A Letter to Nurses’ Week and Every Week to Come
Yes, I love nursing.
Maybe a little too much at times.
It’s exhausting. My body aches when I lie down. I’ve got spider veins and swelling threatening my bikini season. My eyes are strained from all of the tedious charting. My neutrophils are low from all the chemo I give. My hair fell out from stress and now the new ones are turning gray.
I’ve said it before and again: it’s hard to love something that doesn’t love you back.
It’s easy to say nursing doesn’t love you back when healthcare conglomerates don’t, insurance companies don’t, management doesn’t. When patients don’t want to see you, when doctors snap if you call, when charge tells you they left a nurse at home on call so you can drown to save your corporate overlords money.
It’s sometimes really hard to say “I love nursing” with complete conviction…
Until someone asks me.
I had a teenage patient last fall with a blood disorder who was in the health science program at her school. Her mom broke the news gently to me: “she thinks she wants to be a nurse.” I looked at my new friend and she looked away, expecting bad news when her mom threw the all-important question at me: “do you like your job?”
I took a moment, caught that girl’s eyes and said with the utmost honesty:
“Yes. More than anything else I could do with my life, I love this job. It’s all I’ll ever do and probably what I was made to do.”
I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully…
Original “Nightingale Pledge”
I shall do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling.
I shall be loyal to my work and devoted towards the welfare of those committed to my care
It’s Nurses’ Week right now. They scheduled it for ol’ Florence Nightingale’s birthday week. The mother of modern nursing, the lady with the lamp. We’re all taught to worship at her altar – the religion that demands we give ourselves completely to the welfare of our patients.
If I’m honest, I think that nursing battles some of the aftermath of the Nightingale Pledge today. Can we give ourselves completely to these patients for 12 hours and not burn out in a year or two? Can we care for people who are living longer, getting sicker, suffering more, without taking the emotional toll to therapy and walking out with a bottle of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, or plans to drink it away?
What does it look like to give as much as we can without completely losing ourselves in the care of others?
Happy nurse’s week. I have no idea if any of it is possible.
To make a sweeping generalization, I can assume we’re all fixers, right? Yeah, I’m not sure it can be fixed.
I’m not sure that it’s even possible to fix the underappreciation, the backbreaking labor, the emotional toll. I think that since the dawn of nursing, when Aunt Flo said “let there be bedpans,” we were doomed to a life of loving others and wondering why the hell we do it.
All I can say is do it if you dare – I hope you love it like I do.
Ask the people that know me, and they’ll say I walk the burnout line harder than I should. That it comes home with me every single day. That I live for this job and can’t think about anything else.
I’ll take a second to brighten this post up and tell you why I love it so much: literally everything else.
I love the complex critical thinking and the way my wheels get to turn. I love providing comfort to people when they’re scared and hurting, the opportunity to sit with someone, wiping tears away. I love working with my hands and seeing the fruits of my labor come to be. I love pants with lots of pockets for all of my trinkets and my graveyard of masks.
It’s the joy of coming into work and meeting someone new, making them smile, and the equal joy of coming into work and seeing a patient you know well, thriving. It’s the joy of working with strangers who become friends – oversharing at the lunch table, making every task a 2-person job, and giggling all the way through the 0200 hour.
It’s developing a deep and abiding respect for human life and the dignity afforded in alleviating suffering. It’s developing the heart to walk through the beginning and the end of a life. It’s the memories of the living and the lost, holding hands together in my mind when I wonder if I’m where I’m supposed to be.
So yeah, my back hurts, my shoes are busted, my night-shift nausea is persistent, and my meds are still prescribed. But damn it, I’ll come to work every day and try again to see the good in it.
Happy nurses’ week my friends.
I don’t have any pizza to give you, but I do have a sincere thank you and a prayer that you get what you need to carry on. Or, the strength to step away and take care of yourself.
To all the nurses, I’m proud of you. Keep showing up and fighting the good fight. Keep doing what you can to make a difference. If you aren’t a nurse, I ask that you extend us some kindness when you need us one day. We’re all f**king exhausted.
Remember why you started. Keep going. You got this.
For The Littlest 