"....wading through a shitstorm of people....."

Yes, it's official.

I'm hooked.

Many people in my life will say "Well duh...." But for some reason I didn't make it to the second episode of Nurse Jackie when it was originally airing. It wasn't because the show wasn't good enough, but timing... my timing... was off.

In this age of "come back and view it later" when you can more often than not go to the website of a show and catch up on episodes, I find myself doing just that. If I miss a premiere episode or a couple just after, I won't try to come back in. Instead, I like to have one of those vegetative days where I just marathon a program, catch up on rest and catch up on the show I've been missing.

Nurse Jackie is nearly every nurse's chance to say "Hell yeah!" because the writer's allow Jackie to say and do the things we were never able to. Don't get me wrong. MUCH of what she's doing is SO very illegal. I even found myself toward the end of my marathon beginning to feel worry because she's going to get in trouble sooner or later. I mean... shave a corner here... OK.... do a little trickery there... well.... gotcha covered. But by the end I'm starting to fear for my OWN non-existent nursing licence!

My fellow blogger RadioPeter is thinking about nursing school. I think that this show is a great primer for wannabe nurses. OK, forget the part about how easy it may seem to steal and freebase Oxycontin (it's not... you WILL get caught) but the real, raw look into what nursing is and what they go through is unapologetically placed on the screen and BAM.. that's it.

In one scene Jackie's nursing student feels like she just can't do the job. Sometimes that's a sign for you to tell the student "Yes, you're right, get the F out now and go into stenography because all YOU want is a doctor husband..." But there are some that you KNOW they have the spirit for it and while the job is crap, you don't want them washed out by it. Jackie lays it out in a line that will be cheered by me for a long time:

What's this about? Nobody ate your muffins? You found an ear in the toilet? So what? You know what this job is honey? This job is wading through a shit storm of people who come into this place on the very worst day of their lives. Just so you know, doctors are here to diagnose, not heal. We heal. All saints is in the business of flipping beds. That's it. End of story. The fact that you have even the slightest inclination to help people puts you miles ahead of 100 percent of the population. So stop crying, okay? Buck up. If you need to cry, go do it in the ladies' room. Is that clear?

Tonight's episode is the season finale. All I can say is I hope Edie Falco is enjoying her hiatus... cuz lady, you better get back to the set soon because if I can't watch you find new ways to incorrectly take your illegal pain meds... I may have to try them myself.

Saying goodbye to the ER.... again

(Sit Back - Long post ahead - beware, though, I talk of ER and death)
Last Thursday was the final episode of ER after a 15 year long run on TV. I was there for the pilot episode and, despite a couple of years missing, I was there for the final episode.

I hadn't really watched ER for a while, but watching the final episode was like coming back home although a few new family members had moved in.

If you've watched the series over the years, you know the people and the story lines. But I think, as I watched the special 'look back' show and the final episode, my health care career was a bit like Noah Wylie's "Dr. Carter".

If you didn't know, before I was a convention planner, I was in Emergency Room Nursing. My path the the ER took a few different steps out of the ordinary (like my entire life) but it was funny to see the evolution of Dr. Carter in one evening made me see the similarity but also made me very nostalgic for my hospital days. My journey started stumbling and a few "oops" moments in the line of trying to do the right thing.

I started my health care career in Cardiology performing EKG's. It was a job at the hospital I grew up in. One of my first patients in the ER was Miss Daisy Dean Cleveland. She was my first grade teacher and a deeply religious woman. She would be the stereotypical 'Old School Marm' you read about in history. Here I was, in my early twenties, and I'm placing electrodes around this woman's breasts. I was professional, of course, but I could feel my face flaming so hot you could have melted smores on my face. She recognized my embarrassment and talked to me about how proud she was to see one of her students helping people and tried to ease my embarrassment.

After crossing over to the Emergency Room I saw and experienced things John Q. Public only sees on TV. H0wever, believe me, it's nothing like seeing it first hand. I've seen more death in 10 years than I've ever needed to see. After a while you build up a shield to protect yourself. You still care, don't get me wrong, but imagine how you'd feel if you didn't have that callous protection. I didn't realize I needed that protection until I saw the death that still haunts me.

A family was in a car wreck. Parents and 2 children. The youngest daughter was 5 years old. She was one of those patients that far more injured on the inside than the outside. She didn't have any visible blood, but everything inside was broken, and she essentially passed as we moved her onto the ER bed. Her eyes were moving as if she were looking for someone. Her last word "Mommy?" is in my ears all these 22 years later.

I was always very careful with patients when they passed. Some staff become what I consider rough with the deceased since they could not feel. But all I could think of was "Would I want my mom handled that way when she passes?"

When a person is considered dead, or past the point of any help, you can often still find a heartbeat especially if they're hooked up to the heart monitors. We may state a 'time of death' but if the heart was still beating, I felt that the person was, or could still be, still with us. I sometimes would stay with the person, hold their hand, or simply just be there with them until the very end.

With all the barriers and protections I put up in my mind, it was still hard every time someone was lost. However, often times these bad instances were (thankfully) balanced by the positive outcomes. Fore every death, there were more saves. There were also some of the funniest stories I've retold and put into my comedy act. Tune in for another blog post to get some of the funny parts of ER life. :)