Published by Sean on 29 Jun 2007 at 06:40 pm
Don’t Waste Your Life
I answered the call bell, “I need some help right away!” yelled the nurse in the room that called.
I ran to the room to find her holding back what had to be the strongest elderly lady I have ever encountered. Even with two of us, we struggled to stop her from plowing out of her hospital room. Her IV pole was (of course) left behind, and the IV that had desperately been put in her foot was millimetres from being pulled out. Not to mention the Foley. I gave her a bear hug to hold her still while her nurse organized her drains and lines to safe positions.
“This room is haunted! HAUNTED! I have to get out!!!” Was this particular ladies complaint. I stopped for a moment to consider the possibility. After all, we had all heard the ghost stories…but those were from the room down the hall.
She pounded at me as I hugged her; she burried her head in my chest, wailing, crying, screaming. “You wouldn’t do this to YOUR children would you?!?!?” She protested.
“You’re OK, everythings fine, you’re safe here.” I tried to convince her, but nothing was working. She kept screaming like a banshee.
All of a sudden, she stopped dead in her tracks and became silent. Her eyes were staring at the RN pin that I proudly display on my scrubs.
“OH, you’re a registered nurse! Don’t do it! Don’t waste your life with this job.” She said calmly, with purpose.
Then her head dived against my chest again in endless wails and sobs. “Please help me! Please help me!”
“You’re safe now, don’t worry, you’re safe…”
Terry on 30 Jun 2007 at 5:02 am #
Oh, that poor scared woman. When she saw your pin, that was a real Kodak moment!
Great story, Sean. You have an engaging style that I love reading! Keep ‘em coming.
RehabRN on 04 Jul 2007 at 7:34 am #
Great story. That lady’s advice sounds like what I heard on one of my clinicals in nursing school when I was talking to one older nurse.
She told me her advice was, “Run, run as fast as you can the other way.”
Of course, being the contrary soul that I am, this just made me want to do more.
We’ll see how this goes!
Peter McCartney on 21 Jul 2007 at 7:14 am #
A very sound and well researched site. Made good reading.
philippinenurses on 02 Aug 2007 at 2:13 am #
Kudos! Very informative article, keep up the good works! More power
philippinenurses.blogspot.com
Tracy on 08 Aug 2007 at 2:03 pm #
I hope that woman is ok. I’ve been reading a lot of nursing blogs lately and find the most touching stories on them.
I don’t have your e-mail address so I hope this post isn’t inappropriate. I was wondering if you’d be interested in posting any articles from the Nursezone.com website. There are lots of relevant articles for todays nurse. The great news is that using nursezone content on your site is no cost. We’d just like to have a link back to our site for those of your bloggers interested in finding a community of nurses, CE opportunities, travel nursing and other relevant nurse aids. A partial example of a nursing article is below:
Nurse Overcomes Cancer—Twice—to Provide Care to Others
By Nancy Deutsch, RN, contributor
Many people yearn to make nursing their career, but few have to battle the odds like Valerie Bush.
The Independence, Kentucky, woman, who was a medical technician for six years and a nurse’s aide “on and off forever,” waited until her children were raised to return to nursing school. When she finally entered the Gateway Community and Technical College, it was unbelievably stressful. Not only was the single mother dealing with her course work, but her father died, and her youngest daughter was dealing with medical problems, including bipolar disease.
Bush, now 42 years old, was “disgustingly healthy when I started” school in 2004, but quite overweight, and she started to lose a lot of the extra girth.
“I lost massive amounts of weight in just a few months,” she recalled. “I was a pretty big girl. I lost 100 pounds.”
At first, Bush chalked up the weight loss and constant belching to stress, but when she shed all the weight, she found a lump in her breast. “I decided to see a doctor over break.”
Bush was diagnosed with DCIS, and beneath that, metastatic breast cancer.
“I lost everything in a week,” Bush said. The diagnosis sent her daughter off the deep end, upset her boyfriend, and meant she had to stop the classes she had waited so long to take.
“As a nurse, you think you know what a cancer diagnosis entails,” she said. “But you don’t. It affects every single thing in your life.” … (more article to come)
© 2007. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Let me know what you think.
Tracy (nursezoneportal@earthlink.net)
ttt on 08 Aug 2007 at 4:11 pm #
where have you been mate? eager to read your updates.
Myk on 12 Aug 2007 at 6:07 am #
Hi,
While surfing the web, I came across your website and found it to be very information. I would like to share your website with my visitors.
I was wondering if we can exchange links, my blog url is http://nursereview.org
I went ahead and added your blog to my site, please add my blog in exchange.
I understand the value of link exchange from relevant and complementary websites.
Thanks,
Myk
Mojo on 20 Aug 2007 at 7:16 am #
I like your site. You’ve chosen a really nice theme!
I’m curious about the difficulty in finding gay male nurse blogs… I am considering a career change to nursing and your site came across as one of the few written by a gay male. I’m really glad to have your site on the net: There really are few male nurse and especially gay male nurse voices in this field.
I am sure you’re quite busy as a newly licensed nurse, but I (and others) are looking forward to any updates you have time to post. Great job on finishing your qualifications and congrats on passing your exams!