Ramblings, Ravings, and Rants From An RN Student

On November 14th Frederick Banting was born. In 1921 he and Charles Best discovered and isolated insulin in a lab in Canada. Today, November is diabetes awareness month and November 14 is World Diabetes Day. It is supposed to be a time to raise awareness, but let me tell you what it really means.

In the almost 100 years since insulin was discovered we have been given better insulin and better technology. I wear an insulin pump that continually gives me insulin. The pump talks to my continuous blood glucose monitor. This monitor reads my blood glucose every 5 minutes. If it is too low, my insulin pump will suspend insulin delivery. This has saved my life countless times. My insulin pump is smaller than a cell phone and charges like one. Go ahead, be jealous that Iron Man and I have something common. We’re both kept alive by by a piece of technology and a key molecule. It’s pretty cool.

However without that initial discovery, my pump wouldn’t matter. My glucose monitor wouldn’t matter. I’d have never finished my first year of college. I’d never go to nursing school. I’d never pass NCLEX and become a nurse. I’d never see my sister get marired. I’d never go to Amsterdam. I’d never adopt my cat (shout out to Minnie Moo). I’d never get my first “big girl job”. I would be dead. That’s not an exaggeration.

So on this day, I am grateful for those determined scientists. I am grateful they sold the rights for $1 to make insulin accessable. I am grateful for technology that makes diabetes easier. Mainly, I am grateful for my life.

How do you thank someone for your life, though? It’s priceless. It’s so much more than just one thing. It’s all the things I got to do because of what they did. The only words I can think of are thank you. Thank you, for all the experiences I’ve had because you gave me my life.

Hello internet world. Here’s a little story that I hope teaches you something. This weekend was my weekend to work. This means I dutifully gave up my time away from my own family and friends to to take care yours or someone like yours. I chose this job. So I ain’t that mad about it.

The benefit (or sometimes downfall) of working 3 days in a row is that you get the same group of patients every night. I had the pleasure of caring for one patient for 3 nights who was wonderful and kind and appreciative. Their attitude was better for someone in their circumstances (that’s all you get because HIPAA yo) than most people’s would have been. I’ll call them Patient A. Another patient I had the pleasure (sarcasm font here) of caring for was rude, hateful, and sometimes uncooperative. The complete opposite of A. I’ll call them Patient B.

Upon leaving this morning and introducing Patient A to their day nurse they gave me a hug and said “you are the best nurse. Thank you for everything.” They almost had tears in their eyes. Then they gave me the box of cookies they didn’t want. Patient B did no such thing. Like imagine the opposite.

The thing is I gave them the same standard of care. There was nothing I did differently. After a long weekend of busy patients and dealing with someone who was not greatful for my care, those two words meant everything to me. Enough to bring tears to my eyes as I drove home this morning.

I’ve struggled with writing this for the last few weeks, but it’s been laying on my heart so I’m going with it.

Every time you turn on the tv something turmoltuous is happening. A mass shooting, a hurricane, the president saying or doing something, a scandal. This usually is followed by a barrage of Facebook posts and tweets. Which is then followed by someone responding in a vicious way with a name because they disagree. I think my heart hurts more seeing how terrible people are to each other (usually complete strangers) than from the actual event. There is so much hate and nastiness being put forth.

I may not go to church every Sunday or read the Bible regularly but I did go to Sunday school. The thing I remember from the those days is that God is about love and kindness. Not judgement and name calling. Whether you believe in God, Allah, or Oprah it’s a very simple idea. Be kind to each other. “Love thy neighbor as you love thy self.”. If you’re not religious it’s the golden rule. “Treat others the the way you want to be treated”.

There is no caveat to those statements. It’s not, be kind to people unless you disagree with them. It’s not, be kind to people unless you’re having a bad day. It’s not, be kind to people unless they’ve been mean to you. It’s simply be kind to people.

I see so much preaching about we need to come together and unite. Then I see someone calling someone they disagree with a name. We aren’t all ever going to agree. Or saying they refuse to work with people of certain groups. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Even if we think they are wrong. They still deserve respect.

Until we can get back to this very basic idea we will never begin to fix the issues the we so desperately want/need to. Let’s start with another golden rule...”If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.”

At the end of the day we are all deeply flawed people. We need to give each other a little more grace and patience. Sometimes if you’re kind you find out that a person is actually really cool and interesting. It’s worth it. Plus it’s a lot easier to be kind than carrying around anger and rudeness. I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes.

“Faith, hope, and love are some good things He gave us. The greatest is love.”

Also here is a picture of my fluffer, Minnie because she’s cute and makes me happy .

I have officially been a college graduate for 4 months, and a registered nurse for 2. I’m slowly settling into my new life in Kansas. it has been nice to reconnect with old friends, but I’m still waiting for it to feel like home. Moving back to my dad’s has been tough. I miss having my own space. Working at Walgreens is still the same old shit, just with new people,. 

Each time I precept I still get anxious and clam up a lot. Little newborn babies terrify me when they come in. I adore them, but touching them and holding them is terrifying to me. In spite of this I still very much want to do peds. Yet, I find ways to avoid doing rectal temperatures because for some reason it terrifies me. I can’t seem to get past this simple basic skill.