Assumptions and Expectations

 Well, 3 weeks into level 2 and routines are starting to settle in.  Paige has finished her first week in grade 2 and is loving it. She says her teacher is really nice, and she has some familiar faces in her class to catch up with.  For me, classes are familiar so I am not having to adjust to a whole new system (thank goodness) and it's been great to be around all the amazing girls and guys in my program again. Clinical has been going well too.....by well I mean, I do the homework, I show up, I learn alot. 4am does come pretty early every other week though. Med-Surg was seeming pretty straightforward, and pretty slow actually.....until this past Friday. I am going to share what I wrote once I got home after clinical, when everything was still fresh. Of course names have been changed to protect privacy.

 It is great to have an outline of how you want your day to go in regards to time, but flexibility in Nursing is so important. I had a heavy day today. Maybe a combination of being so tired from the early mornings, seeing soooo many things I have never seen before, and developing such a solid connection with my patient and her family….It was more than I was expecting today. I didn’t think for a moment that I would arrive on the ward and my patient would be receiving blood in an attempt to balance out the extreme amount of blood lost during surgery, as well as a potential hemorrhage. I didn’t think that my 83 year old patient who has been battling cancer, and has just come back from seriously invasive surgery, who also happened to be quite unstable, would have the inner strength to find humor in her situation. I never knew that someone might name their stoma, and inquire about “his well-being”, just because it seemed like a good idea. I didn’t expect to see so much blood, to see my patient in so much pain and not have the ability to ease it, to see a daughter cry for her Mothers’ discomfort, or to see such an open soul staring at me, fighting to recover, and trusting that I was doing my best. I didn’t expect to see the 2 or 3 staples removed that exposed my patients inner thigh, and the malfunctioning tube that was placed inside her. I didn’t expect to be so calm. I didn’t expect see “less than ideal” practice by a surgeon when dealing with an open wound and I didn’t expect to feel so upset about it. When I woke up today, I made the assumption that today would be similar to every other day that I have been on this ward. Never assume….I assumed my patient was sick, weak, and frail….turns out, she was a fighter, she was so brave, and strong as an OX.  I assumed today would be like yesterday, but everyone is different, every surgery is different, and I am so greatful that I got caught off guard today because It reminded me of a very important fact. No matter what your specialty is, when you choose Nursing, you choose to help people…not to fix diseases, not to treat injuries, you choose to heal people, individuals, families. 2 people with the same procedure/diagnosis may have extremely different outcomes, so lets not categorize anyone into a “oh I have seen that before”, because you may have a seen a abdominoperineal resection with vulvectomy before, but you have never met Mrs. A. Today, I was expecting to meet Mrs. A, and indeed I did meet her, but when I left today I knew her…..and that’s so much what Nursing is about. I also didn’t expect the gratitude that was bestowed upon me today. So many heartfelt, emotional words, from a Mom and her “baby girl”….I am honored. I am feeling overwhelmed, not with sympathy, but empathy, for both of the women I spent the morning with. I will never ever forget them, their strength, or the kind words they said to me in a time that I assumed would be all about them….Never assume….Today was about me too, I learned so much today about both the art and science of Nursing, and once again, I feel like I am exactly where I am meant to be.

Xo Alana-Student Nurse