Nursing...A never ending adventure

I feel that since the last time I sat and wrote a blog post the only thing I have done is worked. So here is a post on nursing... The other half of my life. :)

Often times when I tell people that I am nurse they ask me, "So what exactly do you do?" When people ask me this I just want to laugh in their face. I feel like a nurse does so much that it is hard to sum up so I usually just end up saying something to the effect of I take care of patients. On Saturday I had one of those shifts that is so incredibly busy that I didn't pee until nine hours into my twelve hour shift, and I am pretty sure that I only sat down for a total of 20 minutes. Not that I am complaining, but to someone who works a desk job, or really any other kind of job, there is no way to understand nursing. Nursing is passing medications, hanging blood products, reviewing labs, assessing patients, answering questions, cleaning up poop/pee/vomit/any other bodily fluid you can think of, calming an anxious family, knowing everything about anything (because you never know what somebody is going to ask you), and the list goes on and on. On Saturday through all the craziness it reminded me that even though nobody outside of nursing really understands what I do, nursing ultimately comes down to knowing the Healer's Art. I attended BYU, which is a private religious university. The College of Nursing's motto is learning the Healer's art. The motto is taken from LDS hymn number 220 Lord, I Would Follow Thee. The third verse says:

I would be my brother's keeper;

I would learn the healer's art.

To the wounded and the weary

I would show a gentle heart.

I would be my brother's keeper--

Lord, I would follow thee.

 

 

That is what nursing is.

Jesus Raising Jairus's Daughter (Gospel Art Book [2009], no. 41