Internal Breakdown

Breakdown. Thats different from Burnout.

Breakdown.

All the experienced nurses look at you, waiting for it because they know its going to come. They know every nurse goes through it. They have to go through it. No one makes it through the first two months without a good, solid breakdown.

The most important factor about you, though, is how you pick yourself back up after you fall down.


Today was probably my first "breakdown" (internal). There was  a moment where I literally had at least six *critical* priority tasks to accomplish. What do you even do first? They are all top priority, so what takes even more top priority?? Sometimes its a fine line of ethical debate.

During that one moment where I had many important (and unimportant) things to do and I was rapidly running out of time, I was about to lose it. I literally had to stop everything, take a deep breath, and then get back to it. I didn't have time to lose it.

In my experience, I've seen new nurses really breakdown. I've seen them cry on the floor, cry in breakrooms, cry with their preceptors, quit the job, snap at coworkers, etc.

But I literally don't have time to do that. I don't have time to cry. Yes I feel overwhelmed and like I'm drowning. But If I seriously took the time to go into a corner and give up and cry, what the heck would happen to my patients? Other nurses don't have time to cover for you. There is no time to lose it. Instead, there is time to tell yourself that this will pass, and to just keep moving as fast as you can with being safe, keep re-prioritizing, delegate as many things as you can, and keep it together.

Its hard when it all comes down to acting. When you have a thousand tasks on your mind, and you are literally walking 25mph in the hallway, and then you have to slow everything down when you're with your patient, even though your brain is trying to move a thousand miles a minute to get things done. You can't zip around the room like a maniac. You can't talk fast with patients. You can't act like your in a rush. You have to make it seem like you have all the time in the world to sit and be with them and answer all their questions. You can't ruin it all by leaving in a rush after you just poked them, gave them new meds, hung a random bag on their IV, etc. They need explanations. Slow explanations. Its easy to forget that patients have no idea what you're talking about half the time. GO slow.


It's hard when you're keeping up with all the chaos, you feel like you're drowning but at the same time you can see the light of the top of the water at the same time. You have 8,000 really important, hard, tasks to do at that moment but somehow, you're holding it all in and you're ok, but then, the copier breaks- and for some ungodly known reason the universe does not want you to scan this stupiddddd piece of paper down to pharmacy that you really need pharmacy to get and you cant give up because its kind of crucial and WHY IS THE COPIER NOT WORKING when you need it to the most???

That, my friends, was the moment I nearly had my (external) temper tantrum breakdown.

I nearly almost even stomped my foot and whined and literally wanted to scream that despite making it through most of the wicked storm, I couldn't make this stupid copier scan a paper to pharmacy. That, is frustrating.

Its kind of like grief. When  a spouse loses their spouse, they somehow make it through. No dramatic breakdown. But then the dishwasher breaks 5 days later, and they find themselves sobbing and sobbing for 3 days straight over the dishwasher. But is it really over the dishwasher? No. Was my near external breakdown over the copier? No.


I have a great team of support system nurses. They are all my friends, being that ive been an aide on the floor for so long. They all came up to me in my time of need and asked if they could help. But I couldn't even tell them what to do because I couldnt even keep track of it all myself. I was so busy that I couldnt even take a minute to figure out what they could help me with. I was having a hard enough time keeping up with keeping everyone safe by myself, and for some reason the thought of proper delegating just seemed like it wasn't worth the hassle. Its hard to delegate to another nurse. Lets say you just really need your insulin coverage given, but you're tied up somewhere else. If another nurse does it, they know nothing about your patient. They don't know your patients quirks, where they like their insulin, where they got it last, etc. The patient doesn't know that nurse. So in their mind, here is some random new person in scrubs coming at me with a needle. They don't know anything more than that. But when they see me, they know and trust me and understand what I'm doing because I've been doing it with them all day.



Somehow, I made it through. I know I am becoming a much better nurse, day by day. I am catching myself before I make mistakes, I am asking all the right questions, I am communicating very well with doctors, I am getting to be great at working with IVs, and I have gotten a multitude of very pleasant compliments to my face and to others about my work. I know I am still a baby nurse but I know once I get a true hold on things, I will be really great. I feel destined to be really great. Its a toss up because I want to be great enough to change the world of nursing. But in order to do that, you generally leave the bedside. You go into political nursing. Or supervisory nursing, maybe. As much as I love to entertain the thought of being that important one day, I can't bear the thought just yet of not being that nurse at the bedside with you making all the difference to you at that moment in need. So we shall see. Even 100 years doesn't NEARLY seem like enough time to do all the things I want to do, in my career and life in general. And I don't even have 100 years. I have like 80. If I'm blessed.

If I had the offer to live immortally and never grow past 35, I'd take it. To stay between my age now and 35 forever and age really, really slowly, that'd be grand. Theres so much I feel like I need to do in this specific age time span. My career, my masters degree, husband, (well, boyfriend needed first), kids.....there isn't enough time for all of it!  I wish I could make these years really last. Im turning 24 In June which is almost 25 and then how the heck am I 5 years away from 30!?


Ah!


My second wish would be to never need sleep, ever.

but thats another story.



Well, I worked late until 9:30 pm. Got home at 10. Ate dinner. Wrote this blog. Going to bed now. Doing it all again tomorrow. Yay.


With so much love,


WNB



.

This Ain't Goodbye

"You and I were friends from outerspace, afraid to let go. The only two who understood this place..."


Okay. I'm not even sure where to begin, to be honest.

I lost a really great friend this past weekend. Saturday morning.

I think I'm still in the Denial stage of grief. Its just so hard to......grasp. To really say to yourself, She is gone. I'm not going to see her anymore on random at work. I won't see her smiling face anymore, hear her laugh. I'm not in denial that she passed away. I get that. I understand that. I'm in denial I won't see her anymore, I guess. Its just so hard to believe.

It happened fast. She became very sick very quickly and after all, we all knew death was imminent, as much as we all hoped she would pull through on the last minute and be fine. She was diagnosed with Cancer in June and we all imagined her pulling through the chemotherapy rounds and then eventually returning back to work one day. None of us knew, ever even thought, that it would end like it did. Maybe thats why its still so hard to believe. She was supposed to make it.


She was hired where I work (at the hospital), on my floor, the same job as me, exactly a month after I. I met her when I was 18, five years ago. At the time I was only working alternating weekends, so I could toggle my other job and school as well. Therefore, she was my "weekend buddy", the only employee I really got to know at first. We were both still so new and we learned the ropes together, we had a lot of laughs and a lot of learning. Eventually I quit my other job and picked up a lot more shifts at the hospital and eventually met a lot more people and became very good friends with a lot more of my coworkers. But Ann was the first.


She was way too young to die. Just over middle age, she was just starting to prepare for retirement and the major second half of her life. She was just recently dieting to be healthier...for some reason I can't get that out of my mind. Just a week or so before she was diagnosed I remember her asking for some time off to get some health check-ups done. She was fine, then. Or so we thought.


Life is always full of "I should haves".  If I had known that her being diagnosed with cancer and admitted to our hospital would end in her passing, I would have gone to visit more. I would have given her more hugs. I went to visit on occasion because I knew there would be more times to visit, a lifetimes worth. I was wrong.


The earth shattering thought of it all comes down to this....she was "fine", and then two months later, she is not with us anymore. She was dieting, she was planning for the future, she was taking care of her daughter and mother, she was living her life, she was working full time, she was fine.

It could happen to any of us. It could happen to any of us that we become sick, or any of us could die at any passing moment, and then what?  Just like that? It's just hard to wrap your mind around. I think everyone naturally plans on and counts on the fact that they will live til their elder years and then its okay to pass away. I certainly do. I can't imagine myself not making it to the elder years, but then again, who actually plans on not doing so? Life just catches us so off guard its unbelievable.

Upon her recent passing, all of us at work have been sharing our favorite memories of her. Memories she never would have imagined would be her last in our minds.

Some of my favorite include this one time when staffing was an absolute mess one day at work and everyone was pulled to all different floors. I got pulled first to our psychiatric unit for a 1:1. Me and Ann were supposed to split the 8 hours and switch at 7pm. Well, 7 pm came and sure enough, she came down, but not to relieve me. She sat down right across from me, and told me she had been called down herself to watch another patient next door. So we spent the next four hours, right next to eachother (that never happens on 1:1's, ever), just talking, catching up and getting to know more about one another.

Which got me thinking, if you or I died right now, what would peoples last memories be with you? Do you approve of those memories? What would you change?

What would you wish you could have done before you died?

For some reason, every time I come close to death myself (I make it sound like this happens a lot but its actually usually made up in my mind *hypochondriac*) I find myself thinking, "I can't die yet. I haven't written a book yet." A written book is the one thing I want this world to remember me by. So why aren't I writing it? I am fine, I am healthy, I am not dying anytime soon. I have all the time in the foreseeable, fortunate lucky world. So if it means that much to me to do before I die, why aren't I writing it? Why wait until its too late?

I guess we always just leave those things to another day because "life" gets in the way. Our kids, our jobs, our responsibilities, our groceries, our errands. Our bucket lists can wait on another day, another time to start that, because today you have to run errands.

Being in the healthcare field, I know how much she was suffering. She is no longer in pain now and had a very painful and traumatizing last month of her life, which no one should ever haver to go through. Being on the patient and nurse in my life so far, I know the dynamics and suffering of what she went through and I don't even know if I would be strong enough to do it myself. She was one of the strongest people I knew.

So, knowing that, my only prayer is that Ann got to do what meant the most to her in life. Got to spend life with people she loved most and loved her most. I guess thats all anyone can ask for, when it comes down to the bare necessities, right?


Well, one day we will meet again. I know she will be waiting for us with her classic smile, and Styrofoam cup of water with "Ann" written on the side. Until then.....


"But this ain't goodbye
This is just the way love goes
When words aren't warm enough to keep away the cold.
This ain't goodbye
It's not where our story ends"

Love you always, remember you forever. Rest in Peace, Ann. < 3

~ WNB



. song lyrics by Train, "This Ain't Goodbye"