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Nurse Stories, Part Seventeen: Not On My Shift! (By Louisiana M. Sandusky, R.N.) ~Part Two~ by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Monday, July 26, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
Louisiana writes of a particularly rough shift in the Emergency Room.
It was one of those days where I was glad to see come to an end when it came time for me to punch out during my shift at work. It was one of the worst days imaginable, and it was akin to one of the days I had faced nearly four years ago, when my daughter, Ronee', had a stroke on her eighth birthday.
We had several bad ones pass through our E.R.: a man in his sixties suffered a massive heart attack, and no matter what we did, we could not get him back. About a half hour after he had come in, we decided that he was deader than dead, so we had the doctor pronounce his death, and then I was left with the grim task of telling his wife that her husband had just died. After that, we had a baby girl come in, suffering from meningitis, and while we were examining her, she went down, and she coded. We tried to get her back too, but to no avail. She ended up dying, too; she was just thirteen months old.
After the two deaths, some victims of a drive-by shooting came into our E.R., and after we patched them up as best as we could considering the circumstances, we then had them sent off to surgery because their wounds were greater than what we could handle, and if they were to have any chance of surviving, they needed some surgery. I then ended up blowing up at one of the student nurses (very unprofessional of me, I know, but I couldn't handle her cocky attitude any longer, and I didn't like the way she treated me or any of the older nurses) and I had her thrown out of the program after she called me the "B" word (rhymes with the words "itch" and "witch", if you know what I mean!). We were having serious problems with Jenna P. Ortega, and she was not cut out to be a nurse, not with her attitude or lack of caring or commitment to the job. All she cared about was herself, and all she cared about was spending time with her friends; she did not like the job or what it entailed, and she did NOT pull her weight around here. I had a bad day already in the E.R., and Jenna did not help matters any. By the time I had clocked out, I was near tears, and it was all I could do to keep from crying.
When I got home from work later that day, Bill, my husband, could tell that I had been crying. He asked me what had happened, and I told him; and he clucked sympathetically as I poured out my heart and my anguish to him. He then gave me a warm, reassuring hug and a kiss, and he sat with me and rubbed my back, as I got myself a cup of coffee and wearily planted myself into the chair. He said he was sorry that I had such a bad day, and I told him that was okay, I only hoped that the next day would be a much better one in the E.R. I also said that I would be glad when I could go back to my regular desk job doing admissions and also getting the history of the patients; Emergency Room duty was just too hard on my poor, abused, arthritic body, and my bad back was being badder than usual. My back felt like somebody was doing the flamenco on it, and every muscle, every joint, every bone in my back was begging for abject mercy.
A poignant story about letting go of a narcissist in your life. Have you ever been attacked FULL force by a narcissist? It's the closest thing to being stabbed over and over in the back.
It was one of those days where I was glad to see come to an end when it came time for me to punch out during my shift at work. It was one of the worst days imaginable, and it was akin to one of the days I had faced nearly four years ago, when my daughter, Ronee', had a stroke on her eighth birthday.
