Nurse Life
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Aunt Ruth
As a nurse, there’s many looks that you become familiar with. Different looks that make give you gut feelings, that make you take a deeper look at things, and looks that pull on your heart strings. (Names have been changed) Mrs Ruth. Mrs Ruth soon became Aunt Ruth. We laughed together. She shared so many stories. There were about two dozen family members that came to visit her during her couple week stay. I heard stories of little Bobby and all the tricks he played on his sisters and cousins. I heard stories of Mrs Ruth’s famous perogies. We laughed and joked. She shared stories of her childhood and how…
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Another New Beginning
“Life is not a storybook but life unfolds in chaptersTurn the page and start to make amendsThere’s no pre-written guarantee of “happily ever after” -Mal Today marks another new chapter for me. Today starts orientation at another hospital for a new Travel Nurse contract. That means new everything. Once again being the ‘new kid.’ Learning where everything is. Attempting to not get lost in the hospital. New management New equipment New patient population New coworkers New policies New scrubs 😄 (never a bad thing 🥰) Today will be the start of my first travel assignment that I will be home daily. I cannot tell you how happy that makes my…
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“Code Hero”
So often in the hospital we hear a variety of ‘codes’ called overhead. Each hospital has their own set of codes. “Code Yellow. Code Grey. Code Orange. Rapid Response Team/RRT. Code Red,” the list continues. Generally at orientation staff members are provided with a badge that will have the list of codes on them so when you hear them called on the speaker you have an idea of what is going on. There is a code that is not listed on our badges. There is a code that is unlike the others. When other codes are called there is an urgency to save that patient in need. To do everything…
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The Value of Touch
I witnessed the value of touch and The destruction of isolation… I was walking down the hall and heard the panicked muffled screams of “help help! Someone help me!” I paused in the middle of the hallway trying figure out where these terrified screams were coming from. I stood steady (it is very hard to hear patients in these isolation rooms that have loud vacuum machines running in them). I was confident it was coming from further down the hall because I knew the patient in the room I was immediately in front of. I had taken care of her and did her admission when she arrived on our floor…