Med/Surg RN

My first night on my new job, back in med/surg world, I helped out in a code on my unit.

They always suck.

I'm not an adrenaline junkie.  I don't get a thrill from it.

It is unsettling.

The way a room goes from calm to chaos.  How this room that seconds ago seemed so large, turns cramped with healthcare workers in a matter of minutes.  The way our phones blare that annoying beep of the code call.  Seeing a lifeless body in a bed.  Taking an active part in circulating oxygenated blood through this lifeless patient's body.  It is hard work.  The physical kid of hard work, where your muscles fatigue and you get all sweaty.  Where the force of the chest compressions you are doing, to keep this person alive, causes trauma to their body...rib bones breaking in the process, underneath my very own hands.  But I continue on, knowing a broken rib is a small sacrifice if CPR works, if life is regained.  And then we all pause, for a moment the noise in the room quiets to the sound of the crash cart, awaiting to check a rhythm, asystole.  More meds, more CPR, and in the chaos of orders being called out, and people doing what needs done, the patient's family walks in and the emotional part comes into play.  The dynamic in the room changes.

This nursing job, is hard work.  Mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually.

So this new position of mine, drastically different from my old position in mother/baby land.  I miss my old job today.  So much.  I just keep telling myself "I can do anything for two, twelve hour shifts a week."

I am being stretched, I know this is a good thing.  It just is hard.

Perhaps I'll pick up a shift back in couplet care, to change the pace a bit.  I'd like that.