So last summer, I decided I wanted a new job. I’ve been in my current area for four years in March, and stagnation has set in! I start applying for jobs and hitting up every contact I had in my chosen area – the work paid off, and I am starting a new job tomorrow!

Its a very high-census ICU that has some majorly sick patients (hem/onc) which should be incredibly challenging. I’ve never worked intensive care – I’ve worked trauma surgery and on a step-down unit, but ICU is a whole new game for me. I’ve always said that my best days as a nurse could be described as hair-raising, but now that I think about it, I was young in those days and I drank a lot…lol

Passing the time waiting for a trauma case!

But anyway – I bought navy blue scrubs in size Tent and more of my favorite Smartwool socks, dug my white Birkenstocks out of the closet – and tomorrow is my first day! Cue the nervous diarrhea, and I’m crossing #19 off the list!

As I’ve been thinking on this and reading the comments on my post and my Mom’s, I may be able to explain it more clearly.

So here is why I hate the statement, oh you’ll find out someday.

I’ve been a nurse for nearing a decade (!) and as a nurse, I’ve had quite a few students. They will come with me and observe what I do, help sometimes, they’ll ask questions (some stupid, some not), display their eagerness and ignorance, occasionally annoy the hell out of me, but hopefully learn some of my better habits when they’re with me.

I have been asked some monumentally stupid questions, and some really tough questions- one of my hardest to answer was, how do you get over seeing so much death? I remember the first time I was asked that, I’d been in trauma for a few years and I really had to stop and think. Its really hard to explain that emotional barrier that you put up, over time and a little bit more with each death, protecting yourself as a nurse from emotional burnout, but not so much that you become callous and uncaring. Its incredibly hard to explain because unlike listening to lung sounds, learning to deal with death is not something you do, its something you feel.

But that being said? I still try to explain it.

I feel like I’m an eager student of motherhood. I watch mothers in blogs and real life as they go through motherhood, I watch the decisions they make, ask questions sometimes (including the stupid ones), display my excitement to join the ranks of graduates mothers someday, and try to learn what I can from each mother that I observe. I get to witness epic battles over breastfeeding and Pitocin and car seats, and I learn so much from the debates that ensue.

However, I believe that with being told oh you’ll understand someday, my question is being dismissed by those that I’m learning from. I can’t fathom saying that to a student.

And my Mom is right, there are still topics that are hard to explain- but if you can’t even be bothered to attempt to explain it, why would I want to learn from you?

I became a nurse by accident. I had originally planned on majoring in English Lit and teaching to support my writing career, but I got sick at age 16 and wasn’t healthy enough to leave for college at age 18. So I went to a local community college and after reading a book about World War II Army nurses (A Half Acre of Hell) I started the nursing program. Bumps along the way, including a year off and doing missions in Venezeula, and I graduated as a Registered Nurse. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

I had preceptored in the operating room doing nursing school, and took a job in the OR’s at a huge hospital. My first job was inadvertant and was a supervisory position, I was 21 years old and it was trial by fire. I worked evenings in general/trauma, at a Level One trauma center. When I took the job, I don’t think I had completely comprehended the idea of what I would see. But those things that I saw, they are the images that are burned on my mind forever. Faces of patients, some who lived and some who died, make up the recurring dreams that still haunt my nights.

I remember the name and face of the first patient I had that died. He was two years younger than I was. I remember the crushing look on his mother’s face when I went out with the team to tell her that we had done everything we could. And looking down and realizing I still had her son’s blood on my scrubs. The memory of her screams still gives me chills.

I remember getting into my car after a horrible shift, and just screaming. I remember thinking I am 21 years old, I am not supposed to be doing this! I was supposed to be at the mall and hanging out with friends, not trying to stop the oozing of blood out of flying windshield glass wounds before the body is seen by family. Who does this job, and survives? I remember a movie where a nurse said something along the lines of, as a nurse you can only be ringside to so much human suffering for so long. I have a huge level of respect for my counterparts who have been in trauma for 20+ years and can still be empathetic to their patients. Trauma changes you. I remember how much I changed in my first year as a nurse.

I had been a surgical patient before, and the one thing I remembered was the feeling of being dizzy, strapped down, no eye contact with anyone, and being so scared. I had a great team to work with, and they knew that anything they needed me for had to be done before the patient got into the room, because once the patient was in the room that’s where my focus was. I made sure the room was quiet, because the rush of medications in the IV’s often heightens the sense of hearing. I always made sure that I kept eye contact with the patient as they fell asleep, holding and squeezing a hand to reassure them because that’s what I wish I’d had. And that connection with my patient is what I really think is what kept me from going crazy.

But I certainly did not leave the OR with my psyche unscathed. I have neuroses from my time in the OR that drive Marmot absolutely nuts. Such as the fact that I am a true germa-phobe. I organize my dirty dishes from clean, clean-contaminated, contaminated, and dirty, and then wash them in that order, rinsing in scalding hot water. I actually cannot watch Marmot do dishes.

I don’t drive unless I absolutely have to, and I fend off anxiety attacks when I do. The responsibility of the safety of my passengers is unnerving to me. The screams of someone who realizes they are the only survivor of a car accident in which they were the driver is haunting.

I will never ever say goodbye to Marmot in anger, or without telling him how much I love him. And I shave my legs everyday, summer or winter, rain or shine. Because you really never know who will actually see them! The stories I could tell….

Since my trauma days, I’ve worked in every specialty we had. I’ve worked days, evenings, nights, weekends. I’ve been a staff nurse, a charge nurse, and the OR suite supervisor. I left the OR in 2008 and went to work in finance. I love finance, which is surprising because I don’t think I’ve ever balanced my checkbook. I’ve discovered a niche of nursing that I am so challenged and fulfilled by. Not everyone can say they get so much fulfillment out of their job.

But being in finance makes me question being a nurse. My impact on patients is not always positive, because I work on the other side of the fence, I work for the institution. That’s a mind game.

Despite how much I love finance, I miss the OR. I miss the adrenaline. I miss scrubbing the blood off my shoes in the big metal sinks. I miss knowing that I made an impact on my patients. I miss being a mysterious nurse disappearing behind the Restricted Access doors. I miss the pagers that I swore were wired to go off anytime my butt neared a chair. I miss the relationships that I built with my co-workers, because it is truly a bond that only seeing so much life and death can build. I sometimes wonder why trauma affected me so much. It still makes me wonder if I had what it took. Or if I left because I couldn’t handle it, not because I wanted to try something different.

I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the OR, although it saddens me to say that. But I’m grateful for what I’ve learned, and the lives that I was able to touch. I’m grateful, and proud, to be a nurse.