Despite it all

I don't live anywhere near the hospital, and that comes with pros and cons. Pro, is that I have time to mentally prepare myself for whatever my shift may hold. Con, is that at times, things happen, like cars don't work. Rides are too far away. Within a matter of minutes my personal life became a mess and as I wearily drove into work I was looking forward to loosing myself in the service of others. The car had broken, our new room we had remodeled was falling apart and was still not finished, friends and family were all hitting on sore spots, I felt like a wreck. As I walked into work I kept looking for opportunities to loose myself in service.

Leaning against the wall across from the time clock I cursed everything I would have to deal with when I returned to this spot, 8 hours from now. Shortly after, I clocked in and checked the whiteboard. Another 1:1.

As I walked into the room and got report, I looked at each bed's whiteboards. Both's patient goals were to get better, as report was given I found that both patients illnesses were self caused. I love working in 1:1's because you can actually give the patient(s) the attention you feel they need, but today I felt frustrated with my 1:1s because it was more severe than what we were used to dealing with.

Vitals were unstable, Mental Statuses declined, quickly it got to be overwhelming, one patient was receiving a chest xray, then the other a ABG test. While physicians were in the room for both patients I stepped outside for a moment and exhaled, running my fingers through my hair. "Despite it all, they are still human." I told myself. "Despite that they cannot remember their families, that they did this to themselves, they are still human."

Before too long I was pulled from the 1:1 and placed on the floor, with a few patients. I really am starting to love this unit the more I understand what to do, however a few nurses seem to think that I am 'too slow' in learning what to do. (Whining will precede, be cautioned) I am with a full patient load now, doing tasks I wasn't doing the week before, and I only ask questions when I truly don't know, so I go to those who DO know. Generally speaking the nurses are excellent at answering my questions, and I love that they do that, but almost every week without fail my patients happen to be Nurse (Meanie-Britches) patients as well, and she asks me to do a lot of things I don't know how to do. I ask her to elaborate, to explain, when she'll slam the doors and throw things onto the counter grumbling 'Fine! I'll just do it myself!'

'Despite it all, she is still human' I whisper under my breath, pausing long enough to exhale, then running after her to try to fix whatever messes may be caused on the way. I hate it when that happens.

I got surprised for my break, my boyfriend and one of my best friends came and brought me dinner and offered to help me with the vehicular problems. I gladly accepted the offer and spent my lunch break laughing it off. We joked about everything, and they being two of the best guys I know, saw my frustration and tried to make me feel better. My best friend came back from college with many vices, and slowly worked them away, except for two. His crazy girlfriend, and smoking. But we know he will never quit both of these habits and despite it all, he is still human.

As I finished my shift I did vitals, blood sugars, intake and output checks and all other nighttime activities that needed to be done. After verifying that I had truly finished all my tasks I read up on the different diagnoses that the unit was holding. It really amazed me at what a variety I saw, everything from Sepsis to Depression, Below the Knee Amputations to Pneumonia, we see it all.

There were a few abbreviations I didn't understand, so I asked another CNA, she sat down next to me and tried to figure it out, then explained 'since its a human that enters this information, not the computer, they enter the information that they know, not the generalized term so this sometimes happens.'

As I drove home I started to think about the quote just running through my mind all shift. What does it mean to be human? Does it mean we allow for addictions, mistakes and short-comings? As I listened to my play list the answer came to me.

To be human means to have a continuous heartbeat that does more than pump blood, it holds your love, your worry, and your emotions towards others. It means you do more than simply work, you think, you delegate, you educate and you learn. Being human means that from time to time you will have a vice, you will have mistakes, but you will overcome them and thrust yourself onto greatness. To be human means that you will continually want; want to better yourself, want to be healthy, want to learn and want to obtain your dreams.

Despite it all, all the crap, all the concern and all the hassles, it was a good shift.