Long Week

Man, this has been one heck of a long week! It's primarily due to having a crappy schedule, but still. Sometimes you just want to curl up in bed and never leave. This week I worked Sunday, Tuesday (12-4 class), Wednesday 11-7, and Friday. I never really got a real break since my days off were spent sleeping. It was awful! I cannot wait for this week to be over. I also got floated Wednesday night to IMC (our ICU stepdown). I actually really liked it there. Everyone was super friendly and they gave me their easiest patients. However, that's partially because our institution says I don't have adequate training to care for their more intense patients, but that's fine with me. Bring on the "easy" ones! It was seriously just like my floor, but with 2 less patients. How does that make sense? I just feel like my floor is far more chaotic in general. We're constantly running around chasing bed alarms and dealing out pain meds like they're candy. On IMC, none of my patients had pain meds and I heard like 2 bed alarms go off the entire night.

I'm just sad because weeks like this past week really make me feel burnt out. It takes me some legitimate effort to remember how much I loved my role transition in school. I don't love what I currently do. It makes me depressed and makes me hate people. Well, people under 65. The non-elderly hospital patients are some of the worst people. They are just rude and whiny and have completely unrealistic expectations of what being in the hospital means. It's a hospital honey, not a Hilton. I'm not going to bring you your dilaudid the minute it's due every time - prn means as needed, not wake you up 4 times during the night because it is "due" even though you have no symptoms of pain that I can see. Ugh. This is mostly a rant about one patient I had who tried to give me his phone number. Gross and no thank you.

I'm just burnt out and tired of feeling like a legal drug dealer. I got into nursing because I cared and wanted to make a difference. I hope that my dream will linger on just a while longer so that someday I may find it again. At least I understand now how the jaded nurses I met in school came to be that way. Nursing is not all rainbows, sunshine, and saving lives. Most of the time it's paperwork, wiping asses, and pushing pain meds (hah! pun intended. :P). I just want to feel like I have some meaning in my life instead of just grinding out a week for a paycheck.