I Wasn’t Always This Strong - Part 2

In 1975, as I faced the inevitable graduation from high school, like most 18 year olds I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.   My high school boyfriend, Jim, was older than me and had already been attending Northern Illinois University for a year.  I, of course, wanted to go to the same school as he did but knew my parents would not think that was a good enough reason to choose NIU.  I did a little homework and discovered that NIU had the best nursing school in the state.  Thinking this would be a good enough reason to attend NIU I told my parents I wanted to be a nurse and since NIU had the best nursing school I would apply there.  And so I did.  I got in and figured I would start as a nursing major and then change majors once I decided what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  My parents were good with my plan to become a nurse as long as I wasn’t going to NIU just to be near Jim which of course I was.   And so this was how I chose my major. Over the next four years I never changed majors.  I really had no idea what else I wanted to do and as the years went by I actually found my nursing classes very interesting.  I struggled most of the time but was always able to pass - sometimes barely.

The most challenging classes were what we called simply “Clinical”.  These were the classes where we met our instructors at hospitals, were given real patients to work with and actually did hands on nursing care.  You will often hear people say that “nurses eat their young” and it is very true.  I have no idea why but older experienced nurses want very little to do with young new nurses so it is always a battle to learn what you need to learn without angering the “old bats”.  I learned quickly to keep a low profile, don’t get in anyone’s way, don’t question, listen and watch closely and just do what you are told to do and do it immediately. 

There is an old adage in medicine for both doctor and nursing students - WATCH ONE, DO ONE, TEACH ONE.  That’s how you learn all of your skills.  No matter how uncomfortable you are with a procedure you will only be shown once and then will be expected to do the next one.  This sounds harsh but like most skills the only way you learn is by doing it.  Unfortunately in medicine you could seriously harm or even kill someone if you do not do something right.  So, even though my  instructors were watching us closely, doing some of those procedures were by far the scariest things I have ever done in my life.  Not only was I afraid of doing something wrong, I just didn’t want to cause anyone any pain or, you know, kill someone.  

I remember very distinctly my first shot.  Back in the 70’s we did not wear scrubs like the nursing students of today do.  We wore our blue and white striped student uniforms.  Dresses with white tights and white shoes.  So, when we walked into a patient’s room there was no mistaking that we were students.  There was no hiding.  My patient, Mr. Clark, was a very recent post op back surgery.  He was in severe pain and I was to give him a shot of Demerol.  My hand shook as I drew up the medication and it was double checked by my instructor.  She followed me into the room.  I must have looked terrified because Mr. Clark looked me right in the eye and said “Don’t worry honey, you can’t possibly hurt me more than I am hurting right now.” I could have kissed him. 

I spent the majority of my clinical training absolutely terrified.  I rarely slept the night before and very often got nauseas heading to the hospital because I was so afraid of what I would be asked to do that day.  I don’t know if the other nursing students felt the same as I never admitted my absolute and very visceral terror to anyone.  I often tried to think of another major I could go into that would not scare me so much but never could come up with anything.  And although the clinical side of my training was psychologically crippling, I loved the theory side of it.  I am still to this day amazed at the workings of the human body and how it can be so fragile and so resilient at the same time.  Disease and the body’s ability to fight it fascinates me.  I am in awe of how every system is so intertwined and how the mind and body affect each other.  

Nurses still hold some mystery to most people who have no desire to hear about much less work with bodily fluids, pain, open wounds or death and dying. We see a lot of really gross things during nursing school and actually during our entire nursing career. Every nurse has one thing that she hates the most which is usually one of the big four:  blood, mucus, vomit or pus.  You ask any nurse what grosses her out the most and she will probably name one of those four things.  She’ll know exactly what her weakness is and chances are she has spent her nursing career trying to avoid it — probably with only marginal success.  Mine has always been phlegm and mucus and it is one of the reasons my first job was in a neonatal intensive care unit. It occurred to me that even if these tiny babies had lots of phlegm and mucus, it still wouldn’t be much and I could probably handle it.   As you may have noticed big decisions in my life were often made for really stupid reasons.