This One's For Sandy

My sister’s eyes hurt from reading all my stories to the very end, so today I’ll dedicate this one to her and keep it (fairly) short.

Yesterday I worked (at my nursing job) from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and was almost too tired to climb the steps to our second-story apartment where Jim greeted me with supper (almost) on the table and Sheba greeted me by jumping all over the living room chairs!

During the day I silently wished my good friend Floyd a Happy Birthday as I crushed pills for 30 patients (almost) and helped my partner nurse on the other hall admit a patient when she was overwhelmed with the additional burden of RN duties in addition to her own hall of sick patients. (One reason I’ve decided not to get my RN at this point in my life. They give you the same amount of patients; the SICKEST of the patients; and add IV meds and supervisor problems.)

Too much for one human being, I say! Too much for a faithful nurse who tries to keep up and still be civil and polite to impossible demands, endless questions and constant new doctor’s orders. A nurse who is as old as I am but has arthritis in her hands so badly that her husband has made a pill-punching appliance for her to use as she punches out hundreds of pills from the packages during her shift.

I stayed over for about a half-hour (after 12-hours!) to help her, but she was almost in tears as she still had to finish hanging IV meds and give report. I hurried out into the dark, snowy night being careful not to slip in the fresh inch of soft snow and to drive safely on the icy roads.

It’s amazing how a good warm supper will refresh a starving stomach. (I nibbled at sugar cookies and sipped diet pop all day. Jim brought me a salad for lunch, but I brought it home in my nursing bag.) Or, how a tired body that aches in every joint, and a back that feels like it will break in half is refreshed by a good night’s sleep.

Jim brought me my medicines last night as I kicked off my nursing shoes and fell into bed without even taking out my tiny earrings (that hurt my ears at night). I was asleep almost before I switched on the small fan beside my bed.

They say that on the February schedule I will be assigned to one hall.

I say, "One never knows what one month will bring."

Jim still applies for jobs – now including part-time accounting jobs that are advertised - and I’m planning for a great wedding season this year!

Take Care on the Journey,

~Linda