Friday Date Night

Happy Friday!

Fridays can be bittersweet as a nurse.

Sweet because tonight is date night for my man and I!

Bitter because I have to work all weekend.

As I was getting ready for our date tonight, I had this flashback to college when I used to get ready for Jon to pick me up on Friday nights! I looked forward to him picking me up ALL week long...and took quite some time to make sure I looked as excited as I felt! For some reason tonight, I had that same feeling!

Which is awesome...because after being married for almost seven years (7!?!) and being together for 10 I still get that feeling! That excited, happy, butterflies feeling on date night!

It won't be a late date since I'm working tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to some good sushi and whatever else Jon has planned!

And speaking of work...I know I haven't blogged in almost 2 weeks. That's partly because I have been taking care of the same patient for the past 14 weeks with no real change. He is still intubated, paralyzed, sedated, and crazy sick.

But its also partly because this patient is the one in which episodes such as this are not all that uncommon anymore. I have been hung up on one other time, yelled at, sworn (sweared?) at, and had to bring this lady down too many times to count.

I'm really not sure WHY I'm still taking care of this patient based on how she treats myself and the other 3 nurses that care for her son.

Well, yes, I do. He is super sick. He may never get better. And if his mother is not willing to spend much time with him, then I can at least give him 40 hours of my time.

So the lack of blogging is mostly in efforts for me to not turn this into a 2 hour long rant about how she treats me despite me taking the absolute best care of her son. I've used the same tactic...silence...with her a few times, and it seems to work.

The self-talk after a really rude comment (eg: I'm sorry I'm taking my anger out on you [don't be deceived that this is an actual apology...wait for it...] you're JUST A NURSE. You can't do anything. The only thing you can do is whatever the doctor tells you.) Yes, this comment happened.

But back to my self-talk: "Despite the fact that you are seething in anger, and you are not JUST a nurse...you ARE A NURSE!!!...turn around and look productive. But most importantly, DO NOT talk for 2 minutes. Because if you do, whatever comes out of your mouth will most likely get you fired!"

And I still have my job...so my silence for 2 minutes seems to work. In that time, I just keep reminding myself that her son is really, really sick. And I can't imagine being in her place. I pray I never have to be. So regardless of how she treats others, I will continue to kill her with my kindness. And pretend that her comments weren't actually said out loud.

So to fully prepare me for a weekend of kindness, I'm off to date night! I may need 2 minutes of silence before I run around all giddy when he comes home from work and gab so fast in excitement that he can't even understand me. On second thought, that will definitely make him laugh (and think I'm slightly crazy) so I think I'll skip it. Plus, I need to save up those silences just in case : )

Hope you have a great Friday...and a Happy St. Patricks weekend!