(Florence Nightingale nurses)
I'm consistently inconsistent at writing here. I ran across this article the other day and felt like someone wrote an article about me. I really am an introverted person in the way this article describes introvertedness.
I don't know how else to get back in the writing groove I dream of being in except to start writing. But each day fills up and pretty soon its 9pm and quiet and I'm lucky if I can pen a sentence worth reading.
The long drives to and from work provide ample time to pray, talk to myself and boil over with all kinds of notes and thoughts I could write out, but by the time I get home (or to work) they are lost in the fog that is my brain.
When you assess a patient as a nurse, you're to do so from head to toe, systematically, so as to not miss anything important. Systematicness helps me a lot. But time pressures and the multiple to-do's alarming in my head while I'm in the middle of the system, throws me off. Most of my shift I feel like I'm running around tripping over the bunch of reminder strings tied to my fingers. I'm convinced I'm not cut out for hospital nursing, but it's good for me. For a year at least.
I'll be 40 in May of 2014 and I think I'm just now figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. Do they call this a mid-life crisis? I'm NOT going to have one! But I do think there's more of an awareness of what suits me and what I'm suited for looking back from 40. Nevertheless, sometimes you just have to do what needs to be done even if its not your "calling".
I enjoy the teaching of nursing and the tasks (blood draws, IV starts, etc.). I enjoy the people, immensely. I love helping them! But I am drained and frazzled by the time pressures, high risks, critical staff and doctors, and necessary multi-tasking. I'm not an adrenaline junkie. I wonder what this means about me. It definitely means any success I have right now as a hospital nurse is evidence of the grace God supplies me each minute of each shift. I wonder what kind of nursing would put me to best use. Whatever it is, I truly do look up to the Lady of the Lamp as a role model nurse. Christ has put a heart in me to serve others, to care for them, to do what's best. This governs my frazzled, easily-distracted and drained self every time I go to work. Florence was right, with Christ comes kindness to sick man, woman and child.
One of the things I like about working at this hospital is the diversity of the patient population. In the last 4 shifts I've worked I've cared for Syrian, Iraqi, Burmese, Thai, Swedish, Cuban and Hispanic moms, and more.
My mom used to sing hymns in the house. One of the hymns I grew up hearing is Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. It, along with It Is Well With My Soul, Amazing Grace, Farther On, and many others come to mind frequently. This song by Francesca Battistelli takes from the original Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus hymn. I like it!
Quieted,
Sheila
