Tuesday's Blog- October 3

Thirty years in September- a nurses memoir
Kate Genovese 

"Nurses are there when babies are born, old people die, human beings ill or injured; it is up to us nurses, as a collective group, to keep this art of caring alive so that it can be passed on, generated into the next century so it won't end up a lost art" (Genovese 140).

After Kate's mom died from cancer her exhaustion continued as well as her apathetic state of mind. She was upset and needed a break after working for a straight four years. After her break she questioned where she was going to go from here. She was going to be a nurse for thirty years in September. She did not think she could continue this career for another twenty years till she retired. Kate said work has become increasingly busy and stressful. But she decided to continued her career as a nurse. As time went on and Kate was reminiscing about her past she never thought she would've became a nurse. She reflected on all the people she had taken care of in the past three decades and how much of a better person she felt. She had taken care of hundreds, even thousands, of patients. She thought of the passion and enthusiasm she had for nursing when she first started out, eager to wanting to help and heal. She never thought she would've made it this far. But in the end, she said this was the best profession she could have chose because she changed her life for the better, and even made differences in patients lives.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=nursing

This connects to me because I want to be apart of that "next century". I have always dreamed of helping people that needed help since I was a little kid. Beginning of this school year, a friend and I decided to  shadowed the emergency room of Melrose-Wakfeild Memorial Hospital. I thought it was a great experience. I learned so much from just a short five hours and a lot of what I learned has been repeated in both the books I have read this Quarter. A lot of the patients I saw that day were older people who were either sick or had mental/physical problems. One lady I saw that day made me realized how much I wanted to be a nurse. This lady was an older lady who seemed very independent. She came to the emergency room because she had been shopping at JcPenney and was five feet away from her car when her leg gave out while she was about to leave. She face-planted onto the cement and had a large laceration on her forehead that was filled with rocks and dirt with blood dripping down her face. When the lady I was shadowing and myself entered the room she was in, we could tell how frantic and nervous she was. We asked her if there was anybody we could call for her. (ex. husband, wife, children, siblings, etc.) She said, "no, but I can call my friend". As we were taking her blood pressure and vital signs, she was calling her friend repeatedly. Her friend however, was not answering. At the moment she began to cry and at that moment I realized not everyone has someone that can always be there for them through tough times. I told her everything was going to be okay and that we were going to be here for her. This made me really sad and happy at the same time. I felt like I was helping someone that needed help and support and that is what I want to do in the future. I want to keep this art of caring alive, as the quote says.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=emergency%20room

This year I also became interested in becoming a maternal-neonatal nurse. But then I realized I am only a senior in high school. There are many branches of nursing and I won't completely know what I want to be until I am studying in college.