Nurse on the Run

Happy Nurses Week to all my readers…or at least those of you who are nurses.    I know I don’t talk much about the "nurse" part of "Nurse on the Run"…except for "gahhh night shift makes me tired!"  However, since you probably don’t want to hear about my back injury anymore (sorry for all the talk about it, I have nothing else to say lately!), I figure Nurses Week is a great time to change the subject and do a little nursing talk these days!  Let me know if you hate them and I’ll stop, but the nursing/hospital world is a little bit different than the office world (I have no idea what that’s like, but just a guess), so I figure I’ll give you a little glimpse into nursing.  Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like me to mention, and we’ll go from there!

To start off on the right foot (probably wearing a Dansko clog if you’re a nurse…), we’ll start with a little series called, "You might be a nurse if…"  Here we go…

You might be a nurse if…

…you wear drawstring pants to work on a daily basis.  God bless scrubs and all the money I save on not buying work clothes.  (And my unit gives them to us and washes them, so I don’t even have to do that!  Win.)

…you’ve worn yellow isolation gowns around the unit because it’s cold (so cold at night…) and you forgot your sweatshirt.

…you can talk about any sort of bodily function/product while eating any type of meal.

…you secretly eye the veins of the person in front of you in line.  And then think, "I could totally get a 16 gauge in there…"

…you’ve made it through a twelve hour shift and realized you have yet to pee.  Bladder of steel.  (Luckily this doesn’t happen too often.)

…you drink coffee at 2am on a regular basis.  Thank you, night shift.

…you wake up and have no idea what day it is or if it’s AM or PM.  Thank you again, night shift.

…you know that the patients with tattoos are the ones most likely to tell you they’re afraid of needles.

…you wash your hands before going to the bathroom.

…by the end of the night, the Omnicell/Pyxis won’t take your fingerprint anymore because of all the Purell/handwashing.

…you can speak and write in a shorthand that most other people don’t understand.

…you know that the best way to fix a patient’s oxygen saturation is to change the sensor.

…you have the "this is your heparin shot, it’s a blood thinner so you don’t get blood clots in your legs" speech down pat.

…weekends and holidays mean nothing to you, except that you get time and a half on holidays.

…your doctor tells you to cut down on the coffee.

…seeing people naked is just another day on the job.

…you’ve had a patient ask if you’re nervous because your hand is shaking, but you know it’s just from all the coffee you drank.

…you’ve done a bowel prep on a quadriplegic.

…you have three favorite letters, and they’re "DNR."

…you’ve ever said the words, "That patient just really needs to die." and you mean the best by it.

…you’ve eaten a meal standing up.

…you’ve rolled your eyes when someone says, "Hellooooooo, nurse!" because you know how unattractive scrubs actually are.

…you shower after work instead of before.

…you know that "stat" never happens quite as fast as everyone else thinks it should.

…you know that hitting the night shift wall is worse than hitting the marathon wall.

Happy Nurses Week to all my fellow nurses out there!  Please feel free to add to the list if you have a good one!  If you’re not a nurse, fill me in on how the rest of the work world works!

So the moral of the story is that my back still hurts, and I don’t really feel like talking about it other than we’ve moved from the idea that it’s a bulging disc and are now thinking it’s a muscle sprain.  A muscle sprain is better than a disc problem, but at the same time…it’s been three months, and theoretically should have healed by now.  Especially with the past few weeks of minimal activity.  Gahhh.

Yesterday I wanted to throw my running shoes out the window.  Today I tried acupuncture for the first time.  I’ll keep you posted.

In attempts to lift my spirits back up, I’m not going to talk about my back anymore and instead present you with this week’s version of, “it’s friday, i’m in love.”  Because it’s Friday, and it’s better to talk about happy things rather than the fact that my back still hurts.  (Even though I just did…nevermind that.)  Away we go.

post-work mimosas

What’s the big deal, you say?  Drinks after work, isn’t that normal?  Well, drinks at 9am on a Thursday aren’t quite the most accepted practice…unless you work night shift and that’s your version of happy hour.  A few nurses went out for breakfast after work on Wednesday night (therefore making it Thursday  morning…), and the mimosas will knock you off your feet…especially after being up all night.  It’s totally acceptable, okay?

sleeping at night

It’s a beautiful thing.  I’ve been having a hard time switching back to a normal schedule on my nights off…staying up until 4am is boring and then makes me sleep until noon or later.  Oops.  However, last night I was asleep by 1am and got up at 8:45 this morning.  VICTORY.  Also, seven more night shifts until I’m on day shift for two months.  Please be my friend again, thanks!

“you don’t look like someone who would like beer…”

That’s what my physical therapist told me yesterday when I was discussing what I did last weekend.  (Beer at the Blind Tiger in the West Village…so good!)  He told me I don’t look like someone who would drink beer…mainly because I’m lacking the beer gut.  I guess that’s what I get for running fifty miles per week (er…used to) and being somewhat healthy.  Pour me another, please.

This is also a plus because I kind of feel like a whale.

salad bars

I love salad bars.  You can pick what you want to eat.  Load up with cucumbers (so good…), a little beans, maybe some tuna, avocado…as much or as little as you like.  It’s  a beautiful thing.  I may or may not be eating a salad from one right now.

bin candy

On the same note as salad bars, bin candy is fabulous.  I don’t necessarily know where to get this in NYC (Dylan’s Candy Bar?  The M&M Store?  Talk about $$$), but the Wegman’s where I used to live in Pennsylvania had bin candy, and I loved it.  Again, you can have six Reese’s Pieces, seven gummy airplanes, and three peach rings.  Sure, people probably reach their gross hands in the bins instead of using the tongs…but whatever.  Immune system of steel.

coffee

Coffee is delicious and brings me up to baseline.  Don’t judge.

Please tell me how much you love bin candy.  Or whatever else you might love today.  Ready, go!