Back to Reality

I survived my 6 12hr management clinicals on a mother/baby floor this week! It was a bittersweet experience. I felt so out of touch with reality getting up at the wee hours of the morning to go to the hospital, staying for 12+ hours, and leaving just to eat and sleep and repeat 5 times. I would see my friends for a brief time before I went to sleep every night. I've never felt so exhausted in my life it seemed like. I learned a lot in the hospital about staying organized and also about what I can tolerate. I became frustrated with mothers on my floor who couldn't care less about their own health and would have hourly smoke breaks instead of spending that time catching up on sleep or bonding with their newborn baby. Smoking is just a personal pet peeve of mine and I wish people would realize that they are missing out on a better quality of life.

It did make my job easier when patients had a readiness to learn or at least attempted to care. For each patient that got on my nerves there were 1 or 2 more who were as sweet as can be and really cared about their health and providing a safe environment for their baby. Since the good outweighed the bad it kept me motivated. One thing I love about nursing is that every day is different. If one day was a challenge the next, thankfully, was significantly better.

This past tuesday 1/12/10 was my last shift in the hospital and when I came back to reality I had no idea that such a huge disaster was taking place just a few thousand miles away in Haiti and that so many people were suffering nearby as close as my campus. It wasn't until Friday, 3 days later, that I saw news coverage on CNN. It was absolutely heart-wrenching and my prayers go out to everyone affected by this tragedy. It is also heart warming to hear of the millions of dollars that have already been donated to relief aid and that medical teams have responded so quickly. I pray that people will continue to donate to aid in the recovery of Haiti.