Restoring your peace, a perspective from a front-line nurse.

We can all agree that the past 18 months has been the most awful time in our lives regarding the covid-19 pandemic. There have been so many deaths among the inpatient population, that even the most hopeful nurse I know has confessed that she feels as if she cannot pray for the patients anymore because they die anyway. She has since come to realize that perhaps her prayers would better serve the families who are about to grieve and hurt for the one they lose. She has cried for so many people in the past year and a half and is now looking to leave the profession entirely. She confesses that she feels “trapped” due to her age, as it is probably too late to become a horticulturalist or an accountant; she is ready to do anything else besides nursing.

Other nurses have considered the same. Another ICU nurse stated she was looking at manufacturing and retail jobs that she used to do in her younger years. “The ugliness of retail customers is like cotton candy compared to the ugliness of patients, families, managers, and administrators in the hospital right now. We are expected to keep on working through these understaffed conditions and still perform at the pre-pandemic level of care. It’s impossible.” One new nurse came to me in tears because she had been reprimanded for not turning her patients. The problem was, that these patients were all on the ventilator and that there wasn’t anybody to help her turn them. That entire unit was understaffed and all of the nurses were too busy to do anything but frantically manage their own patients. I personally have done some sketchy solo turns myself, pushing and stuffing pillows underneath a 200 pound patient in efforts to get them off of their coccyx because my coworkers were gowned up doing the same in their own isolation rooms. I press visiting family into service all the time as I will never get a patient properly turned if I do not. This type of care is unfair for the patient, and the level of expectation is unfair from management. And yet we continue to receive unstable patients without any additional help and are expected to produce quality outcomes. Working at Walmart sounds sort of nice now.

One nurse in a mixed stepdown/ICU environment states that her day is spent running from IV pumps to call bells, and she has so little time to open the charts to look at anything besides medications that she frequently has to spend an hour and half after her shift is over each night to do her actual charting. Everything, from care plans to IV assessments has to be done the same way as prior pandemic, and when she is required to take 2 critical care patients, move a downgraded step-down patient to the med-surg floor and get a 3rd critical patient, the charting is endless. Shifts typically end at 7am or 7pm, but she and her coworkers frequently leave at 8:30 or later. This particular nurse is a single mom and still has to manage dinner and daily life when she finally arrives at her home well past 9 o’clock.

So we go home exhausted, saddened, beaten-down, and oppressed for not achieving the standard of care expected of us. We are trapped in the profession due to lack of skills in other areas. We leave work worrying about the care we gave. Worrying about the care we didn’t give. The burden is heavy and the hours are long.

What do you do to rejuvenate, ground yourself, and restore?

Here are some simple ideas:

1. Stop picking up extra shifts. Yes, the money is awesome, but it is killing your spirit to work so much. Just let it go for now.
2. Step back to think about the little things which make you sing. For me it changes, but my current one is tea. One day, I had a memory of my mother and I drinking hot tea at the kitchen table and doing crossword puzzles together. I have to drink it in a travel mug with a lid at work, but it is nice to sip on my fancy Earl Gray hot tea and chart. The taste reminds me of spending time with my mother, who was always my rock and best friend.
3. Spend some time outside. Florence wasn’t wrong, it is beneficial to be outside and it will help you recover from the high stress of being a nurse today. The American Psychological Association (APA) stated in 2020 that exposure to nature has the ability to decrease stress, improve cognition, reduce mental disorders, and improves our mood, empathy, and even coordination skills. Check it out at this link: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/nurtured-nature
4. Let stuff go. Here is the front of my house. Makes you feel better, right? Anyways, the hummingbirds love them. I won’t worry about them for a while…just being me is important right now, not spending my free time away from the hell that is work, doing things that make the hummingbirds sad.

5. Yes, you can do the usual tried and true, exercise, meditation, date nights, etc. But sometimes? Sometimes you have to do what you CAN do and that is embrace the little things that get you through.

6. Don’t forget that you are an awesome nurse and if you are working hard all the way through your shift and not getting breaks and meals…the things that didn’t get done are not your fault. You cannot beat yourself up over that.