I have wanted to be a nurse ever since I was admitted to hospital as a little girl. The instinct to care was strong in me and I knew nursing was a practical way I could help others. My nursing journey started at university, but that institution was not where I gained the skills I needed. I spent my first year struggling through countless essays and assignments, and during the limited work experience days, found my practical nursing abilities to be inept at best.
Realising something had to be done, I gained a caregiving job in a large residential aged care facility - an establishment that from the surface glittered with excellence, although underneath was a different story. To get through our gruelling workload, the caregivers worked in teams of two. My new 'buddy' was a tough looking middle aged woman with faded tattoos on her face and knuckles. Contrary to her fearsome appearance, she was gentle, patient and thorough. Working together I learned to hoist, clean up endless messes of bodily fluids, wash, dress, turn and tend to our residents. As I walked (or sometimes ran) the corridors, confused and helpless patients would cry out "nurse, nurse". It made no difference to them that I did not have a qualification - the person who comforted them in their time of need was a nurse to them.
My next job was as a healthcare assistant in an acute hospital, where I held the hands of and spoke softly to confused elderly men and women, delirious due to infections, pain and anaesthesia. I reassured, re-orientated and distracted countless times. I painstakingly combed the long tangled hair of a woman made temporarily manic by an allergic reaction. I took a punch from an intellectually disabled man trying to break into the room of a patient next door. I watched over vulnerable children and mentally ill teenagers not safe enough to be left alone. I cared for people struck instantly disabled from traumatic brain injuries, and ensured that in their incomprehension they did not pull out the tubes and drains keeping them alive. Then I sat with their husbands, wives, sons and daughters, devastated by the prospect of a person and life changed for ever.
As my degree progressed, while my peers spent their weekends relaxing and partying, I worked increasing unpaid hours as a student nurse, humbly watching and learning. Awkwardly I forced myself to participate, and push through my fears to try new skills and take on more responsibility on the complex and chaotic wards. Occasionally, precious remarks from patients gave me confidence - "you will be a good nurse one day." I carefully stored away experiences and knowledge gleaned from my preceptors in the hope that one day, I too would be competent enough to take responsibility to care for the sick, disabled and dying.
In my new graduate nursing role in assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of the elderly, there is no glory, no dramatic life-saving procedures involved or cutting edge surgeries that I can say I was a part of. Most of my patients have only a few family members who take an interest in their lives; some have no one at all. They typically live with all the discomforts of old age in addition to acute and chronic medical conditions, functional dependence on others, depression, cognitive decline or delirium. An average day includes helping a patient regain some independence in feeding or washing themselves, assessing whether a patient with pneumonia is stable or deteriorating, dressing a wound that will likely never heal, administering medication safely to treat a range of symptoms and diseases, and advocating for what I believe is in the patients' best interest in discharge planning. One of my proudest moments has been nursing an elderly man receiving palliative care and ensuring he was comfortable in his last days of life.
I am there at my patients' most vulnerable moments, and am charged with caring for them in the most personal ways. I have never done great things. But to paraphrase Mother Theresa, as a nurse I can do small things with great love.
Juliet, a new graduate nurse