I love nursing but...

I really love nursing. I love the interaction with people (both patients and staff). I love the surgery (blood, guts, yeah!!). I love learning about the body and how it functions or reacts to meds etc. I really love nursing. It has taken me about two years to say this but I do. :D

There are still sides of nursing I struggle with. I don't love it 100%ly. I can handle most things ... bowel movements, blood, wounds, etc. but I have discovered that I struggle to handle anything that comes from the mouth e.g. blood or sputum gushing from the mouth (a patient lost about 2L of blood the other day and it all came out his mouth!! Thank goodness I didn't see that one!) and I can't handle anything that causes the patient pain (thus I struggled with the Burns unit last year - I can remember the patients screaming and swearing as we tried to wash her - you could hear throughout the entire ward! Poor thing!).

Anyway, the reason why I am telling you all this is well, I had to assist with stuff tonight at ICU that I didn't enjoy. Not one bit. It was minor but major at the same time.

We had to put a Catheter in a female patient. Now, straight off being a female patient makes it easier. If it was a male patient, we would have had to held the gentleman's penis for a minute or two for the local anesthetic to take affect. Now, I don't have to tell you that it can be hard to discuss the weather or whatever when you are holding the man's penis!!! So, yes, good we have a female.

Another good thing is the lady just had surgery so she is still out of it .. the genal anesthetic is wearing off so she is kicking and her arm is flairing out a fair bit ... so really, it isn't such a good thing.

Basically a RN and i had to hold the lady's legs apart while the other RN put the catheter in. I understand it and I can see why we had to do but I really honestly struggled with it. Since the lady was kicking out and stuff, it felt like the patient didn't want the catheter. Now, realistically, the patient is so out of it she wouldn't have known.

I just didn't like the idea of having to force the patient to open her legs and then while we are in the middle of the procedure, two male doctors walked in!!!

I understand it all. The patient didn't know ... but I knew. And it just causes me to feel uneasy. :(

So, yeah. I love nursing but I have discovered that I just can't handle everything that nursing involves.

Thanks for letting me vent. Hope I didn't gross anyone out too much.

And yes, in case you aren't a nurse (student), appreciate the fact you don't have to hold a lady's legs open as part of your job!!!

But I did get to see a brain!!! :D Still on a high from that!! :D