Distress of a nurse

“For those who are afraid to become a nurse because they have a weak stomach,It won’t be the vomit or needles or blood or urine or feces that turns your stomach. You’ll get used to that. You’ll come to accept it’s just part of the job and get to the point where you’re thinking of the 38 different things you have to do while absentmindedly cleaning up a bowel movement. What will turn your stomach will be 40 shallow breaths a minute in a patient in respiratory distress. A freshly born infant that is limp and blue and hasn’t cried yet. Tripled troponin levels on your sweating and anxious patient as you realize they’re having a heart attack. Feeling cord during a cervical check, then trying to hide from your patient the shaking in your voice as you call for help. The pale skin of a Jehovah’s Witness with a hemoglobin of 4 as she declines a blood transfusion and says goodbye to her family because they haven’t found the source of the bleed and she’s running out of time. A blood alcohol level of .18 on a 4 year old who is barely responsive and being intubated after getting drunk on mouthwash and then hitting his head. An elderly woman in the ICU signing her DNR while her sobbing daughter begs her to reconsider, knowing if treatment is stopped then her mother will die. A child in the pediatric ICU who hasn’t had a visitor in months. Not being able to find the heartbeat on a pregnant mom who hasn’t felt the baby move in a while. In the face of everything else that comes with being a nurse, I promise you’ll get used to the poop.” - Andrea Pellerin