Fragments..

I was thinking this morning. One of the nurses I work with is pregnant. I was thinking about how nice it will be to have a new baby in the department… Another one of the nurses has a baby who is about six months’ old…

And then it dawned on me: these two young nurses weren’t even born when I started my nursing career! Oh my!

Of course, that opened the flood gates and fragments of my career started pouring into my consciousness. Little pieces of memories from all those years. Years that truly do add up to a lifetime.

My first patient, in nursing school: taught me all I needed to know about nursing. She was frail and fragile and wise. And dying. She taught me to go with my gut, use my instincts, and just be myself. Nursing is an art and a science, not a persona. Be myself.

I remember my first patient who died. She was a young mommy, like me, and she was an acquaintance: her husband worked with mine. She left this world kicking and screaming. It was very traumatic for her, her husband, and this new nurse. She left behind two small children.

I learned that death can be accepted, or fought. Never, in all the years since, have I seen a patient die in such terror. The memory has stayed with me. And the lesson, too: be there, be comforting, and be prepared for anything.

I remember being yelled at, not necessarily for the first time, by a particularly obnoxious surgeon. I was angry and hurt. And right. The patient DID need surgery and he took her to the operating room—emergently—early the next morning.

Funny, it was many years later, as the OR Charge Nurse, that I received the most harassing, vociferous, vicious attack by a surgeon. He was angry and he took it out on me. And who came to my rescue? That same obnoxious surgeon from years before!

So many things to remember these days. I have been doing this for a long time. This nursing thing. I have overcome the terror inherent in giving medications and assessing patients. I have learned the hard lessons that only experience can teach. I have tried to pass on what wisdom I have gained to those younger nurses who have followed me.

And now, I am going to gather all these fragments, the bits and pieces of my memories and save them. Maybe just in a pretty box, maybe in a journal, or maybe as blogs. But, save them, I must.

Put together, those fragments are my life..