So, if there’s anything I like to “brag” about myself, it’s the fact that I think that I have a lot of patience. Patience, meaning that I don’t get easily upset when things don’t go my way… patience, meaning that I’m willing to explain something to someone 10 times, 8 different ways… patience, meaning that I’m willing to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of things and understand that everything will not happen right away… patience meaning more than just waiting… more like being understanding and considerate of others, more like willing to take the long way of doing things to make sure things are done right, or more like being comfortable in being uncomfortable, knowing in the end things will still be okay..
So, being PCA, I’ve been stuck with a few patients that required more patience than I thought I had. One patient was developmentally delayed, blind, deaf and kept hurting himself despite being in restraints while yelling spontaneously at random times of the night. Another patient had dementia, spoke another language, kept trying to get out of bed and refused any care from anyone. Another patient was going through alcohol withdrawal symptoms and was extremely irritable. And of course, there is the patient who is always asking for pain meds and severely complaining of constipation, but still wanting pain meds knowing that it’s causing the constipation. On the surface, it sounds manageable, for a while. But spend 12 hours with these people and it’s a completely different story. In my mind, I understand that psychologically, physically, and emotionally, these people have certain deficits. They can’t understand. They can’t be logical, or rational, or reasonable, or even care about anyone else. So what are you supposed to do? They don’t really teach you that in nursing school. Not really.
One of my philosophies in life that I’ve applied in healthcare is “to leave people better than when you first met them.” To me, especially with these patients, I didn’t see myself doing that at all. I was seriously annoyed half the time. At the end of the day, I was more tired from trying to control my own frustration rather than tired from actually taking care of them. I had a nurse that came in to check up on us tell me, “wow, you really look so tired.” In my head, I feel like, okay, it’s fine to be frustrated, this is new. But the extent of my frustration is that great that I feel really guilty reflecting on everything I was feeling in that moment.
Well, like I said before, I thought that I have a lot of patience. But after these few weeks taking care of and sitting for these patients, I’m really testing that. At the same time I feel that my patience is growing. I feel like I’m growing in an unexpected way. When I’m driving and someone cuts me off, I’m not mad. When I can’t find my car keys and I’ve been looking for an unreasonable amount of time, I’m not stampeding through my family the way I did before. When the internet is slow, I’m not flipping all the tables in the house 😛 All the little things that bugged me before don’t bug me as much. I think dealing with bigger things that have forced me to be more patient helped me to see that there are more important things going on, there are others dealing with a lot more than me, and that everyone is seriously going through something I have no knowledge of, big or small.
There are a lot of other factors. But experiencing these new things are giving me a greater appreciation for other things greater than myself. I really hate being in a PCA position instead of an RN position, but I’m really learning so many different things. I feel like I’ll be that much more prepared when I do step into that RN role and even though I’m really frustrated about it right now, I still trust that everything’s going to happen at the right time. Patience! I thought I had it hahaha But I’m glad that I’m still growing 🙂