Addiction

Addiction is rough. I witness it with patients everyday.

I encountered a patient with necrosis in the arm and it’s not a small area of necrosis, it’s pretty much the whole forearm.

They still shoot up in that arm.

The addiction is so strong that they are willing to literally risk life and limb for a high.

It’s sad and disturbing.

It makes you realize just how strong addiction is. We in the medical field often blame the patient:

“Why won’t they quit?”

“They obviously don’t care!”

“They should know better!”

“They did this to themselves.”

I’ll admit, I’ve thought that about patients. I’ve been judgmental even when it’s my job not to be. I’ve generalized and stereotyped people.

I am calling myself out for it.

It’s not my place to judge, it’s my job to treat.

It’s not my job to wonder why a person is suffering from addiction, and they are suffering.

It’s not my job to scold and belittle a patient for being addicted.

It is my job to provide the best care I can. It is my job to connect them with substance abuse counseling if they want it. It is my job to provide as much education as possible. It is my job to be their nurse. I’ve got to remember that.

Stop! Rally time!

Monday we had a gun rights rally on the Capitol. It brought back memories…

Bad ones.

I was charge nurse the night of the Charlottesville riot. Some of the people that were hit by the maniac that drove through the crowd were on our unit. Knowing that hatred could drive someone to kill, knowing that an innocent woman died because of hatred, it killed me inside. As a black woman, I know all too well what hatred can do.

I just didn’t want to see it all happen again.

Luckily, the state was prepared this time and declared a “state of emergency” before the rally. This led to increased security and a ban on weapons on Capitol grounds. So far, the rally has not resulted in any injuries. Weapons were out and people were walking around in full tactical gear. That nut job Alex Jones even made an appearance.

No one has been hurt.

That’s what I care about most of all. No one was hurt. Everyone gets to go home and back to whatever “normal” life they have.

As a nurse, rallies, protests, hell even large gatherings have a different meaning to me. I see potential mass casualty. I see potential chaos. I see potential patients.

That day in Charlottesville fundamentally changed me.

Arch nemesis

Classes have started for me. In fact, I’ve already completed one class. I’m liking the program so far but my fight with my old arch nemesis has reignited:

APA formatting 😒😐

I despise APA. I don’t even understand its point. Margins of this size, very particular page headers, citations that are done *just* so, reference pages with indentions done differently than the actual paper, references sited differently depending on what they are…

Why can’t I just write this damn paper and send it in?!

I get that APA formatting is to help maintain consistancy with how research is published and readability. What I don’t understand is why make it so damn complicated? It almost feels like the creators made it complicated because it made them feel smart.

I hate it.

APA has always been a thorn in my side. I’ve never been very good at it. I find the rules convoluted.

As you can see, I’m already over it…

Stress

I am about to start school. Another one of my coworkers is about to start clinicals for her NP. Another coworker is about to start her NP program. Needless to say, we are all stressed. At least I’m not alone, right?

I decided, however, I’m not going to let myself break under the stress of school and work. I am going to make sure I have some kind of kind outlet.

The first time I went to nursing school my friends and I would go out as a way to celebrate completing a semester. We would dance and let loose. It helped, it gave us a little something to look forward to. When I went back for my BSN my brother would notice I was stressed and drag me to Starbucks or Barnes and Noble (two of my favorite places) to have a moment of of the house. He would also make me do my studying there where there were no distractions (like the TV 😐) to steal my attention. It worked.

So now I’m trying to figure out what my de-stress plan will be for this go round. I know I’ll be doing the “out of house” studying. I think it may be time to bring back the end of semester party night as well! I just know I can’t let myself break under pressure. I’ve got to figure out what my self care will be for this experience…

A new thing

So I’m trying something new for health reasons.

Actually, I’m closing out my fifth week of it.

I removed meat from my diet.

My blood pressure the last few times has been borderline hypertensive. My weight is higher than it really needs to be. I always felt sluggish after eating a meal with a lot of meat. I also felt like it took so long for me to digest.

I know I wasn’t eating the right proportions of meat to vegetables. My meals were always meat-heavy. So I made a conscious decision to just cut it out all together and leafn how to eat the veggies I so often avoided.

My pressure is down closer to normal the last time it was checked. I lost about 3 pounds. One thing I wasn’t prepared for was how often I’m in the bathroom! Fiber, man, fiber! But I can honestly say I do feel better. I have no idea how long I’m going to keep this up. So far I’m not missing meat. I do wish veggie bacon tasted better though. Either way, let’s see how long this lasts…

Preceptor behavior (how not to be an asshole)

I have been the orientee and I have even done a little precepting. I lucked out so far and had wonderful preceptors (except for one but anyway…) but I have seen some TERRIBLE preceptors.

One thing that I noticed from a few of the preceptors that I would definitely label as “assholes”, is that they take pride in being intimidating to their orientee. I have witnessed this behavior and have had other nurse confide in me about their preceptors after they were out of orientation. Some of the things I heard were appalling.

It is NEVER okay to make your orientee feel “dumb” or “stupid”. You were a new nurse at one time and you didn’t know everything when you started, you had to be taught as well. You know what else is not okay? It’s not okay to just leave your orientee to fend for themselves. You are not on vacation, you are responsible for teaching this new employee the ways of your unit. Get up and check on them, make sure that they are actually alright. STOP USING THE AMBUSH TECHNIQUE!!! For those of you that don’t know what the ambush technique is, let me fill you in on this bs. Basically what happens is the preceptor ambushes the orientee when they aren’t prepared for it and starts hammering them with questions of “things they should already know” in the eyes of the preceptor. Do I know the normal range for a CVP? Yes, I do. Do I know the normal range for a CVP when you show up out of nowhere, while I am catching up on charting on a patient that I just had to start on norepinephrine and give two units of blood? No, absolutely f*****g not! This does not mean I am less intelligent than you, it means I was focused on my charting and not expecting a nursing ambush! The ambush technique neither proves nor disproves someone knowledge, it just makes you look like a douche. While we are at it, stop making your orientee feel like they are bothering you when they ask you questions. They don’t know. You do. Spread the wealth of knowledge. Learn how to give constructive criticism and praise. A lot of preceptors seem to miss that last part. Your orientee is already paranoid and trying to be a close to perfect as possible. Let them know you notice the good things they do along with the things they may need to work on. Your orientee will be much more receptive of your criticism, trust me.

Look, i’m not asking for a lot. I am simply asking you to remember what it was like when you were orienting. Remember how stressed you felt. Remember how confused you were. Remember how intimidating it was. Remember that you aren’t perfect.

Holier than thou

Hello holier that thou nurse and/or doctor on med Twitter.

We are so glad you came to join us and tell us how wrong we are for sharing our experiences when they aren’t all “rainbow and unicorny”. Let me see if I can explain something to you:

Sometimes it can suck being a nurse. Sometimes it sucks being a doctor. Sometimes it sucks being a CNA. Sometimes, the medical field just sucks.

I know this is shocker for you since your days are only sunshine and blue skies. For the rest of us, however, we deal with patients every day. We see death, abuse, addiction, cancer, and disease progression on a daily basis. We see tears, we get hit, we get verbally abused, we witness (and then somehow get involved in) family drama, we get spit on, we get called racial slurs, we go THOUGH it. Sometimes, we take to “med Twitter” to vent to those that understand us. We don’t do this because we get a kick out of bashing patients. Majority of us in the medical field are in this field because it’s what we love and we couldn’t see ourselves doing anything else. We love what we do but sometimes it’s a bad day and we need to talk about it to other people that have been through what we are going through. We get encouragement. We get advice. We get a picture of a puppy to melt away the stress. It’s our own little online bar where we get to sit and talk to the bartender. We need an outlet.

What we don’t need is your pretend internet holiness and your pretentious “I’m more of a patient advocate than you are” attitude. We would never do or say anything to harm or patients. We are, contrary to your belief, compassionate and caring medical professionals. We use these outlets to keep from losing our minds. So how about you hop on down from atop that high horse, ok?

One year!

So we have hit the one year mark with Barelysanenurse.com!

Thank you to all of you that have read my blog, commented, and shared.

When I started this blog it was sort of just a little hobby to talk about nursing life. Surprisingly I am enjoying this! I’m glad there are people out there that want to hear my opinion lol.

Let’s see how long we can keep this bad boy going!

That’s so gross

You would think the grossest thing that I have seen as a nurse would involve the patient.

Oddly enough, no.

I can say for sure the grossest thing I have seen is the patient’s family member(s) sleeping on the floor of the room.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAS BEEN ON THAT FLOOR?!?!?

I have walked into the room and nearly tripped over a family member sleeping peacefully on the floor. I was immediately freaked out. Like, what makes someone think sleeping on a hospital floor is safe or sanitary?

Oh, you have to get up off that floor honey.

There have been soiled linens, blood, body fluids that I can’t describe, EVERYTHING on that floor. Glare all you want but I’m not leaving you down there.

People think hospitals are far cleaner than they actually are…

So many diseases!

I had no idea there were so many diseases until I became a STICU/transplant nurse. Our unit takes care of surgical and trauma patients of all different types (except cardiac, we have dedicated units for that). While trauma is not easy, it can sometimes be a little more straightforward. Most of the time, if it’s bleeding make it stop. If it’s broken, fix it. Every trauma case is different of course but the path you take is typically easier to identify.

Surgical cases are a whole different story. I have come across so many different diagnoses that I have never even heard of. My first time hearing about Budd-Chiari syndrome was with a liver transplant patient we just treated. I have had to spend so much time looking up things on the internet trying to figure out why my patient has 70cm of small bowel left. I have learned about spinal disorders, blood disorders, neurologic disorders. I spend a lot of time asking our specialties to explain this diagnosis or that surgical procedure.

I love it!

Granted, I can’t tell you half of what the hell was explained to me. I can’t remember a majority of the diseases I have looked up. I have “nurse brain”. I know it for as long as I need to know it and then I purge it with alcohol to make way for the next round of sh*t I need to know. No shame. I plan on doing what I see some of our med students and residents do. I am going to get me a small notebook that I can leave in my locker at work and document the diseases that I come across. I haven’t decided if I am going to just list the name of the diseases or try and include a description with each so I can look back through the notebook and learn. It’ll probably be the latter.

Hopefully, I can start sharing some of these diagnoses and diseases with you all.