Music to My Ears.

So most nights at work I listen to music. One earbud in, volume on low I listen while I chart. While people sleep all around me and it is quiet. I so don't do quiet.

Last night, I didn't listen to music. I wanted to. I reached for it several times. Every time I stopped myself. Why, you may ask? Two reasons. Room 27, room 46.

Nurse, we need help in here! Yells the family member with 27s roommate.

Corrie, your guy in 46 is up again... naked this time. Yells the nurses sitting across the pod from me.

Leave it to me to turn two completely sane people into crazy lunatics who pull out foleys and try to fall every 10 minutes.

that is not even mentioning the other lady in 27 who every time I touched her yelled something to the effect of "why are you hurting me I thought you would help me stop it" over and over again. In my defense she was out of it before she became my patient.

I felt it very important to be able to hear every little noise around me, waiting for someone to finally hit the ground. They never did, which makes not listening to my music worth it.

Something cool happened the other night. I am the official wound care person on our floor, meaning I go to wound care committees and am eventually supposed to set up a wound care box. I also spent a day with a wound care nurse, and am available to help with dressing changes. I like wounds. Well, the other day a nurse who has worked on our floor for longer than I have been alive came and got me to help her do a dressing change on a new admit. I helped her measure, pack, all of it. She was asking my advice on what do to.

Me, the person who has done this job for ALMOST a year was giving advice to to a 25yr nurse. It made me feel good, like maybe after all the questions I have asked everyone I am finally getting to a point where I can contribute.

I love my job.

(and I can't wait for NURSE RaDonna to tell me all about her first day as a GN next week!)

the place I hate, the people I love. Florida May 2009

Some day I will figure out how to rotate. Sure.

Florida is not my favorite place. However, it was amazing watching RaDonna get pinned! She is going to be an amazing nurse, and I am glad I was there for the begining of the process.

And I am never eating sushi again.

True story.

Her nurse

My family is so not into medical field. Not a person on either side has anything to do with being a Doctor, nurse, anything medically involved. Well, I have one aunt who works in HR at a hospital. That is it. We are mostly teachers and business people.


Except for me.

When I became a nurse, I became the first in my family, and that instantly made me the expert.


Especially to my Grandma.


She calls me her redheaded wonder woman. She has declared me her nurse, and asks me questions about everything medically related. I love her to pieces.

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from my mom. "Corrie, grandma is having chest pain. What should we do?" I tell her to call an ambulance. She tells me to call and talk to my grandma.

I call, and Grandpa answers the phone. I ask him what is going on, he tells me she is having some chest pressure, shortness of breath. I told him, well, you should get her to the hospital. Better to get these things checked out.


"talk to your grandma".


It took a couple of minutes, but I said I thought she should go, and she went.


I am her nurse, after all.


Then the cardiologist wanted to do a stress test as an outpatient. Grandpa didn't like the idea. He thought the cardiologist was trying to take over her care, and they already had a doctor. Why does she need any more tests, anyway? I talked him into it, said I thought she should do it, and she went.


I am her nurse, after all.


I don't know very much. So much of my life I feel like I am barely keeping afloat, like I should know so much more than I do. Yet I want to learn. I want to soak up as much information as I can. I read articles, and read magizines. I join the ANA. I obsessively look for the perfect master's program, although granted, I don't know what I want to major in. I want to have as much knowledge as possible. To be the best nurse I can be. Because people count on me to know what I am talking about. They trust me to give them good advice, to give them the right medication. To present the right information to the doctor. They trust me to do my job, which is to be their advocate, the last line of defense. I do my best. I am not always perfect. If anything, this past week has taught be that although I do not have to be perfect, I do have to try my best. Be willing to ask questions of those who know more. Be willing to sit and talk to my patients even when I am frustrated and behind.

I prayed all day that nothing would go wrong with the test. That she would come through with flying colors. That I gave good advice to have the test. Because with her, more than anyone, I want to give the right advice, the right information.

Because no matter what happens anywhere else,

I am her nurse.

Flutterby

A couple of days ago, I did something that might not have been the best of ideas. I did something that could possibly be quite damaging to my nursing career. I made a completely unnecessary decision that will remain with me for the rest of my life.

I got a tattoo.

But not just any tattoo...a neck tattoo!

What was I thinking? I will now be pre-judged whenever I meet someone new. "Radical" and "Crazy" are words that could possibly be used to describe me and they would be correct. Who in there right mind gets an insect permanently etched into there neck? Granted, it is a charming little butterfly tucked behind my left ear and I can hide it with my hair whenever I want. But, for the rest of my life, I will have a little black butterfly following me wherever I go.

And I couldn't be more pleased!

It was the first decision I made on my own as 22 year old regarding body modification. For the first time, my parents said, "you are now 22, you are capable of making this kind of decision yourself". Now that I am college graduate, it kind of represents my new birth as a nurse. A fresh start. Nurse RaDonna, ready to take the world by storm!

I'm not gonna lie--it makes me feel wicked cool.

Now I just need to think of a name for her...any suggestions?

Supergirl

It's been awhile since I wrote anything other than careplans but I'm gonna give this a shot. Don't expect greatness.

I have known Corrie for the past nine years and a what a blessing she has been to my life. The first night I met her and Liz, I thought how lucky they were to have each other, and I have to admit I was jealous. I never expected Corrie to become my BFF and when I discovered she shared my dream of becoming a nurse someday, I thought this was too good to be true!

We grew closer and closer as the years went by despite going to colleges 1259.15 miles away from each other. We kept in touch through hour long phone conversations, instant messaging, and most recently through text. We alone understood what the other was going through when we were worried about a test or clinicals and when I told Corrie about my experiance in watching an open heart surgery, she knew exactly what I was talking about.

Corrie was my hero all the way through school. I regaled my friends with "Corrie Stories", my favorite was the one where the old man told her to be a lady and not a cold-hearted B!tch when she was putting a foley catheter into his bladder. Corrie was proof that nursing school was survivable and you could enter the nursing world with a smile on your face and hope to heal the world!

She still is my hero.

I am amazed by all she has accomlished for herself and how hard she works at becoming the best nurse she can be. She has jumped into nursing all the way up to neck and makes me so proud! Even though we don't agree on everthing and she thinks I went crazy once I moved to FL, we balance one another so splendidly and understand the other better than anyone else.

So here's to you Corrie my dear friend. I am so sorry it's raining in your life right now but I know you'll make it through this and emerge an even better nurse than you were a 3 days ago. Keep on shining like you do so well and let God bring you out of this storm. You rock! ;)

room 410 thinks she is in the basement.

What a great page to get at 230am. I walk into the room and ask her, can you tell me where you are? Well, she replied, I am pretty sure I am in the basement. After all, look at those walls.

I never know how to respond.

With the confused guy in 5, who thinks we have trapped him on the pirate ship for the past 10 days, I just go along with it. Probably not the best method to ask the name of the ship, but after reorienting him 5 times, does it really matter? His sitter was about ready to jump ship anyway.

Of course, his roommate (who is sharing the poor lone sitter) threw such a big fit night before last that every single guy working on the floor showed up in the room to make sure he wasn't swinging at me. I wasn't overly worried, but it was nice to have backup.

The 88 year old lady in 6 wants to know why she has to go to a rehab place when her sister and husband can take care of her. "my house is perfectly flat, and everyone knows rehabs stink." Of course, her sister is 85 and deaf and very obviously wants nothing to do with taking care of her, and I was suprised her husband could still walk when I saw him this morning. But she wants to go home. I would too.

Getting an idea of what my week has been like? A great begining to being back after 12 days off.

I made my first error this morning. In all honestly, it wasn't entirely my fault. I was told faulty info, and I acted according. Not grand. I survived. I'm not perfect, but I do try my absolute best to be. This morning it just wasn't possible.

Maybe I should go hide in the basement with the lady in 410.

The beginnings

She lives in Florida, went to DSC, works in an ER. I live in Kansas, went to MNU, work on a PCU. How exactly did we become the kind of friends we are? Well... that is a story...

Back in seventh grade we all lived in a smallish kansas town. We were both homeschooled all the way through, and it was time for our town's homeschool graduation. We were the official escorts for the 8th graders graduating. I was there with my best friend at the time, Liz, and then RaDonna was the third escort. It was the first time we had met. She refused to talk to us. We tried talking to her, she didn't really respond, and Liz and I gave up and did what best friends do, ignored everyone else. A couple of months later her and her sisters started a play, Anne of Green Gables. My group of friends were all in it, so I joined as well. That began the friendship of RaDonna, her sisters and myself. Over the next couple of years my family started attending their church, we started doing more and more together, and at some point she became the person in the world who got me. By the time I headed off to college a couple of hours away she became the friend I missed the most. When she moved to Florida with her family partway through freshman year of college, I cried. When I about lost my mind that spring, playing backgammon with her on IM was the main thing that pulled me through. We have talked each other through years of school, clinicals, the highs and lows that only someone who has experienced nursing school can understand. Last year I graduated, and she flew in for a grand total of 36 hours to watch my pinning ceremony, before she went to texas to say goodbye to her dad who was leaving for Iraq. This week I flew in for her pinning ceremony, and I just about burst out crying through the whole thing.

We made it, RaDonna. We are finally done.

Being a new nurse is terrifying. I know this, she is going to figure it out soon. The constant fear that you will screw up because honestly, I don't know near enough to do this job, can be cripling if you think about it. This blog is so we can share our thoughts, fears, experiences. So on the exciting days when something went right I can write about it and she can celebrate with me. On the days when everything went wrong, she can write about it and I can comiserate.

This is us, figuring it out.