One Day

One day as a nurse will forever change a person. We cry, we laugh, we make very inappropriate jokes in order to cope. From cleaning up fecal matter to reviving someone back to life, we never know what assignment we'll be managing. The angles that must be considered when going into nursing are infinite; there will always be something new to learn.

Many people just assume that nurses are trained to show no emotion, be a stone-cold human being. Being human is all about emotions. Nurses laugh and cry and scream, sometimes all in one day. I recall a moment as a student when one of the clients I was assisting started to cry because all they wanted to do was go home to their spouse. I paced my reaction and thought rationally about the situation, however this did nothing to hinder the tears already running down my cheeks. I sat down with this person and held their hand. I told them about how only a year prior I watched my great grandmother slowly pass on and how my great grandfather became so lost after that he too gave up. "Thank you for caring, I needed that," they told me. As much as they say I changed their day, it will never amount to how much this experienced changed me.

Coping is not always the easiest skill to learn, experience and advice can aide the process, but we, as nurses, will never stop refining this skill. Nurses think of the silliest, the stupidest, the most grotesque things to help get through the day no matter what is going on. Sometimes we find nicknames for certain clients that we use amongst the other nurses or we label clients using inanimate objects (for example, vegetables for coma patients). Jokes between nurses should simply stay between nurses because very few others can appreciate the dark sense of humour we muster. However, at the end of the day, we can go home with a sense of comfort even after a bad day, that's just our life.

I often hear the words "it's so amazing that you can be a nurse," but it doesn't always feel amazing. One day is quiet and we go about doing our thing, the next day there's a never-ending list of people that need us to do a never-ending list of tasks, and other days we just want to go home and forget why we do this in the first place. It's a roller coaster ride that never ends, some find it too nauseating and want off or avoid the ride altogether, others get on for the whole package deal with hands in the air or clenching the safety handles.

I wouldn't change my decision for anything. I have gone home ready to quit, I have had days where I question why I ever started, and yes I have had days where I walked away knowing I couldn't handle it anymore. I know I'm not the only one and I know that this is only the beginning for me; I gather myself up, reflect, and move on with the next day. Despite everything I can change someone's day for the better, I can make a difference in someone's life, so I continue to grow.