The past 2 nights I have made several of my patients cry- that is to be expected as I am
the bearer of the needles, the icky tasting medicine, and waking them up during
the middle of the night.
But my patients have made me cry too. Of course, when I say cry, I really mean a tear or two is shed and then I must hold it together...knowing that in some sense I have to be strong and save my emotional moments for a setting off of the floor. No, none of the kids hurt my feelings nor did any of them crash. In fact, all things considered the shifts have been smooth....busy enough to stay awake, but not so busy that I can't sit down for a few minutes every now and then.
The tears come when I hear (from report) or read (from the chart) parts of their stories and realize I, as their nurse, have become a part of their story...even if just one or two 12 hour shifts in the months, even years of intermittent hospital stays, rounds of chemo, weeks of monitoring. It's not just about their diagnoses. With my limited knowledge about the complexities of the floor I work on, knowing the cancer subtype carries little meaning to me. It's when I come to find out a patient who has yet to reach their 2nd birthday is being placed on palliative care. It's the patient who has been at the hospital, not for medical reasons, but because there was no foster home to discharge them to. This was also the patient who told me that I did not look like a nurse-in-training because I had the name badge and the right outfit on. This 7 year old assured me I looked "ready to take care of patients all by myself."
It is not all sad; in fact, remission rates for many childhood cancers are quite high. But these kids are not statistics. Each of their experiences here changes who they are and who they will become. I pray the experiences only make them stronger, believing they can make it through all of life's challenges and knowing what it means to show compassion.
So we revisit the question Do you love your job? My current answer (and hopefully my lifelong answer) is I love these kids. No, it is not like being a nanny because you typically aren't thought of as the "fun" person. There are not fun outings, gift-giving, game-playing, craft-making....but there is a definite sense that you are playing a part of walking that child and their family through this detour, a change in course that can be quite lengthy. You hope and pray that eventually they will be back on track, but a part of you knows that some of their journeys will end before then. I have always considered it a privilege to be there for people in their most vulnerable times, when they need it most, and it is an honor to be able to come to work to do just that.
But my patients have made me cry too. Of course, when I say cry, I really mean a tear or two is shed and then I must hold it together...knowing that in some sense I have to be strong and save my emotional moments for a setting off of the floor. No, none of the kids hurt my feelings nor did any of them crash. In fact, all things considered the shifts have been smooth....busy enough to stay awake, but not so busy that I can't sit down for a few minutes every now and then.
The tears come when I hear (from report) or read (from the chart) parts of their stories and realize I, as their nurse, have become a part of their story...even if just one or two 12 hour shifts in the months, even years of intermittent hospital stays, rounds of chemo, weeks of monitoring. It's not just about their diagnoses. With my limited knowledge about the complexities of the floor I work on, knowing the cancer subtype carries little meaning to me. It's when I come to find out a patient who has yet to reach their 2nd birthday is being placed on palliative care. It's the patient who has been at the hospital, not for medical reasons, but because there was no foster home to discharge them to. This was also the patient who told me that I did not look like a nurse-in-training because I had the name badge and the right outfit on. This 7 year old assured me I looked "ready to take care of patients all by myself."
It is not all sad; in fact, remission rates for many childhood cancers are quite high. But these kids are not statistics. Each of their experiences here changes who they are and who they will become. I pray the experiences only make them stronger, believing they can make it through all of life's challenges and knowing what it means to show compassion.
So we revisit the question Do you love your job? My current answer (and hopefully my lifelong answer) is I love these kids. No, it is not like being a nanny because you typically aren't thought of as the "fun" person. There are not fun outings, gift-giving, game-playing, craft-making....but there is a definite sense that you are playing a part of walking that child and their family through this detour, a change in course that can be quite lengthy. You hope and pray that eventually they will be back on track, but a part of you knows that some of their journeys will end before then. I have always considered it a privilege to be there for people in their most vulnerable times, when they need it most, and it is an honor to be able to come to work to do just that.
Good post. When I have been asked the question you revisit, I often think that it isn't that I love my job, or that nursing is my passion, but that nursing is a channel for me to do what I love and to use my passion of caring for people in moments of the everyday.
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