My summersault and My emotional day

I have been in for two shifts now. The reason I have not posted until now will be come apparent. On Monday I was back on the ward. I was in an area covering 1 and a half bays. The patients were all light all things considered. There was one patient who required a pressure mattress. Before there was time to even think about this, they became hypotensive. The bed was elevated, and soon their pressure was back to near normal. The bed they were on was jammed. The HCA was having problems getting it back to normal position. I offered to help. When I tried it, the bed was jammed firmly down. However, after one heavy tug, the bed decided to go shooting down, nearly causing me to summersault into it. The bed was soon adjusted and the pressure relieving mattress was fitted. I was not exactly too concerned about the ward though for the day. I am afraid that my mind was more concerned with a patient who was in surgery about that time. The simple reason being, that as it was my girlfriend who was in for her operation, I was worried a lot. That’s putting it mildly! Eventually, after phoning the ward (and giving the attendant long spiel to the nurse about who the patient was, what the admission was for, who I was and to phone me back on the two hospital extension numbers if she did not believe me), I got news she was back from theatre. I asked to have time away from the ward at the start of visiting time, which was granted. I had deliberately missed my breaks to accommodate for this. I will not go into great details here of how she was. I was…shocked really I guess. I know that I see patients every day who are in worse states. The thing is though, as I once remember it being said of a patient: “A patient is a stranger in a bed who, when the time comes to need it, you can distance yourself from”. I simply cannot do that.

Yesterday I cheekily turned up on the hope that they may let visit as 2:30 (I called up near 1pm to ask this). The nurse took one look and said “Just go in now”. I only wish her recovery was better. Somehow, she has come out from the operation with a bad back. My patients were OK, and the nurse knew where I was. The patients were OK, there having been 3 discharges went a long way to helping make that assertion true. I only spent a short time with her. I went back to the ward and got the blood results off. I had cleared all the paperwork near 11am when doing the discharge writing. I then helped a HCA make beds. The staff had remarked I had been very quiet. It was only then, when I really started to talk about things to somebody else that the situation I find myself in now really hammered itself home. I have not found a job as a Nurse, the fact that I was worried about my girlfriend, how I am worried for her recovery, that I wanted to be with her, and most of all suddenly realising ones feelings toward her are more then I imagined, it all became…emotional.