Way back when I was in grade school I dreamed of being all grown and being a nurse just like my Mimal Shirley!! She always looked so cool in her scrubs with her stethescope around her neck she looked very important! I thought one day im going to follow in her foot steps. I even would go to her work and follow her around watching her check blood pressures, draw blood, give shots etc.. I was in awe of what it meant to be a nurse!
Later in high school I briefly thought of being a teacher I even planned to go to SAU and persue teaching then shortly after graduating I decided I better stick with nursing.... ( if you know me you know that im really not that great with kids:)) so I decided nursing it is. I packed up and moved to Little Rock and started at Baptist School of Nursing the fall of 2002. I did one year of pre reqs and then starting the nursing program in the fall of 2003. Nursing school was very stressful for me and I swear it took years off of my life.. I studied everyday and felt like I didnt have a life at all. I worked to make ends meet and spent what little free time I had with Eli.
In Feb of 2005 I started working at the Arkansas Heart Hospital thanks to Mimal Shirley she had that inside connection I got a job working as Patient Care Partner I would work every other weekend and on our breaks. I grew to LOVE the AHH! I had never been in a hospital that showed so much love and compassion to everyone. I worked with some of the best nurses on the planet. I learned so much that year of being a PCP. I later graduated in December 2005 and officially became a RN in February of 2006. I continued to work at the AHH just in a new role as a RN. The next 2.5 years molded the nurse that I am today.
In March 2008 life as I knew it changed... Eli had excepted a Pharmacy job in El Dorado and we were to Move back home in May. So I started to look for a job. There really isnt much here in this small town. So I started with applying for a Directors position at a nursing home while I was in the interview for that job my mother in law called and said that Dr Schrader a cardilogist was looking for a nurse that his nurse had quit. I immediatley know that I had to have this job so I got on the phone and got a interview for that same day and aaccepted the position. So in one day my whole world changed. I was excited to start something new, excited that I was going to get to continue to work with the heart. Also to get to move back home to my old stompin ground and be surrounded by my family! But that meant I had to give up the Job I LOVED and the AHH that had become my second home and family. I cried when I had to give my notice I stayed and the pool and contiued to work some on the weekends until I got pregnant.
So thats my nursing history but here is why I love being nurse. Whether its working in the hospital giving baths, pills and meals or running codes, fighting to save a life or sitting behind a desk running a clinic, I am making a difference in a life... Everyday I come to work Happy, happy that I have a job, happy that I love my job and happy that I love my coworkers.I have realized that nursing is much more than a job its a calling its my mission field. I dont have to travel but 10 miles every day to get to my mission field. Ive learned that to most of my patients I am the only person that they talk to which is very sad!! Dont get me wrong there are days that im grouchy or just not in the mood to deal with people but I never let that show to my patients. I know that God strategically placed me here that is how I can get up every morning and leave Luke no its not always easy but I do it but this where I am suppossed to be.
I often go to funeral visitations of my patients that have gone of before us. It is always good for my soul to see the sweet families that I have cared for. Recently I had a patient that it was invetieable that he was going to die soon. I took this particular situtation very hard I have been taking care of him 4 years and I just wasnt necssarely ready to tell him good bye.. I racked my brain, lost many hours of sleep and did hours of research to see if we could help him in anyway.. We couldnt we finally made the decison that we hade done eveything humanly and medically possible it was all up to the good Lord form there. When I went to visit the funeral home his wife was so grateful that I had taken the time to come, well in my eyes he was part of my little family and I had to go to pay my last respect. See to me nursing isnt just a job its part of who I am.
My only hope is that I am just half the nurse that my Mimal Shirley was. I hope with each day that I settle in here in my little office down here in South Arkansas that I can make differnce in someones life:)
No comments:
Post a Comment