I originally thought I would take some time out to consider what my next move would be, return to university, look for a job in care, be a homemaker, full time gardener maybe! But as life has a habit of doing it has kind of made my mind up for me.
I’ve decided not to return to the nursing course because the time out has shown me that although I have wanted to be a nurse since I was 16, I had it all a bit confused in my head. I wanted to care for people, yes! But, to be perfectly honest the clinical skills side of things scared the heck out of me, I was terrified of causing any harm to anyone. Not unusual, but when you become nervous about whether you’re doing every single thing absolutely right it does start to lose balance.
Joining the Red Cross in my thirties and having to leave because I felt panicked by an emergency situation should have given me a hint that maybe nursing wasn’t the best choice of career for me. But no, I persisted and convinced myself that I could be taught to deal with such things, it was just a matter of learning the essential skills and I’d be fine. I’d managed to learn many clinical skills and carry them out confidently at home during Chris’s life with CF hadn’t I.
It’s not that I can’t do the blood and guts thing, I’m fine with that, it’s the responsibility of doing anything that could possibly hurt another human being. It frightens the life out of me and that’s not good, it doesn’t make a confident nurse. The turning point came when, as a student I was involved in a situation that could have potentially harmed a patient. As it turned out there was no harm to the patient whatsoever, but my reaction could have been deemed to be over the top. I was mortified about what might have been and I kept going over the what if scenario. I just couldn’t come to terms with it.
Frustration also played a part in why I felt like a square peg in a round hole. I wanted to spend more time on the basic tasks like feeding people and talking to them when they were in need of an ear, but that is more the role of the Health Care Assistants nowadays and at times I envied them, despite the fact that they were run off their feet. I was often called away in the middle of something I considered really important because there was paperwork to be filled in or things to be delivered to another department and that disturbed me. I understand that the ward routine has to have structure otherwise nothing will get done, but I will never understand why, at a crucial time, it can’t be left for a little while longer, because for that patient another few minutes might have made all the difference.
As I said at the beginning my direction has changed and I am now heading down a different path, it’s early days and I’m not sure how things will pan out so I’ll wait until I’m a bit further down the path before I blog about it.
