Today I was reminded of one of my favorite reasons for working as a Pediatric nurse, children are incredibly resilient. This resiliency was demonstrated by one of my all-time favorite patients. She is just 6 years old and suffers from a chronic kidney condition. Her medical history is extensive and complicated, and she has been a frequent face on our unit since her toddler years. In the last year, this child has spent more of her life in the hospital or living in hospital housing than in her own home. Needless to say she knows nearly all the nurses and doctors by first name and voice, and likewise we know her from her giggles and whines a mile away.
Today I woke up quite unhappy to go to work. Mostly because the World Cup opened today, but also because I was just plain tired. But of course I made the hour long drive in to the hospital, and was unhappily greeted by an incredibly busy, chaotic unit. The first four hours flew by in a hurried haze and by the time my lunch break came I was ready to throw in the towel. It was with much grumbling and resistance that I returned from my half hour break. As I finally sat down to catch up on my back charting from the morning I was greeted by Miss Priss and her cherub like cheeks. She wandered over to me and presented me with a plastic box. I easily identified the box, it was one of the plastic containers that diaper wipes are stored in. I smiled and asked her what she was doing carrying her wipes all around the unit. She grinned slyly and held the box up so that I could see it more clearly. It was then that I noticed the little note taped on to the lid of the box, it read "Lemonade $1." I laughed and said "Okay so this is the cash box, where is the lemonade?" She proceeded to remove the lid and reveal two 4 o.z containers of lemonade resting in a nest of dollar bills and quarters. I recognized the juice containers. They were the sort that came up each day with each child's lunch and dinner tray. Clearly Miss Priss had been stashing her juice containers for the last several days. Unable to resist, I went to break room and brought out my only cash, a ten dollar bill. After much persuading I convinced her to count out seven of her dollar bills to give me change for my ten. I assured her that she really was making quite the killing, getting paid three dollars for a box of juice that she had received freely. After completing her sale Miss Priss packed up her box and moved on to her next victim. I watched as she walked between her room and the nurses' station refilling her container with lemonades and moving from person to person selling them.
I couldn't help but sit back and smile, truly blessed in the moment by the beautiful scene before me. Miss Priss is a child. She may be a hospitalized, chronically ill child, but she is still a child, wanting nothing more but to have fun selling lemonade on a warm summer day. Maybe her lemonade is sold out of a box of wipes instead of a homemade stand, and maybe her lemonade came up on a hospital dinner tray instead of from a "Country Time" lemonade mix, but still her gapped tooth grin and rounded cheeks win the hearts of any passer by, just as they would were she stationed on a curbside.
I am so happy for this glimpse of normalcy that I caught today is Miss Priss' life. It was so good to know that we (the nurses, doctors, and hospital staff) have not chased all of the childhood beauty out of her. We may poke her for IVs, subject her to nauseating medications, and wake her up every four hours for vital signs, but still she remains a wide eyed curious child ready to experience the world and all of the fun it has to offer.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Why keep such amazing material to myself?
Hello friends,
I am both pleased and grateful that you have chosen to spend a moment of your day visiting my blog. This is my first attempt at a blog dedicated to the field of Pediatric nursing, I hope that for all of our sakes it will become a grand success. The stories and experiences that I have to share with you are touching, endearing, and sometimes very sobering. Some days I will come to you joyfully, other days with a heavy heart. Regardless, I hope that you will stick with me through this journey, I can tell that it will be a great one!
To help you get to know me I will give you a brief history of my life as a nurse. In June of 2008 I graduated from a small private school in Northern California. I completed their 2 year associate degree program and have plans of returning in the fall of this year to work on my Bachelor's degree. I put off doing my Bachelor's degree initially because I wanted to travel outside of the US, after I returned I put off school longer because I got hired at my dream job. I have now been a pediatric nurse in the San Francisco Bay area for a year and half (I know, I am still such a rookie). I work at one of the best children's hospitals in the entire world (seriously. It feels so good. I love my job). I work on an intermediate intensive care unit that serves children with cardiac issues. Many of our children were born with defects to their hearts that need repair, others come in because they some how contracted an illness that made their heart sick, and still others come because they have a heart problem that is inoperable and they are looking for hope in some other option. Prior to becoming strictly a cardiac floor, my unit also served the population of children in need of an organ transplant. The unit served this population of children for years, and from time to time we are lucky enough to have some of them on our floor.
I wish to tell you at this time that my children are very sick. The children that we serve are not the type that come in for a flu that will resolve in two weeks with the help of IV antibiotics, rather, they are the type that are used to living with chronic illness, the type that learned how to feed themselves through a tube before they learned how to ride a bike. My children are heroes through and through, beautiful from their heads to their toes and everywhere in between. It is possible to forget just how ill they are, because they are so good at being kids and focusing only on the fun and good things in life. (I'm getting excited for all of the stories that I will have to share). You will find that I speak of my patients as if they were my own children, I think it's a trait that comes with the job.
I know that I have only begun, but alas, it is late and I have to work tomorrow. The last of three, twelve hour shifts. If I don't get to bed now I will regret it all day tomorrow when I can't keep my eyes open to chart.
Goodnight my friends. May God bless you with sweet rest.
I am both pleased and grateful that you have chosen to spend a moment of your day visiting my blog. This is my first attempt at a blog dedicated to the field of Pediatric nursing, I hope that for all of our sakes it will become a grand success. The stories and experiences that I have to share with you are touching, endearing, and sometimes very sobering. Some days I will come to you joyfully, other days with a heavy heart. Regardless, I hope that you will stick with me through this journey, I can tell that it will be a great one!
To help you get to know me I will give you a brief history of my life as a nurse. In June of 2008 I graduated from a small private school in Northern California. I completed their 2 year associate degree program and have plans of returning in the fall of this year to work on my Bachelor's degree. I put off doing my Bachelor's degree initially because I wanted to travel outside of the US, after I returned I put off school longer because I got hired at my dream job. I have now been a pediatric nurse in the San Francisco Bay area for a year and half (I know, I am still such a rookie). I work at one of the best children's hospitals in the entire world (seriously. It feels so good. I love my job). I work on an intermediate intensive care unit that serves children with cardiac issues. Many of our children were born with defects to their hearts that need repair, others come in because they some how contracted an illness that made their heart sick, and still others come because they have a heart problem that is inoperable and they are looking for hope in some other option. Prior to becoming strictly a cardiac floor, my unit also served the population of children in need of an organ transplant. The unit served this population of children for years, and from time to time we are lucky enough to have some of them on our floor.
I wish to tell you at this time that my children are very sick. The children that we serve are not the type that come in for a flu that will resolve in two weeks with the help of IV antibiotics, rather, they are the type that are used to living with chronic illness, the type that learned how to feed themselves through a tube before they learned how to ride a bike. My children are heroes through and through, beautiful from their heads to their toes and everywhere in between. It is possible to forget just how ill they are, because they are so good at being kids and focusing only on the fun and good things in life. (I'm getting excited for all of the stories that I will have to share). You will find that I speak of my patients as if they were my own children, I think it's a trait that comes with the job.
I know that I have only begun, but alas, it is late and I have to work tomorrow. The last of three, twelve hour shifts. If I don't get to bed now I will regret it all day tomorrow when I can't keep my eyes open to chart.
Goodnight my friends. May God bless you with sweet rest.
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