If you're looking for a more upbeat post, feel free to skip to my birthday post, below.
It's going fine. I guess.
It's not that I don't like my job. While I'm there, I enjoy working with patients. I enjoy being busy. I don't even mind that I work for 12 hours straight without a break.
But it is still work.
And more than that, it is stressful work. When I leave at 7:30 in the morning (or, more often 9 in the morning), I don't leave my thoughts about my patients. I worry about what I may have forgotten to do, what I forgot to tell the next nurse, what I could have done better, or what I shouldn't have done at all. Sometimes to the point of obsessing over it.
There is a huge learning curve, with huge consequences.
I have been on my own for 4 nights now. I have left in tears on 2 mornings.
The truth is, I was not "meant" to be a nurse. I knew this going into nursing school, but then I started classes with people who had known all their lives that they wanted to be nurses. And I forgot that that wasn't me.
That nursing, for me, was a practical skill set that I was learning in order to, hopefully, improve people's lives in a physical and definite way, while also paying bills.
I have wondered more than once whether I shouldn't have kept my 9 to 5 office job. I did fine in an office. I like predictability. I like leaving at 5, and forgetting about work. I like weekends and nights off. I like not having people's lives in my hands.
That's the truth.
I'm sure* that it will get better. But for now, it is hard. Really, really hard.
*"Sure" is maybe too strong a word. "Desperate to believe" might be a more appropriate phrase. But a little positive self-talk never hurt anyone, right?
1 comment:
Very few people would be this honest, Alli. I admire that!
I can only imagine how hard it is to have so many patients lives on your hands each day. I hope that you grow to enjoy your job and lose some of the stress associated with it and that God will perhaps give you some clarity into why you're there right now.
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