You can check out but you can never leave

I have found that I have strong feelings about entertainment these days.  I was super excited when the commercials for my favorite shows started showing up. More seasons were headed my way. I was excited for the sweet blissful escape of zoning out in front of a tv show where I can pretend all is right in the world for 30-60 minutes at a time. It wasn’t all that shocking, albeit disappointing, to find that almost every show I watch was now based on Covid 19.  

I can’t say I’m a fan. Even before I started working in the hospital, the last thing anyone wanted was for their escape from reality to get tainted with current events. Now that I live the reality every day I’m at work {and lets be honest, any and every day}, the last thing I want is to rehash reality in some twisted form or another.  It’s not like Hollywood stays neutral {insert eye roll here}.  There is so much talk about self care and finding ways to cope with stress.  I’ve come to the conclusion that anything we do is only a finger plugging a leak in a dam of emotions.  It’s a temporary fix that just buys time until a long-term solution is found. It’s a day to day struggle to maintain some semblance of sanity, even if that means two steps forward and then two right on back.   Don’t get me wrong, self care is vital, especially when it is aimed at ensuring our immune systems stay running at full force.  Or really, just ensuring we have the gumption to get up and do it all over again.  

The more I think about it, the more I see the other side of my disdain for Covid permeating my pretend world of happiness.  I didn’t understand the strain fully until I was smack dab in the middle of it. I can only imagine how foreign the exhaustion is to those who don’t see it, who don’t experience the overwhelming surge of patients who literally have nowhere to go in the hospital and yet still come. Perhaps these shows depicting exhausted healthcare workers, struggling to the perfect soundtrack, saying goodbye to patients and colleagues for the last time; watching their own people get taken down, one by one by the same disease that is killing their patients, might just open the eyes of the unbelievers.  

It still shocks me when I see people refuse to wear a mask. To refuse to avoid large crowds. I’em not saying to become hermits and never leave your home, I have traveled myself to see my family as safely as we possibly could, but there are things that can be done to prevent or slow the insanity.  I guess my hope is that those that also watch these shows that may not know firsthand how exhausting it is, might be moved to consider someone other than themself.  Perhaps it will stir their emotions enough to contemplate how the other side of their argument feels.  After all, there is a long history of our entertainment presenting and normalizing topics that were once well, taboo.  {Let’s hear it for Archie and Edith}  

For now, I will continue to watch my favorite poorly scripted medical shows that are set around world events that I want to escape from and follow along until the tidy, if not inaccurate, happiness at the end of the episode all while hoping it can help bring awareness to the masses.  

What goes up, must come down.

I am finding there is a major side effect of working as a nurse, but particularly one in the midst of a pandemic. What is it, you ask? Waterworks. And a lot of them.

While at work, there have been several occasions where I had to almost literally shove my feelings down because there isn’t much room for tears in CPR, especially when family is right outside the room watching. So when you can’t feel the feelings at work, they all come out at home.

See a cute commercial? Crying.
Watch a tv show? Tears.
Is that a puppy in a Santa hat? Waterworks.
It’s super annoying, and to be honest, embarrassing.

I’m not sure that it needs to be fixed though. It’s perfectly normal to have emotions as a human {I repeat to myself daily.} Sure, at first I was really concerned because ‘back in the day’ when I didn’t have kids and didn’t really have the responsibilities that I have now, I didn’t do this. I didn’t break down at the smallest thing. I handled death and dismemberment with a straight face. {Except that one time… that was different and a story for another day.} I still get into this spiral of how surely this can’t be good and then I realize that my emotions back then came out a lot different, but they sure as heck came out. Today it is tears, then it was anger. When I consider the two options, I think a little tear or two {or a hundred} is far better than lashing out at others, specifically the ones I love.

I’m not sure that anything will change unless I change my chosen profession, but I really think what needs to change is my view on expressing my feelings, or you know, feeling those feelings; especially those that are considered ones that I regard as a sign of weakness. I’ll be the first person to champion for others that crying, being sad, or at times anger is perfectly normal and acceptable, however that courtesy rarely is extended inward.

It’s all part of growing as a human and as a nurse. It isn’t something they teach in nursing school or even in your orientation, so it has to come from somewhere. There are so many lessons that we must learn as we grow that have nothing to do with memorizing anatomy or recognizing symptoms. How to deal with the emotions of the job and the impact it has on us outside the hospital is important and often overlooked. I will be looking for resources for myself in the near future, but in the mean time I will be, at the very least, giving myself a little bit more grace as I navigate this new territory.

The Wisdom of Others

It took me a good while after I graduated to find influences on social media that were more than those memes that you laugh at because otherwise you would find yourself crying at the truth of it. However, once I found those people, it changed quite a bit for me. Looking at nursing in a positive light while still acknowledging the difficulties was new, but also these people gave me actual tools to make my life better. The best part, it is free. Sure they also offer classes and resources as well (they too need to feed their families), but I have found that the support of random strangers on the internet has done a lot for my outlook and well, inlook. {I know that isn’t really a word, but again, my blog, my weirdness, whether or not it is grammatically correct.}

That being said, if you are new to nursing or have been in it for more than a hot minute, please go check out WholeLifeNurse on Instagram. There are so many resources to be had, including my favorite, an anonymous income report. You won’t regret it.

The Sun Will Come Out… Sometime

When you graduate nursing school, you run on the assumption that the world is your oyster. Nurses are in high demand. Your good grades will shine among other applicants. Your previous healthcare experience will be seen as an asset. Well friends, I’m here to tell you that either all of this is utter and complete BS or Covid has drastically changed the landscape of nursing.

I’m not going to lie, I’m not sure if I am merely the piece of sand in the oyster that just hangs out and irritates the snot out of the critter until it somehow becomes a pearl or the poor creature that has the piece of sand wedged into a delicate place and all I can do is endure until it turns into a pearl. Needless to say, I’m struggling. The patient load is insane, the politics are exhausting, and the commute might be the death of me. {The silver lining is that I have lost about 8 pounds working my shift because I just don’t have time to eat and I’m too dang exhausted when I get home to consume a full meal.} Don’t worry though, I had a bit of weight to lose from nursing school.

I have been in my job since June which means I saw the tail end of the first wave. The staff was optimistic as the “normal” rhythm of the ER started again. Sure there were many ICU holds but I saw it as a learning experience. And then the wheels fell off. Completely not Covid related, but policies changed, staffing changed, and the job as I learned it was different and there were now more responsibilities. I’m not complaining, it just made transitioning into being a big girl nurse that much more challenging. And then… I learned what was behind the curtain of management’s office. The pretty picture that was painted in my interview and orientation was burned to the ground. I’m not going to lie, there was at least two weeks in a row where I seriously contemplated just never going back. The number of days in a row where I was physically threatened, yelled at, swore at, and told I’m not good at my job {a direct quote from a patient}, was exhausting. In fact, I was so over it, I started applying to any job that wasn’t ER or med-surg. How about a clinic? I’m in. The job seems a bit boring, but the hours are awesome. Pre/Post-op? Absolutely. Cardiology? I’ll take it. A boogie IV bar rehydrating the elite that partied too hard the night before? Why not? Basically anything that might be closer to home and somewhere where the odds of me getting the shit kicked out of me by a psych patient seemed the better option. I knew I didn’t have the magical one year of experience as a bedside nurse, but I had many other redeeming qualities that should make me stand out on paper. {And I knew I could solidify the deal with my sparkling personality in an interview.} But those interviews never came. Every resume I submitted was a no thank you. Which brings me to my original thought… Even in a pandemic, finding a job relies heavily on who you know, not what you know.

I am fully aware that I might be just a leetle bitter, but the sheer volume of no’s that I received on my applications was frustrating. For most of them, I had all of the qualifications that they required you to have 6-12 months after your hire date and yet I got the message that they were pursuing candidates more aligned with the qualifications. Looking back, I realize this is probably just a boilerplate response that all people get, but I’m not gonna lie, in the midst of all the rejections, I started to wonder what the heck I was doing and doubting pretty much all of my life choices for the last two years. And then… My phone rang.

I interviewed, interviewed with a second person, and ultimately was told “not right now.” It was both promising and devastating at the same time. I was told to check back in a few months so I basically just wrote it off. It was too good to be true anyway. {Hello, self-preservation tactics.} Boy was I shocked when a few months later, I got a call again. So now I’m waiting to hear officially, but I really think good things are in the works for me. Things that are closer to home, far less stressful, and has a huge potential for growth. I’m trying to temper my excitement, but it’s hard. Until then, I continue to work toward more certifications, learn all I can at work, and try to make the best of my off days.

Don’t look behind the curtain.

It only took a handful of weeks, but I have officially spent a drive home crying.  The weirdest part is I’m pretty sure it was a vortex of good and bad emotions.  I got my first taste of the bureaucracy of hospital life and I have to say, I’m not a fan.  It just so happened that on the same shift, I hiked up my big girl panties {I really hate that word, but there it is}, and just handled a patient by myself from EMS report to shift handoff.  I believe the rules are that I am not supposed to do that, but well, here we are.  Bonus points/kudos were earned with my preceptor so I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

I’m not going to lie.  Actually being in the ER and doing what I have always dreamed of is freaking surreal.  It feels like I’m just in clinicals and I only have a few shifts left to get in as much learning as I can.  Except I know that after that magical day when I no longer have a preceptor double checking everything I do, I still have coworkers who are willing to answer any question, check any charting, and generally just be an awesome support system.  At this point, I can’t tell if I’m more terrified or excited.