 4 hours. As I walk up to the meager decorated builiding, I reassure my friend that she will find love, maybe through her knight in shining armor via text. I close my phone, partially because my shift was about to begin, but more so, because I dont really care for the same old story of "no one will ever love me." While I do emphathize towards her situation, I can only handle so much of the same ole' story. I walk into the autmatic sliding doors, and as apposed to take the elavator, I've grown acumstomed to using the flight of stairs down to the first floor. I get to the level 1, open the door, take an immediate right and another right, walk passed the cardiac therapy unit. A curious nurse sees, and acknowledges my name-tag as one of "us", gives me a nod and a smile and walks passed me on my left. I arrive near the ER back entrance, push the handicap sign and walk into the far parts of the ER. I walk passed 12 and 13 rooms, noticing that they are filled. At this point, I've learned that when these higher numbered rooms are filled, more than likely the ER is relatively busy. I later find out that the back rooms being filled and the parking lot being slightly crowded reaffirms my ideas of a likely busy night. I pass the fridge on the wall, and stand in front of the main ER station. The station is the heart of the ER, with computers and usually, doctors are examining xrays of the heart, bones, or various organs in question. I notice the board being all the way full, and even, hall #2 being occupied. This intrigued me because I hadn't seen this slot filled yet, and realized that hall spaces are literally people lying in the hall due to all the rooms being filled. I see some familiar faces, and some new ones. I've really enjoyed talking and getting to know this particular nurse. She has a young 3 year old daughter, and tonight, she gave me some details of how "the apple didn't fall from the tree" and she is practically a reincarnation of her mother. I talk to her briefly, and notice that the charge nurse is someone I haven't met before. I tell her" I better introduce myself" and did just that. I walk up to her, and greet her. " I'm Andrew, and I'm a volunteer." She asks me if I've been here before, and I acknowledge that I have and I'm relatively familiar with the environment. I ask her if I can to anything for her, and she replies "You can clean rooms and answer call lights if I am comfortable with that." I nod and do my nightly chores, I've come to love so dearly. I was happy that the ER was busier this evening for several reasons. Firstly, I may be able to see some really interesting occurences and simply, the time passes faster that way. While I don't dread being there nor count every second in hopes my shift will end promptly, but rather, I want to see the bloody stuff. This is funny because I was able to one of the ER workers more so, than my previous weeks. He says, "I know why you are here." I reply in surprise," And, why is that" with a smile. "Because you want to see a bad trauma." "Ofcourse I do, I find it interesting, I've seen pictures and videos, but not the real deal." I then tell him that probably anyone down here finds it interesting, and state you probably find it interesting. While I'm sure you don't wish bad things on people. He surprisng replies,"Yes, I do." I give a small laugh, even though I'm 100% convinced that he was joking. I don't want to judge the guy so either was joking, or he truly meant what he said. And in that case, I don't agree with him. I don't want anything bad to happen to anyone, but the sighting is fascinating, when something dreadful does. Although, I wouldn't officially know yet. The Keyword is "yet" because it is inevitable in the ER.

Tonight was rather uneventful. I did a lot of cleaning. But, tonight did show the nurses that I am a good employee. But, how could I not be? My sole job is to clean rooms, and empty full trash cans and linen bags. The trash is typically for the janitors, but when it is heaping full, or even close to the top full, I am inclined to spare 45 seconds of my time to change the bag. I even received some more recognition for my work this evening. A nurse, whom I don't recall meeting, thanked me for my efforts in a joyis way. She smiled and was seemingly surprised yet so thankful for what I did for them. She told me that I've been doing a great job tonight, and I responded in thanks. She asked me what I'm doing here, and I told her that I wanted to learn and help out. I then told her that I was going into nursing, and got a response of "good for you." I'm not sure what that means because I get that quite a bit when I tell people this. I wonder if the response is because I'm a male going into a female driven career, or because it's highly revered and respected field. Either way, I enjoy the comments and recognition for my hard work. I've done hard work before, and of all sorts. The job I have isn't really physically demanding except being on my feet and most of the time, I'm able to sneak in a 5 or 10 minute breather at the nursing table. The job I have isn't too hard emotionally, because I feel comfortable talking to these people, both the family, and the patients. So in a sense, I've leaped over the giant nursing wall of comfortability, but I didn't need to leap to hard, because I've felt very, very comfortable with the environment from the beginning. Also, I stopped and talked to one of the nurses I've some what befriended, because she is easy to talk to. She said she was cold and I told her that I was sweating, which was evident of my speedy work and the beads dripping from my forehead. She jokingly told me to slow down, because I'm making one the guys in particular look bad. This is guy that told me he wished harm on people. I wonder if the other people there shaired my odd "mojo" of this guy. Judging by what the nurse said to me, it would seem we are on the same page. None the less, she made me smirk inside and out.

Furthermore, I also received a nice compliment tonight. I was told that I could use any of the nurses(that I've met) as a reference. This tells me I'm on the right path, I'm doing my volunteer job so well that people really seem to appreciate what I'm doing. So I'm at a bit of cross roads right now. I like the freedom of volunteering. I would also like a job there, which it seems, I'm on the right to track to aquiring. With volunteering, I can leave whenever I want, but with an official job, I can be exposed to more, which is much better for my own personal drive to learn, also I would probably receive on the job certifications to be involved in much more. Overall, I'm going to casually pursue a job there, mainly because I have school obligations. If I don't do well in school, I won't be able to become a nurse, or atleast, in the time frame I'm striving for.

Looking at what I'm doing right now, I'm on the right path to become a nurse, and a good one at that.