I have a confession to make. I potentially have chosen the wrong career. Not because the work is so hard, or I hate the smell of hospitals, or because I enjoy the occasional potty break. But I hate throw up. I will tell you once, and I will tell you again. I hate it. I can handle it once its out, but its the getting there that gives me the willies. (Am I saying too much for you non nursing students?? Nursing school tends to delete your filter. You should hear about the things we have talked about during lunch....) A little while before I started school my husband had the stomach flu. While I was being the good wife that I am and delivering a can of sprite he made a sudden, very unexpected movement. I did not comfort him. I didn't even ask if he was ok. I ran. Out of our room. Up the stairs. Through the kitchen. And practically out the back door. And then I realized he wasn't going to throw up. He was just sitting up to drink his sprite! So with my head down in embarrassment I went back downstairs to take care of my sick husband.
Well some time passed and I made it into nursing school. And oh my goodness I was so excited. So much so that it practically put me into labor. Literally. I had my baby the next day. I was 40 weeks pregnant. We learned soooo much stuff. How to give shots. Ethical issues of nursing. Gillian Barre disease. How to use Therapeutic Communication...and how to spot it when your teacher uses it when you come to her room bawling your eyes out. How to teach patients how to prevent HIV. How to slap someone real good when they don't listen. How to not dress for Halloween. How to insert catheters, and how to remove them with out removing body parts. Hopefully. How to be friends. And to bring popcorn every day to class because, boy movie produces pay big bucks to create all the drama we get to see. How drug dealers don't make money through endorsement. And so much more.
But what is missing in that fabulous list? What to do when your patient has got to spew. I must have missed that lecture. And it was unfortunate. One of my last clinicals I was told in report that a patient had been vomiting several times, even after Zofran was given and all it would take was the little bit of water to swallow a pill. You better believe I got a little tachycardic with that. I missed the patient throwing up all over you lecture, remember? So time comes for us to give this pt their pills and a shot in the belly. So we give her Zofran. Good. I give the pills. Good. Now, I have to give the shot. In the belly. Right in Barf range. My patient moves a little when I grab their belly. And my first instinct is to run like heck. But I don't. I give the shot and off we go. I did it. So 5 minutes before I have to leave we go in to check on this patient. We aren't in there more than 10 seconds when they say they are going to throw up. My nurse quickly grabs a bucket and takes care of our sick patient. And what did I do...besides maybe pee my pants a tiny bit. But don't worry about that, we learned with enough kagals I can work of that. Jk. Jk. ....well kinda. We really have learned about Kagals in great detail. But I digress. I stayed in that room. I didn't know what to do. But I stayed in the room, upright. Without fainting might I add, because I did that a few weeks earlier. I didn't stay right next to my patient and hold the bucket like my nurse did. But one step at a time because I sure wanted to just say see ya! Time to go and run outta there.
What did this teach me? That I can be a nurse. But I can be a nurse. Nursing school is more than what we learn in lecture or lab. Its about the little triumphs we have all had. Its the caring. Its the lets get all the strange things like fainting during a PICC line out of your system when you can blame your student status. Its the silent victory as me give our first ventral gluteal IM injection. Its the smile we give to the student walking down the hall that doesn't sit in your "group." Nursing school is not just about being nurses. Its about becoming the best person we can be.
PS If this story sounds like you, its not. That was all made up to go with my story. I actually have never even gone to clinicals. I'm not even in nursing school. I'm a 40 year old engineer who has decided to go into law. So that was all fabricated in my brain. It never happened. If you think it did, you are wrong.
