Being a nurse is the most under-appreciated career. Nurses all know the struggles of the long hours, lack of sleep, patients who sit on the call lights, and barely getting enough time to sit down for five minutes. Here are the 10 Everyday Truths Of Being A Nurse, as told by infomercials.
When you walk into work and see that you're working with your best friends.
Honestly, knowing you're working with a great team for the night/day can make or break your shift.
...But when you see your patient assignment.
When you look at your patient assignment, knowing you have all the high acuity patients. You know you may be lucky if you are able to chart two hours before shift change.
When you can't seem to get rid of the smell of C. Diff.
The infamous smell of C. Diff will linger in your nose all day and night. You'll even wake up the next day and swear you smell it.
When your fall risk patient continues to try and sneak out of his bed.
The bed alarm goes off and everyone starts hustling trying to prevent him from injuring himself. You feel like an Olympic sprinter who deserves a million gold medals by preventing all of these falls.
When you finally get a 10 minute break for lunch.
You may be eating at 3:30 in the afternoon and it may only be for a few minutes, but you cherish these small moments of silence. No call lights, no phone calls, no questions. Just you and your food.
How you feel/look leaving work after a 12+ hour shift...
Hair is a mess, dark circles under your eyes, bodily fluids all on your scrubs.. Give me a shower and my bed ASAP.
It's finally pay day!
Ah yes. Sweet, sweet payday.
But those student loans and bills won't pay themselves...
Do you really need to take out that much for taxes? Medical insurance? Where did all my money go?
When you can wear something other than scrubs.
You can't complain too much that your uniform for work is practically pajamas, but it sure does feel nice to finally do your hair, make-up and wear something other than your non-flattering scrubs.
When someone says, "Well, you only work three days a week."
Every nurse's biggest pet peeve. No one ever understands our crazy schedules of working three 12-hour shifts in a week. "That must be so easy." Yeah, right. We still work the same amount of hours as the average full-time employee. And trust me, 12-hour shifts are never just "12 hours." And if you're on night-shift, you lose a day or more of just sleeping.
You still love our job, no matter how stressful
Through all of this, you continue to come back to work with an open heart and mind to care for your patients.
