Throughout my blogs, I hope that I haven't given the impression that nursing school was a wasted education. First of all, it wasn't for me, it was miserable and challenging as I was in the midst of it, but on reflection I took home gifts. For me, the battle wasn't appreciated until I walked across that stage at graduation. I feel as though no education is ever wasted. People used to always come to me and say, wow...how are you feeling, knowing that you spent your undergraduate education in a field that you won't use? And I always respond with, I became a human adult during those two years, and for that I wouldn't trade it for the world. And I have had this conversation with so many people who are my age and a year below, who have just finished college and are entirely terrified because they are suddenly on their own with a degree that is useless in their minds. I encourage people to see through to the other side of education and the stigma that our society has given it.
For me, I knew that I wasn't going to "be one of those kids who doesn't use their bachlor degree." I had put this pressure on myself (God who knows where that comes from), but I had made it a point in my mind that if I was entering into nursing, I would use it. I was going to be a nurse. Awkward. Back to the main topic at hand, I took home many gifts from nursing school.
I became an adult during those two years. I understood pain. I felt anxiety. I suffered with my patients. I guided them through the course of illness. I planned with them on how to "appropriately inform the family of the bad news." I saw death. But I also saw joy. I experienced remission. I witnessed miracles. I learned to listen. My heart grew. I became spiritual. I learned to seek advice. And I learned to advise.
On advise. I remember a lecture we had been given by a professor during one of our more spiritual classes in nursing school. It was an ability for a student to understand the emotional side of nursing and allowed us to become very familiar with ethical, moral, and cultural dilemmas that nurses commonly face. But the professor said to us, "never advise a patient until you are sure of your own feelings on the matter." Wow. So true.
I explored various scenarios that are commonly seen in a hospital...fear, anxiety, choosing to keep someone alive or not, helplessness, pain and betrayal. One example comes to mind, I had been spending my days on the Oncology Unit, satisfying my obligation for the second year nursing practicum. A man and his wife arrived on 5South only to be greeted warmly and graciously by the nursing staff (this wasn't their first visit to the hospital). Well this man had been battling bone cancer for quite some time, and this last visit was to give it one last shot and try a drug that was still going through clinical trials and had not yet been completely approved. Imagine being in that state of mind..."Last ditch effort." God. And while I was going about my routine and getting to know him, he looked at me and said, "Greer how am I going to get through this, how am I going to be strong for my family?" And truly stunned I replied with (while looking at a photo of his 10 month old son in the bathtub) "You fight every day for that child. All I want you to do is for those moments that you feel weak and unable to fight, look at that picture. And fight for you boy." And he was soothed.
I wouldn't have been able to help him if I hadn't had the opportunity on my own to discover my own feelings on life and death. I discovered that the present is all you have. The people around you are all you've got. Cherish these moments you have, and cherished the loved ones who surround you. So with that, I searched within and told him to lean on his son for strength.
My point is this. Before you advise anybody, know in your heart how you feel. Advise someone how you would want to be advised. You would never want to provide someone with misguided information. There is a point where we must just surrender to the rise and fall of the sun. I feel as though all of the emotions that humans go through, the good and the bad are like the wind...we can't see them or touch them, but we can feel them. So feel where you stand. Find your ground. Whether it be in a hospital or any other setting, we are all in this together.
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