Nursing is hard.

We had a nursing meeting the other day and at the end of it our boss said the quote that she had recently read, and it was when you’re having a bad day or wondering why you chose this field to work in that you should think back to that patient that really reminded you why you do what you do that patient that made a difference in your life as much as you did in theirs. I thought back to the text-tone on my patient’s phone the night I was assigned 11 patients and was the only nurse, my second year of nursing. I remembered the first baby I did compressions on in the ER, with her grandmother wailing her name, begging for her heart to beat again, for her to take a breath. I remembered the doctor just standing there, arms crossed, of no absolute assistance. I remember being SO glad it was shift change, and more hands and minds were filtering in to help. I remember my first adult code, and the fact that not 14 hours earlier she had been a DNR, but asked the doctor to revoke it earlier that morning. Y’all. Nursing is hard. 

One shift, in 2025, I experienced all angles of nursing. I took care of a postop patient in their 20s, I took care of a pregnant mom in her 20s through the end of her labor into the delivery of a beautiful little boy. The best part of that labor and delivery was that her strip was concerning throughout the last several hours of her labor, and her amniotic fluid was meconium stained so there was concern for the baby, but her baby was born cried immediately was very healthy beautiful perfect little baby baby. And at the end of my shift I took care of a mom in her 30s who was 23 weeks pregnant with a known fetal demise. She hadn’t felt her baby move in over 48 hours, came in for an Ultrasound, and no heartbeat was found. This wasn’t her first pregnancy, the last three were living. Her husband accompanied her and we gave her medication to induce contractions and help dilate her cervix so this baby that was no longer alive could pass through. Honestly the patient did pretty well throughout the night but was having some pressure late this morning and since she is not a first time mom kind of knew the signs of the start of delivering a baby and different feelings. She said she felt pressure down there and some burning and I stepped out to grab something and came back, the other nurse helping me was there and there was this beautiful little boy. He was perfect in every way, just tiny, but a true and tight knot in his cord and the cord was wrapped around his body a couple times and his neck a couple times. This baby had been strangled by the one thing that transfers life giving nutrients to his little preborn brain and body. And it’s very hard to see something so small and helpless and know that there’s nothing I can do to help them but even more to see that mom because there’s nothing she did wrong but here we are and this is a part of her story now.

All those things took place in 1 shift a couple years ago, and it wasn’t even my craziest shift. Arguably, March 14th of this year was the craziest. Being the ER nurse on when a mass casualty incident occurs, is just insane. Recently my dad was in the ER for some shortness of breath. We were sitting waiting on his troponin, there was an elderly patient across the hall talking/yelling because of being hard of hearing, about why they were here. There was a kid crying in the next room. And a possibly broken bone in the next. My dad says, ‘you really see all types back here don’t you? Cancer, babies, old people, sick people.’ And yeah, he’s right. About 4 days later, I’m sitting with him in the hospital, and he says, ‘you guys really exist in like your own little space in this town. Nobody even realizes what you guys are up to out here, just in your own little different world.’

And it’s true. Rural nursing is so variable and changing and unpredictable. Many nurses in the facility I work for work in labor and delivery, as well as the emergency room, and also medical/surgical/floor nursing. We see SUCH a variety in ‘conditions,’ ages, sicknesses, surgeries, and emergencies. We truly live in our own world, and function so well in it. I am proud of the nurse I am today, though I have seen things I’ll never unsee. Right now, I can barely even picture the baby that was lost, the little body, intricate details woven by God. I’m sure it’s His mercy that allows me to not remember. (And the fact that I truly have a devastatingly terrible memory that absolutely no matter what cannot be trusted.) I’ve seen some nasty wounds, and gnarly scarring. I’ve seen many beautiful babies be born. I’ve closed the eyes of deceased patients, of all ages. I haven’t seen ‘it all,’ but I’ve seen quite a bit in my 11 years of practice. And God uses it all, to make me a better nurse, a better human, a better friend, and a better relative.  

*I (not coincidentally) originally started writing this in first quarter of the hardest year of my life, 2022. If you asked me today, in 2025, what the worst thing I have seen in the ER was, I’d say nothing is worse than what I saw in my brother’s backyard. I’d say nothing will ever traumatize me more than doing compressions on a loved one. You don’t simply forget that. You don’t unsee anything from that day, if you were there, you remember it. I’d say compartmentalizing work, and leaving it AT work, is oh so easy, because my world changed in July 2022, and I will never ever be the same. I will never be the same person, the same aunt, the same sister, the same nurse, or even the same believer. It is still painful, but God. God has used it, and is using me and teaching me through it.