Tonight I accompanied my wife to a yoga class at our gym. You have no idea how huge this is.
I suck at yoga. When we first got our Wii Fit, the yoga game frustrated me beyond belief. I had very little balance. It had a great deal to do with my being overweight--it's hard to control your body when you're carrying around the equivalent of an extra human being on your back.
Tonight the class was supposed to be hot yoga, but apparently the heat in the room was broken so it was more like luke-warm yoga. Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the poses that used to elude me I was able to accomplish in some shape or fashion. I was even able to do the higher level variations a few times. Overall it was a really positive experience.
But this post isn't about yoga.
During the quiet reflection time at the end of the class, I was almost overwhelmed by a rush of emotion. I was nearly brought to tears as I became acutely aware of the grinding, oppressive intensity of my job.
Critical care nursing is a violent, violent beast.
The inhumanity of so many of the "interventions" we implement is staggering. We often do things to our patients where the success or failure of the therapy depends solely on our determination to see the procedure through to the end. Our patients are broken, hacked into pieces and put back together, sometimes not in the right order or composition. We administer vehemently severe drugs that force the body to battle against itself to raise a blood pressure, or increase perfusion, or to be stone still when the entire body aches to thrash about in protest.
This realization caught me by surprise. Actually, the discordant nature of what I do to heal people caught me by surprise.
My compassion for my patients abounds--this isn't the issue. I feel for them; I practice from an empathetic heart.
But this is different.
This is about me. And the horrors I witness on a daily basis in the due course of my job. My career. My livelihood.
Like I'm a computer programmer, or a grocer, or an account customer service representative.
Except that I'm not.
When people ask me what it is that I do, they have no idea the profundity of question they are asking. And I reply like I change oil for a living. Or buy bonds on the stock market.
The reality is my unit is a battlefield. A desolate, bleak, derelict, forsaken, smoking wasteland. Where Death prowls like the inky darkness at the edge of your vision. Where I'll make deals with the Devil to save a soul so they can gasp a few more breaths. Or if we're all lucky, and have muttered the right incantation in the right timbre, to the right lord of medication, the patient pulls back from the brink and returns from the land of nowhere. Where I will attack, wage war, and blatantly injure a patient in the name of healing them. And so I go, petting the hellhounds, whispering in their ears so that I might escape with one more patient's soul.
No rest for the weary.
But there must be balance.
Namaste.
Hang in there. You are in your first year as a new graduate nurse working in an impossibly complicated unit where you are immediately set up for failure. The stress alone should kill you. Yet, as you have noted, you have survived a staggeringly steep learning curve in spite of a less than optimum preceptor. You are doing fine. Just get through the first year and the world is your oyster. Much of nursing is a battlefield, the great thing is that we can experience as many as we like until we find our best fit.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. This is why I drink.
ReplyDeleteYou are coming over as overwhelmed and with possible burn out. This is one of the reasons no new nurse should ever be placed in highly specialised units, in my opinion. In my ED we will not take a nurse unless they have 1 years minimum experience and our ICU would expect longer. I know US has a different training system but I always think you need to learn your basic job first before going on to learn the specialised stuff.
ReplyDelete"The reality is my unit is a battlefield. A desolate, bleak, derelict, forsaken, smoking wasteland. Where Death prowls like the inky darkness at the edge of your vision. Where I'll make deals with the Devil to save a soul so they can gasp a few more breaths".
If you really feel this you need to consider if what you are doing is for you. No job should make you feel that bad.
My hubby use to come with me to exercise class and try to out-do me (everything for men seems to be a competition at times). Most times he impressively did what was asked by the instructor and she showered him with compliments because he was the only male in the class.
ReplyDeleteGood for you for trying yoga, maybe it will be a good balance with your "gatekeeper" of a job.
Interesting how one extreme to the other has the same reaction.... overtreat/undertreat.
ReplyDeleteDid you read Albinoblackbear's post?
http://asystoleisstable.blogspot.com/2011/04/comment-in-response-to-glimpse-into.html
EDN: Thanks for the encouraging words!
ReplyDeleteNNITH: I thought you might understand.
Grumpy: Indeed, after reading back over it, it does sound that way. Please realize this post was an emotional dump, in real life I'm not sure things are quite so melodramatic. At this point I feel tired, but the good tired, like after working in the yard or running a 5 or 10K. I know that such a high stress place may not be a healthy permanent home. I've heard your advice before regarding starting somewhere less insane. For me personally, I would have been extremely bored very quickly I think. It's why I pushed so hard to get where I am.
Zazzy: That's too funny. No, no competition here, my wife would easily kick my ass...at yoga.
CC: I did read that, although I didn't pick up on the parallels. Interesting point!
PS: Grumpy, what I meant by "making deals with the Devil" is making trade offs--like blasting someone with a nephrotoxic antibiotic, or super high doses of vasopressor drips. It may yield survival in the short term, but the patient will pay a price in the end--or in other words, the Devel will come calling to have his loans repaid.
ReplyDeleteAs for the wasteland part, I simply mean that you don't want to be a patient on our unit. Not because you won't receive highly specialized and competent care, but because if you're there, you're very, very sick. We treat patients that no other institution will touch...
I thought the writing was powerful.Very beautifully expressed. I didn't get burnout from it though. I'm not an expert though but for me burnout = blogging all patients are stupid, let's make fun of fatties and people with fibromyalgia.
ReplyDeleteM