Someone asked me the other day (referring to being done with college. done. forever. etc) "Well, did you learn anything?" Somewhat of a rhetorical question, but all the free time on my hands got me thinking about it (It also got me watching excessive amounts of TV - in my last post I mentioned how much I do not enjoy doing that, so that gives you an idea of how bored I've been while everyone else is finishing up with classes). Did I learn anything? I've learned a lot of "things." I think what I'm most grateful for going into the future involves all the face-time we've (sometimes unwillingly) had with people the past few years. A lot of what I believe to be true about people in general is reflective of what I've seen in the hospital, and the same is true vice versa. A lot of these things are also obvious but not really something I've sat down and thought about until now. 

(Again, the whole "free time" thing. It's like having your picture taken by yourself and not knowing what to do with your hands - that's how I feel. I'm at a loss for things to do. Everyone would really be doing me a huge favor if they'd finish up tests and finals already.)

So if I could talk to my pre-nursing-school self, I'd go ahead and say up front that the scrubs are not something you get used to - they are as ugly on the day you graduate as they were the day you started. Then I think I'd talk about people -->

1. When it rains, it pours. And oh boy, does it. The first example that comes to mind is a patient that had just had a total knee replacement, and the pain meds ordered weren't cutting it. At lunch o'clock I went into her room to bring her something and somehow walked out of there with the knowledge that her current husband is a nice man, but just not the same as her ex husband, who is a surgeon that left her for an OR nurse. When people can no longer tolerate one problem, their tolerance of all their other problems bottoms out. They melt. We all do that. This is probably why, during one of my peaks of job-search frustration over spring break, I cried over the miscommunication with Kori over who the heck was driving to Corner Bakery. And also over the traffic I sat in later. Once a person reaches an emotional threshold and crosses it, you're going to start hearing about her ex husband. I believe a similar tactic was implemented in Mean Girls to crack Gretchen Weiners. 

2. Taking the tape off is the worst part. I sometimes dread taking people's IVs out for this reason. Getting ready to do what I went into the room to do causes the most stress for the patient. My routine "I bet you didn't know you were getting a wax today!" helps sometimes. Old men think this is hilarious - until I pull off the next piece of tegaderm/tape/whoknowswhat that people have slapped on there over the past few days. Anticipation is the killer. In the case of the IV, I think the tape actually is the killer, but in other instances - anticipation. So if you're a little scared of pulling out someone's long gunky NG tube for the first time, and thus stalling the process, the person is going to have time to wig out while you re-arrange the towel on their chest for the 3rd time. Kind of like how we nearly wet ourselves waiting outside the skills labs for our J1/J2 performance tests when they were running late. How many times did Mom tell you to just rip the damn bandaid off and get it over with? With graduation in a few weeks I imagine we're all about to be in some new scary situations, and I know I'm going to need some frequent reminders to "just do" some things that I'm nervous about doing.

3. A little urine never hurt anybody.

(But I won't go there)

4. Control is a big deal. The other week out in New Braunfels I had a 2-year-old with a pneumonia-y (very technical term) illness, and with that came a mom requesting tylenol around the clock for his "restlessness". That isn't what tylenol is for, and every time I walked in the room the kid was snoozing and quiet, but tylenol was something she could give her baby that, in her eyes, helped him feel better. Was it medically necessary? No. Did we give her some tylenol to give him anyway? (After plugging some numbers into the calculator to confirm the past 24-hours worth of tylenol wasn't going to kill any livers) Yes. Of course we did. 

5. The small things are the things that matter. We all know that about life in general. It's harder to remember that, however, when you're a brand new nursing student freaking out because Mrs. Patton stuck her disapproving face in your face for forgetting to check the diabetic's feet. But really, your patient does not care that you successfully administered all their daily meds within 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after the due time. They don't care that you remembered to check their pedal pulses. They don't care that watching them wiggle the toes on the leg they just had surgery on is actually more important than it sounds. Not that those things shouldn't be done, but they're in the job description. The biggest thank you's I've gotten were after hunting down a cherry popsicle to replace a grape one, washing a lady's hair when it hadn't been done in a few days, and giving a family from out of town some directions to Target so they could buy some clothes to get out of the ones they'd been wearing all week. I'm willing to bet that, as we all go off into our respective careers, doing some things that aren't listed in the job description will be the biggest contributor to satisfaction (i.e. warm fuzzy feelings) at the end of the day. I never want to be the burned out nurse that has lost sight of the little things, and I hope you guys find ways to prevent burning out as your future professional selves also, whatever that might entail. 

I can't think of a better way to round out (and cheapen) another touchy-feely graduation-related post than with Miley Cyrus's "It's the Climb." Unfortunately my blogging capabilities are limited, and I don't know how to do that. But I hope it is now stuck in your head, as it is probably going to be stuck in mine.