little blue sponges on short white sticks
a premature bouquet
before the long goodbye
your breathe slows and mine stops
life
is on pause

no matter who you are
what you do or not do
where you came from
as night staff
you are swimming with the fishes

morning arrives just as chatter comes through the door
of juices undelivered and lunches incorrectly ordered
naps and families and where are his dentures
none of my concern anymore

but missed
and i wonder
if my work is only filler
to pass the wee hours

for no flowers or boxes of chocolates
appear on our desk
and everything you do is invisible and undone

how silly of me not to know that
incentive programs
only run in daylight

that’s a better description for us
vampire fishes
so invisible
people, especially managers, hardly even know we exist

except for those we turn
and clean and feed
funny how chocolate milk
goes missing in the middle of the night.

I have this unexpected sore spot at work. There are RNs all-around me not using their degree to its fullest potential, while I pine away at their side wishing I had the same opportunity. I wouldn’t be throwing it away.

RNs working at a lesser position as PSWs because “they don’t want the stress.” RNs so negative that they tear down the work and brick and mortar everyone else is working so hard to build. RNs who puff up because of new management positions but refuse to return to the humility of floor work even when there is NO ONE else to fill in.

Everyone’s got their own path in life. I know, but they have startled me into realizing a new self-describing adverb. Stephen forgive me. I’m ambitious.

How dare they.

and getting off my soapbox now…

My thoughts turn to a book I just finished about another ambitious female, one Flavia de Luce of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. It was an enjoyable story, a great beach book, but still somehow a disappointment. I know, I know. I was surprised too! Everyone just loves this book.

But once again, mystery is just not my favourite genre and no matter how endearing as a character Flavia is, it felt like a juvenile novel. The whole way through I kept thinking that I’d pass it to my 10 year old daughter to read until I reached certain circumstances at the end which both failed to endear me to the book and made it inappropriate for her.

I can see however why it is beloved. It had some wonderful humour and delicious chemistry. No, not romantic chemistry but the actual carbon tetrachloride and sodium bicarbonate sort. All of a sudden I was nostalgic for a Bunsen burner. Flavia carries the story – and chemical formulas – forward just like you were with her on the front of her bicycle, pedalling away, never slowing down. It’s a fast read at only 304 pages.

But the most unique thing about Flavia, something I do not know if I’ve ever seen in a novel, is her positive self-talk. In any encounter with an evil sister or curmudgeonly adult, she steadies – buoys – believes in herself.  And tells herself so! For that, she gets a “Go Flavia!” from me too.

It’s not something I planned. But I realized as the family members of my residents appeared for their daily visits that I needed to tell them.

I’ve gratefully accepted a full-time position at work. (Can you hear the huge *but* coming?)… but it is the graveyard shift… but it is on another floor of the home. The short of which means that I will no longer be caring for the residents that I have been looking after for the past year.

I told the residents themselves of the change. Those that would remember, I told directly. Those that wouldn’t, I told with my hands. Change is difficult for all of them. Being cared for regularly by the same hands really does work miracles for those suffering from the many forms of dementia. They will be well looked after, I know, and get accustomed to new hands. It is just hard to let go. And there has been enough change on the floor of late already.  Activities of daily living irrevocably lost to inevitable progression of disease and several losses of faces that were familiar and beloved. Not a time I wanted to add more to their plate.

The families are a huge part of the home’s life. They were harder to tell. I didn’t want to disappoint or startle them either. And yet they were so amazing. The same lady who brought the staff two boxes of Ferrero Rocher last week – the dark chocolate versions were divine, fyi -  said something like,  “We understand. Change is good for all of us. Don’t forget us and come back to see us.”

I will most definitely be peeking in, but who’s caring for whom? /blush

The real picture of what it is to be a nurse. Sweet, sweat, bodily fluids and more.

This story by Tilda Shalof expresses part of the same journey she describes in her book The Making of a Nurse. Only she wrote A Nurse’s Story first and I read it second. Still very highly recommended — for anyone with a stout heart that is.

It is perfectly titled. In each chapter she explores an area of nursing care:

• How the primary object nurses are known by is a bedpan and its infamous contents
• Giving compassionate care without judgment
• When is SO much care too much care
• Graduation with a degree is only the beginning of the journey to becoming a nurse
• Finding your niche within nursing
• The complex complimentary and contradictory relationship between doctors and nurses
• Keeping you as a person separate from you as a nurse: for sanity sake and the patient’s sake

I was constantly surprised at her bravery and thankful for her sharing.

how she doesn’t care  who laughs or snickers at her opinions and what she feels strongly about
how many decisions about end of life care are left in a nurse’s hands
how she able to label when she was defencive or angry and then use those situations to improve her care
how determined she is to advance the profession of nursing and chuck out the bedpan
how her natural inquisitiveness led to  nursing research
how she overcomes herself to become an awesome nurse

Once again she had me in tears on one page, my fingers wishing I could be part of a procedure on the next page. I’d read anything she wrote.

And I’m so immensely proud that she is out there speaking on our behalf with such optimism about our profession. I think that’s what I love best about Tilda. She knows all the pros and cons of nursing, but she doesn’t seem hardened by them. Her writing shows that she practices with immense hope and energy, all to the benefit of her work and patients. If only I could be one-quarter of the nurse she is one day.

If I live up to it, please put this quote from her book on my gravestone…

“She was a woman who conquered herself so that she could serve others.”