Why become a Nurse
Why become a nurse? That is what my friends asked me when I told them that I was going to apply to university for a place on a pre-registration nursing programme. Why spend my working life wiping people's bums, cleaning up vomit, taking orders from doctor's and getting paid next to nothing for it?
My friends have no idea what nursing is like.
Yes, I do clean up blood, vomit and faeces. Some doctors do think they are God. And nursing definitely won't make me rich, but I don't care. I love nursing. I'm not fond of faeces, and vomit makes me heave, but these are such a small part of what I do.
I make sure that I talk with all my patients as often as I can, even if this is whilst I help them bath or get dressed in the morning. If I have time, I'll sit and chat with them, and cheer them up. They tell me about their lives, about living through times I never knew, their worry for their children, or grandchildren, or their dog who is having to stay with the neighbour. They introduce me to their visitors, saying that I'm the nurse who went to theatre with them, made sure that they were comfortable post-operatively, or chatted to them when they were scared. And that makes you feel good.
I see patients coming in, completely dependent on the nursing staff, and gradually, as we care for them, they begin to do more and more for themselves, until they are discharged, and are safely able to manage at home. Likewise, when the dying patient comes in, and you are able to reassure them, cuddle them when they haven't been able to sleep all night due to fear, or make sure that they are clean and dignified in their last few hours, it is sad, but you know that you've done your best for that person, and treated them as you would like to be treated in that situation, or how you would like your mother, father or grandparents treated if they were the one lying there.
You see patients come and go. They say goodbye to you, and thank you for all you've done for them, you feel glad to have helped them get to where they are. and when it's time for you to go, and the patients are crying as they hug you and say goodbye, you know you've made a difference. On a placement in my first year, there was this lovely lady whom I admitted and carried out a lot of her care. I came up with ways for her to manage to wash, as she was so little that if she sat in the chair with the bowl on the table, she couldn't reach the water inside it. She was the first person I admitted, the first person I gave an injection to, the first person whose dressing I changed. I went around her bay, as that was where I had been working for my placement, and said good-bye to all the patients, she said to me "I'll never forget you". I left the hospital, my last shift on that ward, crying. That's why I became a (student) nurse.
