This post is one I wrote for (ironically) a Nurses' Week contest on Instagram, one that I, not ironically won! (I'm going to Egypt BIIIIIISSSSSHHHH)
I’ve been thinking a lot about this last year and a half. How much my life has changed, how much I’ve changed, the friendships I’ve made, and the lives we touch through nursing. I found a prompt on Instagram about what nursing with heart means to you. I wrote something I’m proud of and I’d like to share. If it strikes a chord with you, let me know. Nothing would make me happier. Love my nursing community and the many ways we are ACTUAL super heroes.
Nursing with heart is a constant practice in empathy and compassion.
Sometimes it looks like running around all night, titrating drips, dressing wounds, and reporting things to the doc. Sometimes it looks like getting your patient a cup of coffee because they finally passed their swallow study and have been craving it every day since they had a stroke. Sometimes it looks like celebrating with your patient because they just had their first bowel movement after surgery and can finally get home to tuck their kid in for bedtime. Sometimes it’s holding your hospice patient’s hand while they pass because no one else is there with them.
It’s missed breaks, skipped lunches, and putting ourselves aside for strangers. It’s facials, journaling, and solo trips because we have to take care of ourselves and our own mental health if we’re going to continue taking good care of them. Nursing with heart is caring, fiercely advocating when you need to, and always trying to see yourself in their shoes. Our hearts and souls go into this work. We rarely get the gratitude or recognition we deserve, but we do the work anyway, because if we don’t, who will?
Nurses are a special breed and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to do it with heart.
Comments