Who You Gonna Call?

I wanna be a nurse! Well, I am a nurse, technically. I'm licensed in 2 states as a registered nurse. I'm just not employed right now. I really miss working as a RN. Nursing is a second career for me. After high school I went to college and was fortunate to have been adopted by a family who could afford to send me to college. I don't think I truly appreciated the magnitude of my good fortune. My Dad strongly encouraged me to study something practical/useful, but I didn't heed his wise advice, and ended up getting a BA in Psychology, and 3 minors, Philosophy, English and Sociology. NOT marketable, but a really fun 4 years. I did listen to him about taking a typing course at least, and earned extra money typing my classmates term papers, and after graduation was aable to find employment in the computer area, and thanks to Dad's wisdom, having a degree, got promoted to supervisory roles. My Natural ability to like language, the English minor, (and 2 years of required Latin) I was able to build a small home medical transcription business.  After my husband died, and our 4 kids were older, I took out loans, and while working full-time (and overtime) at a hospital doing medical transcription, I put myself through nursing school. As a new grad, I took a position as a nusing supervisor at a large facility that was mostly long term care, with a small sub-acute rehab unit. I really enjoyed that job. It was while working there that I met George. After being single for 13 years, I really didn't think I'd ever meet anyone I could really connect with. I was wrong. All 4 kids liked him. He not only liked NASCAR  as much as I did, he was on a pit crew. He lived in another state, over an hour away from me, and for a while, he drove to my house everyday, and I'd see him after work, and on weekends. The facility I worked at was a chain, and I didn't know how much trouble it was in, but I was feeling the effects of the under-staffing, and being asked to work doubles more & more frequently. This was at the same time that I had started to spend weekends at George's house. It was over an hour from my house, which was 45 minutes from where I worked. I didn't want to leave when Sunday's came, sometimes I'd put it off, and had started leaving spare scrubs at George's house and leave really early Mondays and go straight to work from his house house; reallly long commute. Eventually we decided maybe I should look for a position nearer to him. I applied for a license in his state and once that was taken care of, I was astonished to be offered a position as Assistant Director of Nursing at a psych hospital. It seemed too good to be true. Well, it was, and I started looking for something else. I had never worked in an acute care setting, and really wanted that experience. I applied at hospitals near George's house. They all said the same thing; no acute care experience, no longer a new grad, sorry. I ended up contacting the hospital I had worked at while I was in nursing school. I had almost 5 years with them, as a medical transcriptionist, and had also done many of my clinicals there. They did say the same thing, that I wasn't a new grad, and had no acute care experience, but agreed to let me attend some of the new grad program classes. They did expect me to work independently sooner than they expected a new grad to. My schedule was three 12-hour shifts, and I had a 2-hour commute each way. I started in January, and it was a very snowy, stormy winter. I was driving in some terrible conditions, but I knew what I was getting into when I started, and I felt lucky to be given the opportunity. I was spending about $80.00 daily in fuel (needing 4WD most of the time) but to me it was like free education. Nobody up here would give me a chance, and this hospital was training me! I was on a cardiac telemetry step-down unit -- sort of a 'step-down from the intensive care unit'. These patients were really unstable. In my first job I was responsible for running codes - I had had to do CPR, RN pronouncements (announce time of death and do the associated paperwork), decide when people needed to be sent to acute care hospitals, or psych stays, but even though I'd had a lot of responsbility, the fragility of these cardiac patients was intense. I saw my preceptor get shocked because she wasn't paying attention when the doctor said "clear" before he pressed the button for the paddles on a patient who was crashing. She went about a foot in the air.

She was angry. Not just about that. She was much younger than I am. She had gone straight into nursing from high school, it's all she'd ever done. She was really good at it. Even though she probably had about 3 or 4 years experience, it was all in this setting, and she was clearly impatient with me, which made me nervous, which seemed to make her more annoyed, and I felt like she thought I was stupid, and she would ask me questions in front of lots of people and say things like "why don't you know this? You should know this!" I got very self-conscious and was afraid to speak for fear of saying something wrong. Other nurses would come up to me privately and say that she shouldn't be talking to me like that, or treating me the way she was, but nobody had the nerve to say anything directly to her. It all became a huge viscious circle, and ultimately she complained to the unit manager that I "didn't get it" and I really couldn't defend myself that I did, because I was such a jumble of nerves all the time that I really couldn't think. So even though I did learn a lot, I probably actually lost money working there, and my self-esteem took a huge hit. I didn't feel like a nurse. I felt like a fraud. I felt like I had somehow passed the nursing boards by mistake, and doubted if I could be successful anywhere. I left with my tail between my legs, and started looking for a job.

I did find a job, in a non-traditional setting, again as a supervisor. The job involved a lot of traveling, some out of state. My direct supervisor was 2 states away. I was in training, and driving home one night when my son, who lives with us, called to say George was being taken to the hospital by ambulance. We arranged to meet and go to the hospital. There was supposed to be a meeting the next morning at 9am with the out of state higher ups, so I called one of the other suoervisors to let her know that I was on my way to the hospital, and didn't know what was going on yet, but might be late for the meeting. I continued to the hospital. Apparently George had had a major GI hemorrhage. He was unconscious. I was about to be let in to see him and speak to the MD when my phone rang, and it's "Larry" from work, my superior. He just started in -- 'Let me ask you something. Do you want your job? I don't know what's going on with your boyfriend/husband/fiance or whatever the hell he is, but if you want your F%&*$#@ job, you'll be at that meeting tomorrow, ON TIME!'

He continued yelling at me, and I asked his permission to hang up, if I called him back. He said "see that you do" and I went in to see George. George ended up being in the ICU for over a week and needing 8 units of blood. I almost lost him. I did go to the meeting the next day, and made it on time. They asked me what I was going to do the rest of the day, and I said I was going back to the hospital. The next day was my scheduled day off, when I went into work on Friday, they terminated me.

In a way I was relieved. I didn't want to be there. Once George got home, I wanted to be with him. I wanted to keep an eye him. I didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to miss something.

A few months later we were driving to visit a family member, about 3 hours from home, and as we came around a curve, there was a car overturned and lying on its side in the other lane. George had been with me long enough at this point to know he had to stop and let me out, and I keep a bag in the car with me. I grabbed my bag and got out to go to the woman lying near the overturned car, George continued on up the hill, to try to warn approaching traffic that the lane was blocked. I had to crawl across the highway due to the icy conditions. As he got to the crest of the hill, a speeding van lost control on the ice, bounced off the guardrail, and spun into the car, spinning the car into me, and then righting it, on top of me. George slid down the hill, and all that wasn't under the car was my head and one arm. He said I was screaming to get it off me. With help, he was able to lift the car off me, while under his instruction, another man pulled me free. Life flight was called but couldn't take off due to weather. Ambulances arrived, couldn't get up the hill due to ice, stopped to apply chains, and finally arrived for the first victim and me. The first hospital I was taken to said I needed a trauma center, so I was rerouted to a different hospital, and George was called, and arrived before I did. He called my kids, and they came too. I was there quite a while, had surgery, and a blood transfusion, and may have to have more surgery. It's been painful, but I know I'm really lucky.

I don't remember the accident. They stitched up my head. George said my head wound was so deep he could see my skull. Since all my doctors were in the state where the accident happened, I haven't been able to follow up with them. (insurance issues) I finally saw a really great doctor last week. She told me that the type of injury I had would cause memory problems. I told her that was a relief, because I thought I was suffering from what my kids call "Old-Timers Disease".

My dilemma, one of them, is with my lack of confidence already being so profound, it's really scary to contemplate working with any type of memory impairment, and that's if physically I can do the work, and that's if I can convince anyone to hire me, because I'm still facing the same obstacles that hindered my job search even before George got sick, and before I had the accident; no real acute care experience, and I'm not a new grad, so getting the training, and/or experience is a huge hurdle. I've just further complicated the whole situation now. Now I don't know:

• Can I physically do the job of a nurse?
• Is the rap on the head going to make orienting to a new job too difficult/possible?  
• Would I be better off to just accept that I CAN'T be nurse again?
• Is accepting that I can't work as a nurse again really just giving up? I worked really hard to be a nurse, and I love it. I don't want to give up! I'm not sure where unreasonable begins and acceptance ends.

• I don't know who to talk to about any of this....

Life on Sick-A-More Street

I smoked my first joint when I was 15 in a Burger King bathroom. I have a grandson who's 14. Can I imagine him doing that next year? NO WAY!!  I've been an active drug user at different points in my life. I started at six weeks old. I  found my 'babybook' and in that was the key to Wilbur's bragging about how when they adopted me I slept through the night from six-weeks old, on. Tucked in that book also were some yellowed slips of paper, written instructions from my pediatrician, when I was six weeks old, and at regular intervals thereafter, to adminster my mouth, Paregoric, "h.s" (at bedtime) nightly. Paregoric is like liquid Opium. It's a controlled drug today, it's sometimes prescribed for partcularly persistant diarrhea. There have been deaths associated with improper dispensing. A young woman in Conn. died when the pharmacy incorrectly printed the amount to be taken. It has a very strong taste. Wibur made it very palatable however. She probably didn't bother at six weeks old, but I'm sure once I was able to give her much of a problem, she came upon her recipe. It was genuis; about 1/4 cup Karo syrup, lemon juice, and Paregoric. I remember coming home from kindergarten, Wibur passed out on the couch, usually I'd ask her for some, tell her I had a sore thoat or something. If she was already out though, I could have as many tablespoons as I wanted, and when I asked for it that night before bed, and she saw it was gone, she'd say, "do you want it in cocoa?" and of course I did. That was another treat. No wonder I like those Jamacain coffee drinks. I just had to say I couldn't sleep, or any complaint that could potentially interfere with her own plans, and I got it. And the pediatrician was friends with Dad and Wibur's friends, and my godparents, Aunt Connie and uncle Fred. She, an anorexic nurse, he a talented, wealthy, good-looking physician, if somewhat less than loyal husband, I don't judge that situation, it isn't my place. He was always good to me, I think. It was a close-knit club, secrets were kept in a vault,and secrets then, wouldn't be today.

I was in a great big hurry to move away from Sick-a-More Street. I wanted to be like other people, and I felt so different from everyone else. I didn't know anyone else who was adopted back then, and very few only children. Nobody had a mother like mine. Wilbur would morph into some other kind of strange-acting, slurring, persona, whose southern accent returned despite living in New England for many years. If I got invited to a friends house their mothers were always awake, maybe baking cookies, or doing something with a sibling, (something I desperately wished I had). I would occasionally, be so bold and silly as to ask my mother if I could ever have a sister, and was always met with a variance of the same response; 'Not taking any chances, it might be like you'. Eventually I smartened up and stopped asking. It just seemed like a good idea for my mother to see that another kid might have some faults too, so that she'd stop holding me up to these impossible standards that nobody could meet, but she kept comparing to all the good things she heard people boast about their kids, and told me what a horrible disappointment I was.

I had a couple sleepovers. One in particular caused such embarrassment I locked myself in the bathroom. Wilbur had gotten particularly hammered that night, and Dad was away on business. Wilbur decided my guest and I could have donut for a snack, IF we sat at the dining room table with linen napkins and used a silver knife and fork to eat it. Knowing this would get back to school I potested, to no avail. How does one reason with a drunk who doesn't like you to start with? It was a big deal to me at the time, and started to cry, and embarrassed locked myself in the bathroom. Wilbur just yelled louder. I don't remember how it ended. I remember that a couple of weeks later when I was invited to stay at her house she and her mother had an argument, and her mother said "Stop now. You don't want to be like that Smith girl and her mother do you?" No more sleepovers after that.

There were other incidents and accidents along the way. Mostly resulting in me getting sent to my room by my father, and never any acknowledgment of Wilbur doing any wrong. Some were physical, others emotional, or both. The donut was big though. I don't remember the physical pain so much but I've been told about some of the physical things by neighbors or relatives, but people didn't get into others business back then.
My plan was to join the Army and be an air-traffic controller. In April of my senior year when I was making my final plans with my recruiter, I asked if I should bring my own inhaler, or would the Army provide one. The recruiter, in astonishment asked "Your what?".  My inhaler, for asthma , I explained. That was the end of that plan. Now, apparently there are waivers for asthma, but not then.

Wilbur wanted me to go to a local girls college and live at home. Not gonna happen! My best (and preety much only) friend was going to college 500 miles away on a scholarship. I decided to go there. It was in the Appalachian mountains. I told Dad, and we sent for the application. I was accepted, and he and Wilbur drove me down there. She sat in the car as Dad and I carried my suitcases up to my dorm room. I knew I was starting the best years of my life. Living away from Wilbur, with other people my age. That night an upper classman invited me to her room. I went,and she was using a thin staw to suck white powder up her  nose. She asked me to try it. I had a real thing about getting water up my nose, I didn't think that would feel good at all. I left and went back to my own room.

My jr. high school sweetheart hadn't come down yet. We had met when I was 13 and he was 14. His parents hated me, and mine weren't fond of him. Dad made it clear that if I got married he wasn't paying for school, but when he found out Bob might move down there he threatened to get a restraining order, and Bob's parents were even more livid, in addition to being angry at my parents for trying to tell their son what he could or couldn't do. A few weeks later Bob arrived, got an apartment and a job working in strip mining. And they were 4 of the best years of my life. We got married 2 months after I graduated. By then my parents totally accepted, even loved Bob. His parents and sisters still hated me.

Two and a half years later our daughter was born. Beautiful and wonderful. A miracle. I'd never been so happy. We lived about two miles from my parents, 15 from his. My father came to see me in the hospital when I had her. My mother sat in the car with the dog. The first time she saw my daughter was 3-1/2 months later when Dad brought her over. She was wasted. At Dad's urging that she go down the hall and look in the nursery, she bounced off a couple walls into the bathroom and finally stated "there's no baby in there". My father told her it was farther down on the right, and I guess she wandered in, and then I out. I think Wilbur saw her. Doesn't really matter, I guess. I had three beautiful boys after that, and one miscarriage. Neither of my parents came to the hospital for any. It wasn't their thing. Although Dad did babysit when I was in labor. Nice that he was so close.  Bob's parents were much more involved. His father especially. When I was pregnant with my third he called daily for awhile, telling me to have an abortion. Giving me phone numbers, trying to convince me, or yelling or shame me into it. The tactics varied but the message didn't. Then again, Bob had been continually told since marrying me that his bedroom was waiting for him and all he had to do was say the word and his father would get him the best divorce attorney money could buy. This put a great strain on our relationship. Any couple will disagree, but he was programmed to confide everything to them, and when that happened, they had more ammunition. They'd  just say "see, you should divorce her". At one point the strain was great enough that I moved out and even got an apartment. Much later, after we had 4 kids he moved out, and his father did get him that good attorney. Now we were reduced to sneaking behind our parents backs again to see each other. He said once "I'd ask you to marry me, but that's so hard to do when you're divorcing someone." Then he was diagnosed with leukemia. He was gone 3 weeks later. That was August 25, 1993 (my grandmother's birthday, who I named my daughter after). He had written a letter, it wasn't dated, but in it, he said his one wish was that his two families would get together. I want that for him. I stopped at his father's house once with one of my sons, and that was disastrous. I don't have any illusions that I'll be part of it, but I'd like his father to see his son's kids. Maybe they can have a relationship before its too late. Bob would be so proud of who they are and what they've overcome.