on nursing and why it is good for me

i admit i have a complex - a fear about being unhelpful, lazy, or "useless" in life. rather, i want to be legitimately helpful, productive and useful - and somehow this is part of why i became a nurse. i think i wanted to feel needed, and to have a marketable skill, in my post post-liberal arts, what-do-i-do-with-an-undergraduate-anthropology-degree funk of feeling useless (please don't get me wrong, i have nothing but high regard for anthropology). yet, nursing as part of my unfolding notions of vocation and even "calling" (although i hesitate to use this word, i do believe in it at some level), has taught and shaped me in ways i could not have foreseen three years ago.

as a nurse, i encounter people in very visceral ways during their strongest and most courageous moments, but also when they feel deeply vulnerable and fearful; people who appreciate every small thing you do for them, but also people who (often not so pleasantly) refuse care and treatment for many complicated reasons; people who will heal and people who will not.

yes, i have been called a dumb-ass (for no apparent reason) by a patient after dealing with his copious (and need i even say unbelievably unpleasant) diarrhea all night. one patient, after being told a certain diagnostic test would be postponed, left AMA (against medical advice), and threatened (in my face of course) to blow the hospital and its staff away sometime in the near future.

yet, more often, i have experiences that touch me and teach me such as the following: a while ago, i cared for a 37 year old woman, dying from a degenerative neurological disease that does not affect her mind, but affects her physical functioning: from everything from walking to speech and swallowing. she was admitted late at night, without family members, was very anxious, and began coughing uncontrollably. although i am sure there were physiologic reasons for this episode, it was made all the worse by her anxiety. because of how her speech was affected, she was not able to communicate easily to me about how she was feeling. i was unsure if she was ok, and felt myself getting worked up over her condition, so i snapped into action, checking her vital signs and paging the on-call physician.

and suddenly, after being so entirely focused on numerical results and concrete tasks - 98% oxygen saturation, 130/74 blood pressure, 37.3 temperature, 24 respirations per minute (all normal) - as the patient continued her distressed, shrieking cough, i took her hand, made eye contact, and asked what she needed. she replied by making two simple requests that i was able to understand despite her distress and uncelar speech: (1) a damp washcloth for her forehead and (2)"can you rub my back?" i placed the cool washcloth on her forehead and pulled a chair up to the side of her bed and rubbed her back. almost immediately, she stopped coughing, her breathing became slower, she closed her eyes, and i felt her body relax. i stayed with her, rubbing her back, for maybe 10 or 15 minutes until it seemed she had slipped into sleep. i quietly stood up to leave the room, relieved, and as i turned, she (almost inaudibly, but unmistakably) said "thank you. don't forget about me now." she slept the rest of the night.

nursing grounds me, as a person for whom it is so easy to get caught up in internal, sometimes endless thoughts and life-analysis. for one night a week, i am forced to "listen" to the immediate physical needs of sick individuals, to watch for subtle changes in the workings of their bodies. i've learned to ask patients in a matter-of-fact manner about such life details as their last BM, the last time they had sex and whether they used a condom, and if they inject or snort heroin.

so, when i go to work (often dreading the long night ahead and the struggle to stay awake), i find myself compelled to try to imagine life perspectives and experiences fully foreign to my own. what is it like to be hopelessly addicted to injected heroin? what is it like to live with HIV and/or AIDS? what is it like to be homeless? what is it like to be a dialysis patient? what is it like to have had one's children taken away and placed into foster care? what is it like to have been incarcerated multiple times? what is it like to be bipolar? what is it like when these things define one's reality?

for one night a week, i cannot live inside my own head, and this is good for me.