12 Things A Nurse Would Say

Everyone knows a nurse...

Your mom's a nurse, her aunt's a nurse, and your sister's friend's brother's wife is a nurse.  You get the point. The population of nurses is large! Too bad the ratio of nurse to patients doesn't reflect this. What I'm trying to get at is with the abundance of nurses, you'd think at least one of them would let you in on a few nursing secrets, or honest thoughts almost every nurse thinks. I say almost every nurse loosely, because I don't like to presume to know more than I do. 

So! In my last post I revealed my age. In this post, I shall reveal my profession. 

I am indeed a nurse.
 
And here is a list of what *almost every* new nurse would verbalize if they could,

1. We sometimes have to Google your diagnosis to refresh our memory. I mean, how often does one take care of someone with Fregoli syndrome?

2. We don't like when your visitors stay the night, and have terribly smelly feet. Seriously, it gets hard to breathe in there.

3. The novice nurses may look young (because we are), but there is no need to question our care. In fact, we are fresh out of school, so up-to-date "best practice" is all we know.

4. We are too afraid to make a mistake, so we are very cautious and diligent in meeting all of our shift tasks. 

5. When you tell us your newborn's name, and that name is "Pinwheel," we are lying when we say we like your originality. 

6. Nothing you could do will gross us out. We have seen/heard/touched/smelled it all. 

7. We don't believe you when you say your pain is a 10 on a 1-10 scale if you are laughing with your visitors, and chatting on your cellphone. 

8. We honestly don't do what we do for the compensation. Nurses are severely underpaid for what they endure in a 12 hour shift, if I may be so bold. So if you're considering nursing school to earn a good living and hope work will be easy, think again. 

9. People have this idea that night shift workers sit around all night because their patients are sleeping, but nobody sleeps well in a hospital setting especially if they're extremely ill, or just had a baby!

10. We do what we do, because we love the people we come in contact with, and we love being an instrument to a medical team that seems more like a family.

11. Our bodies may take a beating over the years. I've come to terms with the fact that dark circles under my eyes are the norm, lower backaches are sure to come, spider veins may pop up before they should, and my hair may grey prematurely.

12. Social media is polluted with nurses describing their hardships, and expressing their pride. It's not like we have a desire for martyrdom, we just embrace the storm that comes with a rainbow.

Nurses can be some of the coolest, most genuine people you will ever meet. 
Talk to them. 
They have awesome stories!