Life as a nurse
- Christina Nacchia
- Aug 3, 2018
- 10 min read
As nurses week starts (please note procrastination as a talent, as nurses week is early May and here I am in August finally wrapping it up)I reflect on my life, as I have been a nurse more than half of my life.
I was an unsure 16 year old who was definitely a rebellious teen and gave my parents a definite proverbial run for their money. College was a definite plan but no idea what I wanted to do. I thought psychology was interesting and I liked helping people with their problems, so that was my first option. Lucky me, I didn’t stick with that, because who likes psych patients?? Not me. Anyway, back to this situation I was in, it was time to start deciding and picking a school and a chosen career and I had no idea. The FBI seemed cool for Clarice Starling, so maybe that would be a choice. My dad did a stint in the academy and I loved it there. I found it so interesting and intriguing. The problem is, generally you don’t just go to the FBI academy...so it would mean years of school in a major then doing whatever it is you do to get into the FBI, that all seemed like alot of work, and quite honestly I don’t think everyone gets to hunt Buffalo Bill so maybe not my best thought out plan. And then just like that my mom had surgery. She worked per diem when I was a teen and I remembered she had finished her BSN while I was very young, I remember one time going to class with her. She was able to stay at home when we were little but wanted to go back to nursing, as I and my sister were more self sufficient. Her unit was an ortho unit for broken bones and such. She had surgery on a non bone part of the body and requested she recover in her unit that she worked. We went in to visit and she was not in her bed. I look around and find her helping a patient up to the bathroom….. She just had damn surgery. What the heck?! Mom you are recovering, what are you doing? You aren’t being paid here, stop it. That’s when it hit me. She loved helping people. She loved her career. She is and always will be, a nurse.
I’d been around nursing a bit with a boyfriend I had in high school when his grandfather was sick and in and out of hospitals and eventually on hospice. The nurses seemed cool enough, but eww.. No thanks. But here I am watching my mom risk her own health to do what she loved and help people. Interesting. I remember after the visit I asked her about nursing, and her initial response was “ No, don’t do it. Maybe consider physical therapy or something?” Hahahahaha … that’s what alot of nurses say to people considering the profession. More because as a career we are often left doubting the choice. Hours of no breaks, being hollered at for not being in 12 places at once, under appreciation when you do a task, back breaking physical exertion, and the inevitable heart break and devastation that comes with watching a family lose a loved one or worse, holding the hand of someone dying because their family can’t be there or there is no family, so I stepped in and was there. I knew she was trying to protect me, and that made my decision easier. This was going to be anything but EASY. I applied and was accepted into schools and chose my program #1 because it put me in the hospital week one. Which made or broke alot of us. There was only, I think 100 of us accepted into the program and after friday less than half remained. Nothing more sobering than walking into a room of a patient you are told to interact with and finding an 80 year old man naked singing “yankee doodle dandy” standing on his bed (which indeed happened to a classmate). Whether it be the distaste for the sight of blood, or the unease of interacting with strangers, they ran....and quick. Most of who remained were returning students, I recall being the only 17 year old there. I decided I was going to get through this and it was going to be hard, but I was determined. Determined or stubborn, but either way I graduated with a 3.8 GPA and managed to be an RN at 19 years old. That being said, I took a year off to work retail because despite finishing I wasn’t 100% sure I was ready to be a nurse. That year managing retail taught me mostly, I don’t want to work in retail. And God bless those who do, you have the patience of saints. My ideal job was in labor and delivery, mainly because I didn’t want to work with “old people”. (ok give me a break I was 19, remember?) I envisioned maybe some day furthering my degree and becoming a nurse midwife.
So then it was time to put my nursing license to use and naturally there were zero jobs in hospitals in New York. So I moved with my friend Maria, to Delaware. Guess what…. No jobs in hospitals there either. So I took the first job I could get… with an agency… they placed me in the beautiful area of Southbridge… which I jest… Southbridge is a tad scary and it was a free clinic, and there was a reason they were paying astronomical rates to have any nurse in there (mainly because it wasn’t the safest neighborhood to drive into). My job consisted of giving immunizations to babies, assisting in exams, giving meds for stds to pregnant moms that the police had to bring in, making follow up calls, and taking blood pressures. I bonded with the staff and the doctors and enjoyed the job. But as usual, they hired a full time person, so my contract ended. I was devastated. Again I was on the hunt for a job and decided agency work wasn’t for me. I then found an extended care facility hiring with semi acute patients and patients on ventilators and complex issues. It was great, I loved it there. I bonded with lots of patients and made bunches of friends. But alas, my boyfriend at the time lived in the Florida Keys and he had asked me to move in with him. I mean who says no to the Florida Keys?? So I packed up my car and with the assistance of my parents and my copilot George, my pet iguana, I was off to Florida. I had to wait about 6 months for my Florida nursing license so I waited tables at a Hooters like establishment and met some of my best friends to this day. I finally got a job in yup… another extended care facility. Down in the keys you have to wait for a nurse to die to get a job in the hospital (which was a 50 bed hospital, anything more than a NSTEMI got choppered to the larger hospital in Miami). So I accepted my fate and jumped right in and again made tons of friendships and fell in love with my career and my patients all over again. I needed more though. I wanted more out of my career, so I left. Moved back to Delaware. I couldn’t see myself in New York again and I needed to prove to myself I could do things on my own. My friend got me an interview at a local city hospital and I got a job on the medical surgical floor. I loved the job but often would be left with ridiculous 13 patient assignments and felt frequently left out on limbs. A job in the ICU opened up and a friend had transferred there and she highly recommended I give it a try. So why not, I applied and the manager offered me an ideal schedule in her step down unit or the rotating less than desireable shifts in the ICU. I chose ICU. My years in the ICU there were amazing and I cherish every second. I was able to improve on my skills and learn so much. Eventually it came down to wanting more of a challenge and I applied at the larger hospital in the area and in the medical ICU. I was again learning and doing so much, I felt extremely satisfied in my career. I actually would silently pray and thank God for the opportunity to work there. I loved the challenges, my coworkers, my patients, and my feeling of expertise in the area I worked. I learned so much, and eventually was sharing my knowedge with staff. I was fulfilling all the roles in the unit with even the most challenging patients. After about 7 years I was frustrated with beaurocratic things and changes that were happening that my coworkers weren’t comfortable with and quite honestly, neither was I.
The truth is I thought I loved my job… and I did. But it was time for a change and a job in Neonatal Intensive Care opened. I had applied years earlier after having had my second son a few months prior…. bad timing… like terrible timing, to take a walk through and be shown 23 week twins that one, that coming afternoon, was having his life support withdrawn. I was sad for the family, but also felt terrible guilt that I had two healthy children at home. I immediately emailed the manager, at the time and withdrew my bid. Fast foward to 2015 and I needed something and maybe this would be it. My first days in NICU, I was overwhelmed. My preceptor told me to procede with taking a baby’s temperature and changing his diaper…. I froze. She asked what was wrong and I just looked at her and said “i’m pretty sure I’ve never touched a baby that wasn’t my own or my sister’s”. I got over it eventually and I was running my butt off every day, coming home exhausted and not 100% sure I did the right thing. My preceptor never sat, never ate, and it was DAYSHIFT, not my vibe…. I am in no way an early riser. I have a routine established years prior on when to sleep, eat, exercise, spend time with family, and that was all thrown into a heap working dayshift. Here I was 20 plus years into a career and changed everything I knew on a gamble. My husband was supportive, my kids were adapting, and I had to make it work. And just like that I fell inlove with nursing again. I had a preemie who against all odds thrived, in part because I was a tiny part in a team that helped take care of him. What most hit home was a photo on his isolet of a beautiful young woman. I asked the relevance and was informed it was baby’s aunt who had passed away and that this family needed, more than anything, some positivity and this sweet angel to make it home. I prayed and I fought so hard for this fella. I liked his parents and grandparents and like, really really liked them. I wanted nothing more than for this kiddo to go home and live his happiest life. He did. Then one after one, I feel inlove and became parts of families, parts of their lives. NICU is never an experience anyone wants or expects. The days, weeks, and sometimes months these families endure in the closed in walls of the NICU, praying, and wishing for just a smidge of good news. I feel it some days in the mom’s voices, in the dad’s fallen shoulders. I feel it and I try to give them that glimmer of hope, that feeling of “this too shall pass”. Not every day is positive. Not every day is sad. But every day means everything to these struggling families, and it is a true privilege to be a tiny positive part of it. Honestly I’ve loved my career in every role I’ve had. I’ve witnessed love, endurance, and sadness. I’ve witnessed hope, perseverance, and selflessness. I’ve been tremendously impacted by every story I’ve been a part of. I've had nights with no bathroom break. I've run up 4 flights of stairs to perform CPR. I've jumped on beds and stretchers to start chest compressions...once I might add, to a 50 year old we were scooting to the cath lab because he was having a heart attack and his heart rhythm kept going in and out of ventricular tacchycardia, and when he came around looked at me in shock,I explained "Your heart was in a dangerous rhythm and you lost your pulse.... ok... just don't tell your wife, it could get awkward". I've heard many stories of World War 2 told by men who were still "living" it. I've played card games and folded and unfolded towels with sweet ladies who have forgotten so much but needed purpose, at 4am. I've seen people beat the impossible. I've seen young healthy people die unexpectedly. I've seen people come into an emergency room for a foot ache. I've seen families grieve in so many different ways. I've seen selflessness in parents donating their 18 year old son's organs after a drug overdose....unfortunately I've seen this more than once.... even more than twice. I've seen a husband let go of his wife, after an unexpected stroke and through heavy tears say "she would kill me if I keep her alive, I don't know how I can live a life without her. Yet I know she deserves her wishes followed and I'll miss her every minute". I've seen infants at 600 grams that could fit in your hand, go home and live their best lives. I've seen devastated drug addicted moms cry at crib sides, about how they tried to quit methadone but they were told they couldn't because of the risks of withdrawal on their health and the baby's. I've seen parents lose a perfectly normal pregnancy term infant, for no explainable reason. I've seen parents at close to 50 who lost so many pregnancies and then this one worked! I've seen teenagers who became parents too soon, but would dedicate their lives to raising them the best way they could. I have hidden in public because I saw a former patient who beat me with his fists the week before when he was going through alcohol withdrawal. I have gone out with former families for wine tastings with paint. I've been asked on dates. I've been called Toots. I''ve cried at the bedside, I've cried at home, I've buried my heartache too.
I could relay stories all day but in the end it’s the fact that I was blessed to be here, in this life and share it, so maybe it can help someone who needs it somehow, some way. I would do it all over again if given the choice. I would encourage anyone willing to look into a career in nursing to do so, but only with an open mind and heart. My grandfather asked my father why I chose to be “just a nurse” and not go on for medical school and become a doctor. I choose nursing, I love the role I play in the care of people, people of all ages and walks of life. Being a physician requires a specific area of practice, I never want to limit myself and I am proud to be a nurse and proud of the nurse I have become. In every area I’ve worked, I’ve grown as a nurse and a human. And as a nurse who's witnessed some of one the toughest sides of organ donation, I still am and always will be a donor and a DNR. Remember that when my husband is trying to keep me on life support.....


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