Why Nursing, Sydney?

The paragraph below has been posted in my old blog but the words are so apt to the topic that i just have to re-post it again.

Tilda has taught me that nursing is a rewarding personal endeavour. Nursing doesn’t give you the bucks and the golds. But through the service of caring for people who are complete strangers to you and being at their sides at most difficult time, that’s when your minds open to the fact that fame and fortune are incomparable to the self fulfilment and love you get from nursing. Moreover, Tilda has inspired to be hopeful. For nurses, suffering and death aren’t form of hopelessness. For us, providing comfort, promoting their well being and not treating them any less of a human is what makes our job hopeful. More importantly, she inspired me that in nursing, it’s all about loving the work you do because when you learn how to love all else transpires.

So,  since I wasn't really able to blog as much during schooldays...let me share with you 2 of my most memorable experiences in 2 different rotations this semester.

Operating Room

Our clinical instructor would always tell us that OR is a very tough rotation because from the beginning until the end of the procedure you have to be there...standing for hours and being alert while thinking of ways to divert your attention from your grumbling stomach and aching feet. Through the different surgical procedures that I scrubbed and circulated in, I never really felt so tired. I've been through Lap. Cholecystectomy, AV graft, Total Hip Arthroplasty (Left) Hip, Tonsillectomy with coblator, Septoplasty and partial turbinectomy tonsillectomy with platoplasty, Herniorrhaphy w/ mesh, Plating and bone grafting, left femur, w/ II and Fx table, PHACO and other procedures I cannot seem to remember but at the end of the procedure i know for myself that i still have a lot of energy for the rest of the day. So what's the memorable moment? Well before i get into the day of the procedure, let me first narrate to you the happenings prior to the operation. The day before, friday,  I had to go through my OR duty from 5:30am to 1pm. Then after that i headed home and worked on my OR report for the next day. When I was finished, i went to glorietta to look for my outfit for the acquaintance party then I attended my dance practice (also for the acquaintance - an event of the school happening on Saturday) in school til 6pm. After that we still had practice in a badminton court near our school from 8pm til 12am. Because our dance was still incomplete and not to mention the sabogness of our dance, we had to squeeze in last dance choreos and polishing in that four hours. What made it so hard for us to complete the dance was due to the fact that most of our dancers are off from duty at 10pm. So practically, we started finishing the dance at 10:30 and started polishing at around 12am. It WAS VERY EXHAUSTING.  One of our members even cried because she was so stressed ad tired. Moving on, I was able to reach home at 2am. Straight to bed? NO. I had to fix all my stuff and clothes and accessories for the event because i still have duty at 5:30am in the OR. After getting all of my things packed. I still had to print my OR report and STUDY it because ..well..im reporting so I kinda hafta know my report, right? So I ended up sleeping at around 3:30am -4:00am. Then since i had duty i had to wake up at 5:30am, take a  bath, eat breakfast and go to the hospital. Please also take note that i woke up with muscle ache everywhere... even my nape was shouting in agony but i had no time to pass by a drugstore for alaxan.

So In the OR. our clinical instructor prioritized those people who were still incomplete with their scrubs. Also, our CI notified us the a lot of nurses are absent and most of the interns are in an outing. So i was just relaxed because i was done with all my scrubs. I still scrubbed in though in 3 PHACO (FYI: when you scrub in on a PHACO procedure, you hardly do anything. So imagine how bored i was there standing for 1 and a half hour trying to fight my sleepy head!) procedures and circulated in a mastectomy. So after all that i thought i was done. But! my CI just grabbed me fromt he back and told me to scrub in. It was just a minor procedure - i forgot the name. Basta the surgeon removed something from the deltoid area. So since it was a minor procedure and the CI told me that it will just last for around 45 minutes. I thought i was saved. I wore my gown, gloves etc and positioned myself behind the big table where the instruments were placed. after 15 minutes, the head surgeon called on me to retract the skin of the patient. Due to the lack of interns, i had to perform one of the intern's job which was to retract the patient's skin. Retracting wasn't as easy as suctioning patient's blood. I had to give in all my freakin energy to spread open the skin so the surgeon could incise the cyst. You know what was worst? The surgery went on for four hours. Oh okay, you're prolly thinking that four hours is normal in the OR. but please place yourself on my shoes (having only 1 and a half hour of sleep with ongoing body ache). That four hours was the most tormenting and agonizing hours of my life so far. I mean YOU HAVE NO IDEA how tiring it was to be a human self retaining retractor. I was even so sleepy  to the point that i fell asleep for like 2 seconds HAHAH and the doctor noticed me and said " steady ka lang." (SHE DIDN'T SAY IT IN A NAAAWA WAY, SHE SAID IT IN A STRICT FORMAL-WALA-AKONG-PAKI-KUNG-INAANTOK-KA WAY. though i understand because she was also having a hard time.) So, i was praying in the OR na "God, make time fly pleaseee" I was begging na talaga. I even reached the point where in my head i was cursing all the people in the room. My scrub nurse was just fixing threads, circulating nurse was just texting and talking with another nurse, the anes was listening to her ipod, the other intern was just suctioning blood. Anyways to cut the story short, i scrubbed out when another intern was available to replace me. The moment I reached the orbiter, I sat on the floor and cried. AS IN CRIED. my groupmates saw me and they were comforting me. My CI also saw me  and she shouted

"oh! ngayon alam niyo na kung gano kahirap sa OR. hindi basta basta ang trabaho dito noh?! Ms. Furio, you should be thankful naka experience ka ng ganyan, minsan lang manyari yan. Sige, next time, pahirapan pa kita."

Don't take my CI in a bad way, she's one of the best and i love her and her words were meant to encourage me not to degrade me.

All in all,  that moment i had in the OR was just amazing. It was hard as hell but i was thankful. It's true that not all people get to experience that and not all nurses get to do the job of an intern. I'm grateful for the experience :) I helped save a man's life from possibility of cancer so... :)

I'll post the second experience in another blog entry.