I Love My Job

With the RN out sick, I worked on my own for the last couple of days, and I've had the best time. It felt good to be a little more autonomous.

My day seemed to have more than the usual number of opportunities to sit and talk with patients. I love psych nursing, but especially working with psychotic patients. Although the newly diagnosed patients can leave me feeling sad, they can be very loving and sometimes quite funny (one older lady asked for a bra, saying "it's making my boobs hurt havin' 'em hang so low!").

Yesterday was a challenge, giving meds, fielding phone calls, charting, reporting to the rounding MD, talking with a parent in another state and reassuring them, and just interacting with the patients. I felt like the plate spinner at the circus.

But I like the busyness and my patients (most of the time). It takes time to connect with the ones that are really ill, and sometimes you have to endure a paranoid outburst to finally hear "you're always really nice to me." One lady was completely ticked at me because she wanted more pain medication and it wasn't time for the next dose. She was yelling and shaking her fist, a total change from the day before, when she was hugging me, calling me her favorite nurse. By dinnertime we were friends again.

Another patient was having a really hard time, very upset. I took her to her room and helped her make her bed and just chatted with her, trying to calm her. Then, sobbing, she asked me to pray with her. What could I say? She reached across the bed for my hands and said, "You say it." I offered a prayer for her to be able to have peace and reassurance that the things she was seeing weren't really there and that they would go away. She grabbed my hand and held it to her face, then gave me a tight hug. Not sure who was blessed more in that moment.

It's moments like those that help me go home with a smile on my face.