We are Nurses... HAPPY NURSES WEEK

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a nurse!

Growing up that's what I said I wanted to be, I never wavered.... I just knew.

This is NATIONAL NURSES WEEK 

A week to celebrate a profession that I think is sometimes taken for granted. 

We are the backbone of healthcare, we don't always get the credit for the near misses that we catch, or for saving a life because we were the first one that notices that somethings not right, or bringing something significant to the doctors attention before they even had a clue.

We don't need confirmation or pats on the back...it's what we do, it's 2nd nature,

We are Nurses

We have to be on our toes, we have to use critical thinking and act fast even before a doctor steps in the room....we have to just know!

In the back of our heads is tucked away many important numbers and values.

ECG intervals, Lung Sounds, Patient Anatomy, Lab values, ABG analysis, and

 Emergency drugs, just to name a few. So much to know, but somehow our brains retain it all

 For most of my nursing career I was an ER nurse.

 I was saving lives,  reacting to screeching alarms, juggling drug drips and blood transfusions. 

I've even reached into a patients chest after it's been cracked-open by the trauma surgeon,

 to plug a gushing hole in the heart, from a stab wound.

We didn't think twice about what to do for a Trauma Code or Code 45, we have to be fluent when it came to knowing what drug to give, how much, and in what order to give it 

during an emergency situation.

Thats the STRONG and BRAVE and CONFIDENT of a nurse, but we must not forget the...

COMPASSION, KINDNESS and UNDERSTANDING!

Through multiple trauma's, death and cardiac arrests, I felt heartache and grief right along side families, even though it might sometimes appears to be a stoic calm. 

You see nurses work with an air of competence, and readiness to adapt to ever-changing situations. Most patients and their families won't see the emotional loss that we are experiencing right along side of them, it's usually on the way home in the car that we lose it. It's after the fact when we can let it all out, after we no longer having to worry that our skills would be affected from an emotional lapse, 

so we wait and grieve later....when we have time.

Now take it forward to many year later...

I'm a Lumbar Puncture Nurse, that's right,

 I'm the person that skillfully places a 3.5 - 5.0 inch needle in the lower back of a patient, 

to collect spinal fluid for testing. 

These patients come because they are pretty ill with some sort of neurological affliction.

I get to sit, and talk to each patient and their family before the procedure.

I have plenty of time for them, time to talk away their fears, to give them some hope 

and reassure them that they are in a good place that cares about them.

The compassion is real, I've prayed with my patients, and they have prayed for me.

This is a good gig, this thing called NURSING!

I love this little snippet on found about nurses....

Happy Nurses week to all my friends and family members who are nurses.

We make a difference in the lives of many.