How to be a model nurse.

Another essay by Corinne. (I'm on a roll, what can I say?)

Worked a twelve last night in the ICU part of the NICU. Critical kids all night long. I'm exhausted. BUT. Emma spent the night at her dad's house last night, and today is picture day at school. I'm not really going to take my chances that her hair and everything else will be completely ignored. SO. I made a deal with Dad that he would drop the Memma off at my house on his way to work so that I could get her ready for school pictures. She'd be late but hey guess what? Today we are working on the premise that beauty is more important that grades. Because not only am I the best nurse ever, I am also the world's best mother.

So I throw the kid in the tub, blowdry her hair (The kid has the prettiest hair!), put her in a DRESS (Cue lots of whining from Emma about having to wear a dress. I pull the "when I was a kid I had to wear a dress to church every Sunday for FOUR HOURS SOMETIMES MORE SO SHUT IT LUCKY CHILD" card. She doesn't care. Whining continues.) and get the kid in the car.

We're finally on the road. I've been up for nineteen hours now. I'm tired and any caffeine I ingested earlier in the morning has completely worn off. I'm a little grumpy over the fact that when dad dropped her off at my house he hadn't signed the homework that he watched her do yesterday or even packed her a lunch. I'm driving, singing along with Michael Jackson with Emma but secretly plotting a way to get him audited by the IRS. (Just kidding. Mostly.)

Driving, driving, driving. (We've moved so it's a bit of a haul to Emma's school now.) Look, a Haflinger! Look, cows! Oh look, a car crashed into a pole with a few guys standing around it.

Crap.

I have driven past accidents before. Yeah, yeah, I'm medically trained. I should stop to see if everyone is alright. I have a moral obligation to society to make sure that there's not someone bleeding out. But realistically, I have shit to DO peoples. I can't be everyones Superman, er....woman. And let's face it, unless you weigh less than twelve pounds there's a good chance I won't know what to do with you.

So I roll down the window at the red light.

"I'm a nurse. Everyone ok?"

Gawking Construction Worker Number One explains that there is a woman in the car who seems to have had a seizure and hit a few cars but that's she ok. She's sitting in the driver's seat looking confused but not bleeding. They can't find the cars that she hit. (What the....?) I appropriately grimace.

The light turns green.

There's a semi gunning his engine behind me.

So what do I do?

I do what any Nurse with compassion would do. A nurse who has been trained to always put the needs of others above her own. I do what a nurse who is now running on physical and emotional fumes would do with a nine year-old complaining about her tights in the backseat.

I yell "Good Luck!" out the window and drive away.

And THAT, my friends, is how to live up to all of your nursing instructors' expectations of you and leave a very confused Gawking Construction Worker in the dust.