A smiling skeleton with eye shadow

In case you didn't see my depressing Instagram reel a few months ago at the beginning of summer, I started full time nursing work again. It isn’t what I wanted, but I am happy I'm able to $upport my family in these uncertain times.

Doesn't mean it doesn't feel fucking depressing and heavy or like I'm going backwards instead of forwards.

In the words of Inigo Montoya, let me 'splain...no there is too much, let me sum up: I am a smiling skeleton with eye shadow right now. (See featured photo)

By the Numbers: 43 hours clocked this week at two different hospital jobs. Estimating 45 patients cared for with average length of care ~50 minutes/ea. Minimal blood spillage (from patients, not me). Surprisingly zero vomit! Moderate urine, mild pus, lots of gauze and IVs removed. Never pooped on or cussed at or bitten or yelled at!!! Zero stuffing of lifeless limbs into shrouds!!!!!! (Can you feel the genuine happiness at this? Genuine. Happiness.) 30 ish sets of discharge papers. 15+ doses pain pills handed out. 60+ phone calls. Talked down to by doctors 5 times. Talked down to by other nurses 4 times. Sang show tunes with cool nurses 10 times including some enthusiastic bachata moves. Kicked malfunctioning medical equipment 9 times. Ignored 2 hospital culture and process surveys. My "shooting percentage" aka successful IV stick rate is about 35% (kinda dismal, enrolled in a class to get better). Got lost twice at small hospital--"if you get to the morgue you went too far" 🤪. 2 alarms set for 630 am. 3 alarms set for 430am. 1 alarm set for the year 2056 when I turn 70 and I predict that will be the new Medicare acceptable retirement age in America. Assuming there is still Medicare. And still an America.

By the Feels: was meanly laughed at/made to feel small by a few Boomer nurses. It has been probably 10 years since I experienced something like this firsthand. I know obviously it is a real bummer of a fact of life in nursing work, I just successfully avoided being on the receiving end for a long time. I am almost embarrassed to say they made me cry. 17 years into my career, I fucking cried because of some dumb shit older, more expert, more dead-inside counting-the-days-until-retirement nurses said to me. I don’t care how experienced you are, being new at any job caring for people when their sick/injured/worried/needing surgery is hard and emotional. It isn't completely generational though, another Boomer nurse pulled me aside and was very kind and encouraging. Of my two full breakdowns, this first one was at work at an abandoned nurses station. Then, like caped super heroes giving real Beyoncé vibes, 2 cool fellow-Millennial 🎵Hamilton-quoting 🏳️‍🌈❤️ nurses held me and gave me a hilarious/ironic "Jesus Loves You" pencil eraser. I laughed while trying to smudge my eyeliner back into place. I plan to glue tiny JC to my scrub hat and add a Pride flag to his little hand.

I felt clueless approximately 20% of time at small hospital. Felt trapped 80% of time a big hospital. Wanted to leave healthcare altogether 92% of time. I blared 2000s Party Club hits in the car on the way home EVERY DAY. (Man, I miss hearing Lil Jon on the reg). The second full breakdown was after I stormed out of my own house after being woken up from a very needed and very intentional nap by loud video game antics in our living room. I simply stormed out, got in the car and zoomed away, so as not to lose my shit in front of my family, and started bawling in the drive thru at the nearest Taco Bell.

🌮🌮🌮

In ambulatory care, with complete honesty, my faith in humanity is repeatedly restored. This week alone at least 25 times. When I was thanked or hugged, or smiled at in a way that was really genuine. When I knew I did a good thing in a shit situation. Like when a young man with fresh hemorrhoid surgery thanked me for the inflatable donut pillow I blew up for him (in front of his parents, while he choked on a laugh and I played it cool while they watched mouths agape) ---to helping organize the painful logistics of retrieving fetal remains post D&C for a lost pregnancy, and providing the utmost comfort for someone devastated by that loss. I did my best to hold it together and MOVE MOUNTAINS to make them and the family feel a micro-ounce of less pain....(another ultrasound, another friend in the room, a visit from chaplain, a bereavement package, funeral home information, 5 warm blankets, postoperative peri care kit, one more call to a surgeon to hear the words one more time "I am 100% sure, yes this is the right thing to do" etc.)

Head hurts. Back sore. Feet numb. Trudging on. A blissful 2 days of Weekend Glory filled with good things: naps, snacks, and hopefully some crafting. A break I would not have gotten or made time for if I were working 12 hour hospital shifts. I am not going back to those wartime trenches unless America enters an actual civil war. [Cue Michael Ironside in STARSHIP TROOPERS saying “Everyone Fights, No One Quits!” Pandemic Me truly was Michael Ironside’s Lieutenant Jean Rasczak]

🔫🔫🔫

For real, I think the perennial inter-specialty “my job is harder than yours” debate among nurses is so dumb. Like we are all different I get it and it is super hilarious to make fun of one another’s weird quirks, but y’all listen we are all uniformly traumatized. I don't care if you are in a urology clinic, doing primary care phone triage, doing pediatric ICU or hospice, cracking an open chest right now, charging a defibrillator, writing outpatient mental health refills, veteran virtual case management, or Botox injections at a posh medispa--- Daily healthcare work in a Very Sick Nation is a heavy, continuous burden to carry. Often more acutely felt and realized when not on the clock. Days later. Even years later. Jobs later. Relationships later. Decades later. Lives later.

How am holding up? Sheer necessity and perseverance. Honestly, I am okay I am surviving like I did before during the pandemic when I was post partum myself. I think I am just so bummed, and annoyed, that I have to dig deep again (though not as deep) as I did during those times. But I have better tools now too, and know how to use them better. I am so much better at saying No. Still, self treating with community theatre, improv troupe rehearsals, crafting hilarious medical prop for local production put on by extremely talented friends. Naps. Comfort food and SIRENS on Netflix (Dude, that final episode!!!😮) . Legos with Kiddo. Reading with Kiddo. Living room Dance Parties. Saturday mornings at swim class and public library. Watching Project Runway with Best Friend aka Husband aka best and strongest Shoulder to Cry on and best foot massage giver. Unsubscribing to email lists I don't need anymore. Letting go of things that I feel the need to tend to that honestly do not matter. Ordering more fun makeup. Coloring books. Screaming into pillow. Singing in the shower with wine. Picking tomatoes in garden. Making apple crisp. I REFUSE to give myself a hard time for Not making a playwriting deadline, and give myself props for dreaming big, doing my selfcare app, living life Imperfectly but Genuinely and Authentically.

I am thinking of all my patients this week. The ones denied organ transplant. The ones listed and waiting. The ones who still aren't better. The ones who had high risk tests and are left waiting months for outpatient followup. The ones with answers. The ones without any. The ones who ended up back in the E.R. Thr ones who relapsed. The ones who had rectums repaired, cancers removed, bone pins screwed in, hands fixed, vessels rearranged, uteruses yanked out, throats tubed, bladders drained, arms poked, and deliriously and uncertainly wheeled towards a parked car hours after the miracle of modern anesthesia.

Excuse me while I have Cheez-Its and wine for dinner. Watch PERSUASION for the 4th time. Indulge in a few hours of evening childcare and stare at our backyard apple tree through the window, praying to whatever God that'll hear me that some measure of relief floats in with autumn weather. That things that need cooling off are indeed cooled.

Now, to go empty my scrub laundry of crinkled alcohol swabs and 2x2s, kiss Kiddo's forehead fast asleep on the newly decorated top bunk bed amidst 72 stuffies, then promptly faceplant into the couch and fall asleep 7 minutes into Great British Bakeoff.

🏴…Sometimes the thing you don't want, is the thing that you need. Which is also the thing that will get you were you want to go…🏴