Nursing U's Podcast
Ep #001 - Navigating the Journey: Personal Stories and Challenges in Nursing
What drives someone to become a nurse? Caleb and Julie embark on Nursing U’s inaugural journey by sharing their deeply personal stories and inspirations.
Julie discusses how her mother’s transition from teaching to various nursing roles, such as labor and delivery and psychiatric nursing, greatly impacted her career choices. This touching story sets the scene for Nursing U’s podcast, offering a comprehensive exploration of the personal experiences that mold nurses and the many aspects of the profession.
As they navigate the complex responsibilities of nursing, Caleb and Julie's discussion highlights the confidence that is nurtured during nursing school and the challenges that new nurses face in high-pressure settings like the Intensive Care Unit. They also underscore the crucial role of solid support systems for new nurses, emphasizing how a nurturing environment can foster effective leadership within healthcare.
Burnout, healthcare stress, and the evolving nature of nursing across generations come into focus as they address the systemic challenges within the profession. From the emotional toll of patient care to the shifting priorities of younger nurses who prioritize self-care, they dive into the complexities that impact nurses today.
Through their personal stories and industry insights, Caleb and Julie emphasize the importance of finding balance and meaning in one’s nursing career. They aim to inspire and redefine the audience's understanding of this noble profession, showing that it's not just about the challenges but also about the personal growth and fulfillment that can be found in nursing.
What drives someone to become a nurse? Caleb and Julie embark on Nursing U’s inaugural journey by sharing their deeply personal stories and inspirations.
Julie discusses how her mother’s transition from teaching to various nursing roles, such as labor and delivery and psychiatric nursing, greatly impacted her career choices. This touching story sets the scene for Nursing U’s podcast, offering a comprehensive exploration of the personal experiences that mold nurses and the many aspects of the profession.
As they navigate the complex responsibilities of nursing, Caleb and Julie's discussion highlights the confidence that is nurtured during nursing school and the challenges that new nurses face in high-pressure settings like the Intensive Care Unit. They also underscore the crucial role of solid support systems for new nurses, emphasizing how a nurturing environment can foster effective leadership within healthcare.
Burnout, healthcare stress, and the evolving nature of nursing across generations come into focus as they address the systemic challenges within the profession. From the emotional toll of patient care to the shifting priorities of younger nurses who prioritize self-care, they dive into the complexities that impact nurses today.
Through their personal stories and industry insights, Caleb and Julie emphasize the importance of finding balance and meaning in one’s nursing career. They aim to inspire and redefine the audience's understanding of this noble profession, showing that it's not just about the challenges but also about the personal growth and fulfillment that can be found in nursing.
Hi, I'm Julie.
Speaker 2:And I'm Caleb. Welcome to Nursing U, the podcast where we redefine nursing in today's healthcare landscape. Join Julie and I as we step outside the box on an unconventional healing journey.
Speaker 1:Together, we're diving deep into the heart of nursing, exploring the intricate relationships between caregivers and patients with sincerity and depth.
Speaker 2:Our mission is to create an open and collaborative experience where learning is expansive and fun.
Speaker 1:From the psychological impacts of nursing to the larger implications on the healthcare system. We're sparking conversations that lead to healing and innovation.
Speaker 2:We have serious experience and we won't pull our punches. But we'll also weave in some humor along the way, because we all know laughter is often the best medicine.
Speaker 1:It is, and we won't shy away from any topic, taboo or not, from violence and drugs to family and love, we're tackling it all.
Speaker 2:Our nursing knowledge is our base, but we will be bringing insights from philosophy, religion, science and art to deepen our understanding of the human experience.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're a nurse, a healthcare professional or just someone curious about the world of caregiving, this podcast is for you.
Speaker 2:One last thing, a quick disclaimer before we dive in. While we're both registered nurses, nothing we discuss here should be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor or a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns you may have. The views expressed here are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of our employers or licensing bodies.
Speaker 1:So let's get started on this journey together. Welcome to Nursing U, where every conversation leads to a healthier world. It feels good to be here. Finally, and we are going to talk about our journey into nursing and our journey into doing this podcast, nursing U, and how that kind of came about, starting with how we became nurses and what led us into, kind of where we are right now. And that may take one or two or three or four or five podcasts, but we're going to do it.
Speaker 2:It might take one or two or three or four or five years.
Speaker 1:It might take all the way through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure it seems like every time that I tell any story yeah, um, that has nuance and detail it is all almost always told differently. You could sit down and have this conversation uh, 10 times, and slightly different variations of what you remember or how you remember it come out, and I think that's the value of what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's the value of storytelling, I think it, you know, you tell the story differently every time and depending on who's listening you it, there's just different nuances and every person who listens to the story at that particular moment is going to pick up on something different. And so, right now, we're just going to tell our story today how it comes out, and I think that who it will resonate with they'll know. And you know, each time we tell our story speaking from the heart, it just comes out as it will. You know, our story, speaking from the heart, it just comes out as it will, you know. And so we can just start by. You can start as far back as you want and take us on a little journey of how you decided and how it became that you decided to go to nursing school.
Speaker 2:Well, I I kind of feel like you know, because of our working relationship and because you've been you have been a nurse longer than I have and the roles that we started in you were someone that I looked up to and respected and viewed as the leader For as long as we worked together. You were always the leader that I looked to.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we all have a mama. Yeah, you know, as nurses, you all have the mom. Who is your mom at work, right, you know, and I think I've been a mom to a lot of people, I had a lot of moms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate that. I understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so would you like me to start? I would give you the lead to share your journey first.
Speaker 1:yeah, and then I'll jump in and share mine. Yeah, my mom was a nurse and I think that's a line that runs through a lot of nurses families. You know it's a family kind of thing. My mom, that wasn't her first career, she was a teacher and she taught school and then she raised us. What kind of nurse was she? She was a labor and delivery nurse. For a long, long time she was also a psychiatric nurse in a psych facility. She was like director of nursing something there and she ended her career, uh, in like doing IT and electronic medical record and being with some companies transferring records and getting them all digital.
Speaker 2:So you said companies. Was she one of those nurses that stayed with the same institution for the duration of her career?
Speaker 1:No, when she was in IT she worked as like a contractor for different companies. So she worked as a contractor that maybe Cerner contracted. She actually worked for the VA system, contracted her company to get their electronic medical records. Some other smaller companies like down South, because most of the work was remote and because she was building the electronic medical record to look like it does on paper so that then those forms could be used digitally like they are now.
Speaker 2:Wow, she's on the forefront. Totally. I mean that's revolutionary.
Speaker 1:So you know all the things that were happening. I mean it might've been, what do you think, 10 or 15 years ago, when the electronic medical record was like that is where everyone is headed and you must be there by the deadline, and so that's kind of how she. She got into that just. And so that's kind of how she got into that just. You know, because nursing is backbreaking work and swinging those beds around and pushing patients is. You can only do it for so long, you know. So I've seen her career and she thoroughly enjoyed being a nurse. She went to school to be a nurse right after my parents got divorced, so I was about 10. And so I remember her going to school, gutting it out, staying up late, studying, doing some of her clinicals at odd times. You know, being a 10 year old, your eyes are wide open to what's going on.
Speaker 2:You're not really a baby anymore and you're growing up and you take in a lot of information and do you think you're do you think your eyes are white were wide open at that age because they had to be? Do you think they would have been not so wide open for?
Speaker 1:me yeah, for me my eyes were wide open. You know, being a child of divorced parents is a whole nother podcast, but I had to grow up pretty quickly and be very responsible for myself and my siblings. I was the oldest and supportive you know, supportive of her, supportive of our family. To get her through it was a special time. I remember I can picture her getting her pin and her cap and you know her cap and all that, and so I I'm pretty sure that that just implanted in me those memories. I have good memories of it, even though it was stressful and, you know, there was a lot of change going on at that time. But from then on I didn't really think about being anything else. It was just I'm going to be a nurse.
Speaker 2:Was it? Uh, as I'm listening to you, it kind of feels like you were watching your mom go into this world and that you had to do the same thing that she was doing only for your siblings, and so you were seeing mom go take care of people and I have to take care of these people, so maybe someday I could take care of people, like mom takes care of people, something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:I don't remember thinking in my mind I don't know if ten-year-olds do but that I was gonna have like a career, but I definitely was caretaking.
Speaker 1:I was caretaking for her, I was caretaking for, you know, my younger sister and brother, and I think it definitely developed part of my personality like that, because I am definitely a caretaker and have flourished in that, not only in my career but in my family and friends, and, you know, sometimes to a detriment, you know. Still trying to find balance in that wanting to care for others, needing to care for myself, you know. But it just becomes a river that runs through you, you know, and you can't. It just is, and so you have to figure out how to manage it and sometimes go across it, sometimes go down it, sometimes it feels like you're going upstream, you know. So when I got into high school, there was a class or path, or I don't know what you would call it, um, called health careers. I think I was maybe a junior or senior, but again, even my jobs in high school I was a baby, I babysat, you know, and so I was just caring.
Speaker 1:I was still caring for my siblings, um, doing that. So it was just very it was just the nature of who I was, I think. But I started in that health careers and we got to shadow different units and different places, community things. You know. As far as you know, I think my the instructor of that course was very tapped into the community of. You know, we went to a middle school that had for disabled kids. We went to the burn unit at KU.
Speaker 2:We went to an ER downtown that sounds crazy for in high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, I know. Yeah, it seems crazy. I mean only with the context of having worked in those settings. I would never want my 16 year old kid to go into any of those places today. That's crazy, I know.
Speaker 1:And I think I felt energized by it. I felt because we had a lot of autonomy in that, like we would leave half the day, we would leave maybe at lunch, I think, and would spend the afternoon at these different places where so she would set it all up, we would go check in and then we would be there for the two hours of the last day of school and then you leave and you go home. So it was very grown up, it was very, and I felt important and I felt, you know, like it was. That's just who I was.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's important work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm important because I'm doing something important, yeah, work, yeah, I'm important because I'm doing something important, yeah, and, and you know, I always felt important and that it was necessary to use my skills to help other people, and that was a perfect way for me to, um, you know, utilize everything that I felt inside my body.
Speaker 1:And so when I graduated high school you know it was a rough time family wise, and so there were some complications I went to JUCO for a semester pre-nursing classes, I think, it was just whatever English and that and then I really wanted to go to KU, and so then in that spring semester I did go to KU and again was just in some like general studies and things got a little crazier in my personal life, with family and that. So I ended up moving to Nebraska, where my dad lived and where I grew up, and went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney. That's where my dad, he was a professor there, and once I got up there I don't remember why I felt it, but I felt like I wanted to be a doctor. So I, I, I enrolled up there, I was in for two years in like pre-med courses and the beginners you know, the calculus and it was hard this whole time, though, running down the river.
Speaker 1:I was a CNA, so I got my CNA in high school not in high school, I was about 18. So I was it was right after high school. I don't know if back then you could get it in high school these days you can. So I started working in nursing homes, and so I was. I always worked as a CNA. That's just what I did and all the way through school. Just what I did and all the way through school. But after the two years at Nebraska in the pre-med courses, that it was too much. And again, another life change. Things happened around there and I moved back to Kansas city, and that was in 95. I graduated high school in 91, cause I'm 50.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, we're there.
Speaker 1:Yeah and uh, came back here and just had to get my feet on the ground for a bit. So I didn't go to actual nursing school till 98. And then I graduated in 2000. Yeah, so I worked. I worked at it's not even there anymore, what was it called, I don't know A psychiatric hospital that my mom worked at. And so I got a job as a tech there, which was weird and interesting. I don't know if I liked it as much as working in a nursing home. I think I liked taking care of old people versus mental health. Yeah, I don't know, just felt more comfortable there. But so then I just took some prerequisites and then started nursing school in 98.
Speaker 1:I did work at a local hospital, started there in 96. So I worked a year like in psychiatric and I think I might have worked at a nursing home too during that time. But in 96, I started a local hospital here as a tech in the ICU at night and took just a few of my classes. I got married in 98 and then started at KU Medical Center in the fall of 98. And I I never really I was always pushing forward. I was always pushing for that, like somehow I just that was where I was being pushed and I didn't really question it, I just did Right. Yeah, I enjoyed working in the ICU. I enjoyed that. It's hard to describe the feeling of being near someone who was literally life or death. There's really nothing else like it. And so I started in 96.
Speaker 2:I was probably like 23, maybe Back up that experience of being at the you know end of life care you're talking about, when you and personal with those patients and, um, I did my first post-mortem care.
Speaker 1:There, you know, I had all those nurses were like my mom, Um, it felt very family oriented, which I'm so grateful for, because a lot of experiences are just not like that. I just felt like I belonged and that this was where I was and this was right. It really did feel right and then when I graduated, I just started there as a nurse in the same ICU and again, I wasn't questioning much back then. I, I, I a lot of it. I look back now and I it was very autopilot ish.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a humility. You have to approach it with.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't know anything at that time, yeah, and so you're just collecting experience.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:Just, I got to grab this experience.
Speaker 1:I got to grab this one, yeah, and my mind was wide open and so, I mean, I was just soaking it all in and really enjoying it, and I didn't even mind working nights. I felt like it was so easy and really just where I was supposed to be. For what you know and I look back now, you know, 20, whatever years later and it was where I was supposed to be, that is what I was supposed to be doing and so, even though on autopilot, you know it, I was being guided, sure I feel yeah, and so I didn't. I had a great time in nursing school. I had been a CNA and been around people and touching them and rolling them and cleaning them and bathing them, and you know, being very familiar, and I just didn't really have any hesitancy.
Speaker 2:None, I had a ton of hesitancy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're very we have. We have quite opposite story. I mean, we really do. It's funny how we kind of both came to the same place having completely opposite stories. You know, I didn't really have any traumatic experiences and maybe that's what led me to be a good leader you know, being very stable on my feet, stable in my mind, confident.
Speaker 1:You know, I had a lot of confidence from the get-go. Even in nursing school I was kind of the leader of our little group and not in a crude or you know, I don't know king way, it was more like a motherly like.
Speaker 1:let me help you and let me show you that it's easy, and let me let me show you that I can do it. And so then you just mimic what I'm doing. So, even through nursing school, it just wasn't, you know, it just wasn't challenging for me. I do remember being scared as a new nurse, though, oh yeah, yeah, especially starting in the ICU, you know, I mean you can be a CNA, but now that you're the nurse, now you are actually in charge of your patient, yes, and I remember multiple times being wanting to know who I was working with, making sure that I had backup, what my plan was going to be, going over things, and just the butterflies of who like oh, my God, you know, like all the pressure, you know, but it's all on me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's scary, it's scary, it is scary, you know, and I tell new nurses now, even just it is scary, but that is normal. So you're feeling exactly what you're supposed to be feeling, which is butterflies, and like I can't do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't feel that, like you're dangerous. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're right, yeah, yeah. So you know, I think that, although my experience was not super traumatic in those early years, um, as I continued to, you continued to be an integral part of the unit. Your responsibility gets more and more and more and it's just kind of a natural thing that happens. It's not really a decision, really. You're usually approached or you're just put in charge that night. You're like, oh my God, okay, okay, okay. And the day charge is night. You're like, oh, you know, like, oh my God, okay, okay, okay. You know. And the day charge is like it's fine, julie, I know she called in sick, but you're going to be okay, you know. And I'm like, okay, okay, you know who's the supervisor on tonight. You know lots of those. And then you know the, the sticky situations you get in and for some you just managed to get yourself through it and I mean like already, my body, I can feel it like just anxiety and I'm a hundred percent right back there, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just tense, tense and you know, although not some more of my traumatic experiences actually happened later in my career, really. But I think the underlying current of the instability, of shifts, all of the things that can go wrong or sideways, or I mean there's so many things that can happen to a unit that can cause it to go off the rails it's always just right there.
Speaker 2:So that kind of takes me to a thought that I play with intermittently, just that our entire lives are built around this job, every facet of our life is impacted by the occupation that we have.
Speaker 2:And so, on the one hand, we have this, we feel this tremendous responsibility to care for these people who are on, you know, on their deathbed, and and we have this sense that we have truly objective tools that we can implement to save this life. While that is true, we have, we have, you know, levifed and all these drugs that really do work, but, at the end of the day, life and death is not in our hands. And so we take on this responsibility, and I think it's easy to forget and carry this pressure that we're responsible for this life or death.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When, in reality, it's not in our hands.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just not.
Speaker 1:No, it is. You're absolutely right and if we could only have a little dose of that as a new nurse that it is not your sole responsibility that what is going to happen will happen. Yeah, your sole responsibility that what is going to happen will happen. That you're working to the you know maximum of what your knowledge is and what is available to you at that moment to save that patient's life is. It still can have a bad outcome, and I think that's a piece of what starts to chip away at, not even chip away, it's a piece of what starts to build up. That then becomes a burnout situation. So you know, burnout is such a vague term, but yet it umbrellas so much of where nurses end up.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like you end up in this misfit toy aisle, you know, and you're just screwed, you know. But you're looking back and you're like I did everything right. I went to nursing school and I was, you know, you know and you did, but it's like it's so insidious, creeping in and looking back you I can see little pieces of I'm like that was part of it, that was part of it, and part of it, just as you said, was feeling responsible, a hundred percent responsible, and then, moving into a charge nurse role, you feel responsible for not only your patients which most of the time you had being a charge nurse, everyone else so the nurses and their patients and the stress and the pressure of that is tremendous and I didn't outlet that at all.
Speaker 2:You're not trained to outlet that. We're not taught how to outlet that.
Speaker 1:Nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about it. I think now. I think now they're talking a little bit more about it. We're talking about it right now. We are talking about it right now and I think there needs to be more people talking about it and there needs to be more implementation of chats and talks and debriefs. Why aren't debriefs?
Speaker 2:mandatory across the board everywhere.
Speaker 1:I don't know why not. I don't know why not, like I don't know it should, just as they do like mock codes, yes, they should do debriefing, like it should just be included, and I I am sure that there are probably universities, major health systems that maybe have some of that in. If anybody knows about it, I would love to know, because that program, wherever it is, needs to be mimicked in every situation, in the tiniest of little hospitals. You know that the tiny, tiny little critical access hospitals that are literally hit the hardest.
Speaker 2:I mean the implement that lands on the guy's belly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I know, it's very, it's very scary and so you know, it shouldn't just be reserved for the systems that have the money, that have the means, that have the staff, that have the educator. You know, I mean, there are so many places that it's just not provided and the and those nurses are dying. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, some of them are literally peeling off the off the career path and going and selling insurance or whatever you know, or they're offing themselves and it's just gotta stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it really does. And so you know, I think us telling our stories and then just having conversation, cause I think you know us telling our stories and then just having conversation, cause I think you know, being able to talk about it, process it, you know, is part of how we're going to nurse you. Yeah, so we really we've been taking care of people our whole lives and you know, there you have to take care of yourself and you hear that all the time and I ask myself you know, put your oxygen mask on before you put your kid's oxygen mask on. And I, I mentally understand that, cognitively, like I understand that, but the pull and the desire to not do that is crazy, because you just almost instinctively take care of the other person first. So it's odd.
Speaker 1:So, it's an. It's not natural to turn in and take care of yourself. You know, unless shit hits the fan and you're sick, you know, mentally or physically, because then you have to. You have to take care of yourself, you have to take medicine, get help, dah, dah, dah, whatever. But it's not instinctive.
Speaker 2:I went through a um, I've been through multiple different healing courses, uh, over the last 10 years and one of them had this exercise and the group certain members of the of the group were given medicine and certain members were not, and they set up scenario, a scenario where people were like other people that didn't have medicine, were, were ill, and and you had to choose who got on which train and which or something. Something like who who lived and who died, and all of the people that were given medicine gave all of the medicine away. No one kept it. Wow, they gave it all away. And it was such a such a like powerful picture for me, Like I gave it all away and I didn't hold anything for myself, Right, Same, and uh, we're all doing that. Um, it's uh, it's crazy. It was just such a picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that really is, because it's so true and it's super reflective of what's really going on.
Speaker 2:I think it's a beautiful picture of the human spirit. Despite all of the madness and all of the hate that is happening, I think at the very core, I think we want to help others. I think that's true, oh for sure. I think that's one of the One of the things that you can take out of that. That example is everyone there wanted to help everyone else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everyone that had medicine gave it away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I mean, that really is. I mean, and I think, as a collective, that is our nature, you know, is to help others. Our nature is not to help ourselves. Which there has to be some kind of a balance, yeah, which, if there has to, be, some kind of a balance, because I didn't really start to heal until I started taking care of my inside, my inner self, and getting to know what that person needed and how I could help some of that suffering.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's any place to. I think I mean that's part of the educational piece that is lacking from the nursing education is. You know, I'm taking on all of these experiences and where do I put them? Where, like, where do they like? How do I? How do I make sense of this? You know, this death I'll just generalize. I have one death in particular. That was my big trauma, and whenever I think of trauma, I think of that situation and I had no place to put it, I had no frame of reference, no way to make sense of it, and those build up, and build up, and build up, until you don't know how do I even like, I can't even look inside because it's so full of just these terrible experiences that I've participated in and witnessed. And, and so I mean, for me, I self-medicated and and, um, did things that my true self wouldn't, wouldn't necessarily do, and I just carried that and carried it, and carried it. Yeah, we all are, I think, yeah well, we weren't taught.
Speaker 1:We weren't taught that that is damaging. We weren't taught any other, we weren't taught anything. So we just did what naturally people do with traumatic situations, which is step it down and don't think about it, because it hurts and it's weird and you just want to like move on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we kind of got off on a tangent there. Yeah, we were talking about your career, so we got, we got kind of I feel like we got through your, your year as a tech in the ICU. We got into your first maybe your first year of the staff nursing in the ICU.
Speaker 1:So, you know, life has to mix with it. And so right after about a year after I graduated, I was pregnant with my first kid and had my first kid. I was still full-time, I was full-time nights, and so throwing a kid in the mix is real complicated. Oh yeah, and there's no book that says okay, okay, so now you're going to do this. So my natural thing was like I gotta be home with this kid. I can't, I can't work full-time, but you know bills.
Speaker 1:And so I went to the float pool and was had a little more flexibility in my schedule, which, you know, nursing has amazing flexibility with certain things. There's a lot of doors you can open, there's a lot of turns you can take, there's a lot of places you can be to kind of make it your own. Again, I felt like I navigated that by myself. Nobody told me that. I didn't have anybody saying to me oh well, julie, here are all your options. You know it was more like all right, okay, you're going to flip pool and we'll need to hire someone for your spot. You know it wasn't, it wasn't nurturing. I can say a lot more about that, but I mean, you know, man, being a, being a manager and managing nurses is very hard and you know, I just didn't have the mentorship, the mental mentorship that would have been great to have, you know. So, again, I'm navigating all of that on my own, but I did feel good having a little bit more flexibility in my schedule.
Speaker 1:So I stayed PRN in the ICU for I don't know three or four years and time warps for me. So I really I have significant years. I'm like, okay, I know where my kids were born, you know, and I can relate that back to what I did, because I stayed at the same hospital from 96 to 2022. Wow, so that's a long time. I don't even know how many years. So I did everything. You know I'm, I did everything. I I went to the float pool and then an ICU and then I went to the floor in the float pool and then I worked as a supervisor and then I did like resource nurse. I mean all all those little jobs, you know every. They're always changing around roles and adding and subtracting and doing that and I mean it served me. It served me, it served my family. I think I've. I stayed for so long because it was comfortable, it was easy and, looking back, I think I stayed, and I because I was literally afraid and had fear of leaving and going to somewhere new.
Speaker 2:We had mothers, you had a stability, you felt home, yeah, like that was a. I mean, I came to work there 10 years after you started and and I definitely felt that same sense of belonging. Yeah, um, my friends are here. I'm safe here with these people because they know what to do and they're teaching me everything and I think that, uh, that back in those days it was still that way.
Speaker 1:I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't know that it's really that way anymore anywhere. Yeah Right, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there are some units that are amazing and and you know when we, when we talk, we're definitely not talking about every single unit in the whole world. We're talking, you know, our individual experience at kind of where we were. That, I think, also mimics many other nurses experience.
Speaker 1:I mean you get on any nurse Facebook group, you hear the same thing. So I mean it does feel familiar and there are times, you know, seasons that during your career that are like awesome and you have the best group and then some of those leave, they grow up, they go to CRNA school, they, whatever and then you get kind of another wave of people and it's totally different and the season is just different. But you know, the season that we worked together was it was a good season, yeah, and it was a good group there. And you know I tried my hardest to make it feel like that because that's what I needed. And so you know, I think it resonated with everybody else who worked. And you know, I felt needed, I felt like I was doing something good, like I was making I was not only was I caring for the patients, but I was caring for the nurses who were caring for those patients. I mean I just I think that's my nature and you know I want everybody to feel good with what they're doing and you know, but I think there's that takes a toll, you know, and especially when you're not really doing anything to nurture yourself, you will run out and you will dry up. Yeah, I mean it just will happen and you know I wish that.
Speaker 1:To me pivotal moment in my career was COVID and that. You know. Up until then I mean I was kind of like, hey, you know this is fine, I was a little bored. But you know this is fine, I was a little bored but you know it would have been fine. Just kind of take me out, although my back and my shoulders I was feeling it really bad, so I could tell like the pills were turning, the soup was stirring like something was moving, something was happening.
Speaker 1:The energy was definitely changing. You know, even in like 2018, I did go to day shift in 2018 and my personal life took a turn for the positive. I quit drinking in 2017, late November, and then I went to day shift in 2018. And and really, from there, it wasn't I mean, my nursing career was never the same. So, I did a lot of different things in the day shift. There was several roles that you know critical care charge, nurse resource, back and forth to the ER.
Speaker 1:Kind of you know these little roles that they try out to try to help the situation. That's literally drowning, you know, and I was up for it because I thought, well, you know, I don't want anybody else to do it.
Speaker 2:So I'll just do it yeah.
Speaker 1:I did take over as manager of a couple of critical care units as someone left, and then I did kind of interim, which is usual. Usual, I think, I mean, they pluck from the unit and again I didn't. There wasn't anybody else that I wanted to be in charge of me, so I might as well be in charge. And you know, I thought, well, okay, I can take this opportunity to do that, shouldn't I mean?
Speaker 2:I never had any desire to go into management. That shouldn't I mean I never had any desire to go into management.
Speaker 1:Nursing management just seems like and I said, I said I always said I would never do that, I will never do that, and but I thought, you know things are different. I'm on day shift, like I can see it. You know the the administration at that time was good. You know, I mean I felt doing it. No one can even prepare you for the amount of work, and if you're not, if you're not letting anything out and you're not even taking care of who you are, you throw the role of being a nursing manager on top of all.
Speaker 1:That. I mean death sentence. That's what it was I mean, and so I was slowly dying, but I, I, I didn't, I didn't even know. I mean it's so crazy that that is. It's real though. I mean I've talked to so many people. Now, again, there are managers who are amazing, they love it. They don't feel like I did, because that this is just how my experience and I talked to other people, so I know it's other people's experience, although it's not everybody's like like there's a different because you're a leader, yeah, like in in the unit, like you show up and everyone knows it's good, even if the outcome is yeah, terrible, it's still going to be, it's still going to be okay yeah because you're a leader and and the different, like there's a fundamental difference between a manager and a leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like you're definitely a leader. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and I, so I tried, I mean it was just. And then that year we also had joint commission come and we had the state come, and it was just. You know, it was just our year, it was just the year for that.
Speaker 2:And it was just, you know, it was just our year, it was just the year for that and it was. So I want to ask what your thoughts having like? You're just a natural leader and you were a manager. I've never taken on that role, never wanted it, don't want it. Um, don't think I'll ever want it.
Speaker 1:It's a whole different job than being a nurse. You are a nurse, but it is an entirely different job. You are not taking care of patients anymore. You're taking care of patients by way of taking care of the nurses, with all of this pressure on you to get them to do good on the surveys. Why are surveys so important? Surveys are important because the reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid are dependent on patient surveys and patient satisfaction, and so there are a plethora of questions and feedback that we get from patients and that goes into like a chart, and whatever scores you have in each certain area, it allows you to get reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid, and that's a whole podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I'm telling you nurses don't know this.
Speaker 1:No, I don't know that. No, now, I mean, I tried to teach the nurses why, like why I'm asking you to do this, why I'm asking you to do bedside report, why I'm asking you, you know, to chart this and do audits and make sure the discharge in this time and all these things you know, all of these metrics that the hospital has to meet. It doesn't make any sense when you're just looking at the bedside taking care of the nurse, like that. It doesn't, because it doesn't matter to you like that. It doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter.
Speaker 2:So is there a differential? For the patient that told me he was going to kill me, does his, does his patient satisfaction count?
Speaker 1:His patient satisfaction actually does count. It counts more. Yeah, I saw something. I saw something on on I don't know Instagram or something, and it was a little snippet of maybe a Twitter or something that a doctor wrote and it said um, thank God for Dr So-and-so, he saved my life four stars. And the doctor, he was like what do I got to do to get five stars? You didn't like the coffee. I guess you didn't like the coffee. Yeah, I saved your life. You didn't like the coffee. Four stars.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:I mean I could never wrap my mind around it. I mean I just really couldn't. It didn't really make sense to me. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:No it doesn't and it doesn't make any sense that that's how we're getting reimbursement. I know that's insane.
Speaker 1:I know. Yes, let's take literally it is insanity and it it feels just like another handcuff that nurses have to wear while they perform their duties and they try they're trying so hard to take the best care of their patients. But they are bound. They're bound. They're bound by staffing ratios. They're bound by surveys. They're bound by patient's impression of them. They're bound.
Speaker 2:Which is so subjective? Oh, it is. There's no way to validate that as a reality of truth.
Speaker 1:No, it feels like a failing system, like you're always, always drowning and you're always just treading water because you cannot. It feels like you can't ever get ahead. Yeah, you know, and and that also is very stressful, and I think that's part of what injures a nurse's soul it doesn't seem right, it doesn't, it doesn't feel right. No.
Speaker 2:I mean, I wasn't even aware of any of that.
Speaker 2:You know, my I've gone my entire career, um, just kind of winging it, I guess, in that, in that sense I'm not striving for like, I want my interactions with my patients to be good and positive, but not because I need a survey. Yeah, not because I need a survey score just because I want a survey score, just because I want my patient. I don't want my work to be miserable. So I want to come into my patient care settings with a positive attitude and maybe do good for people, if I can. You can't always do that.
Speaker 1:I know, and I think nurses don't, you think, innately feel that way. I think so. They come to work, innately feel that way Like they. They come to work and they really just want to take the best care that they can of their patients, but there's so many extraneous variables that are they don't have any control over you know, and so you can do the best you can save their life Doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:I mean that gosh that goes into. You know, I kind of touched on it earlier. The objective, Like we have this idea that medicine is objective, that we have that medicine, that science has worked itself out to such an efficient degree that every time we do this it's this. And that's just not true. There's so much, especially like I think about this when I think about the life and death situations we're in the ICU. This person, you know, has a pH of 6.3. It's like nothing's going to work. Nothing's going to work. I'm sorry, nothing's going to work. I'm sorry Nothing's going to work. I mean, like, maybe get it a little higher into the sevens, you know where. Maybe there's some management that could be done to correct it. It still doesn't always work, like.
Speaker 2:One of the examples that I use to make this point is hydrolyzine, that we give hydrolyzine as an antihypertensive and we think that it works. It has worked, it's proven itself to work over time, but we have no idea how it works. Right, look it up. We don't know how it works. And so there's this tremendous amount of subjectivity that goes into the daily practice of nursing the practice of medicine and we, but we treat it in our minds societally as this stalwart of truth and and I think that's part of the I think that that's part of the distrust for medicine is that it presents itself as absolute truth, exacting truth, and it's just not. And people see through that. And so the mistrust around Western medicine, I think, is somewhere rooted in the reality that it's not purely objective. There's tremendous amounts of subjectivity. I liken it to driving an old Cadillac.
Speaker 1:It's like floating You're floating medicine You're not driving.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are Ferraris in medicine. There are Ferraris Like the pinpointed radiology that we're doing under CT scans. Pinpointed radiology that we're doing, that we're under CT scans. You know, that's very precise stuff that we're doing and and I'm fine with the, the, the reality, the truth of that objectivity, but in the broader sense of of the totality of medicine, and the perception of society as to what medicine is it's, there's a huge disparity. I mean, I think Hollywood has educated society on what we're capable of and it's created unrealistic expectations.
Speaker 2:It's how it feels, anyways, yeah.
Speaker 1:It does feel unrealistic and it does feel unattainable. And again, I think that's part of what builds up. Burnout is not meeting your expectations, not meeting the expectation of where it should be. You know, kind of that chronic feeling of a failing. You know, although your patient might've survived or maybe they died, it doesn't matter but the feelings that come when you don't have enough staff, you didn't have the supplies that you needed quick enough, or you couldn't get somebody to come in on call, or you know time took too long, or you know all of those little tiny things that build up to significant experiences. It just, it just adds to it and it because again, it's not anything you have control over, and I think that's a huge thing with nursing is that there is so much that we don't have control over. You know, and we're working within our means, with our very smart brains handcuffed half the time, you know.
Speaker 1:And and not having control over that is another piece to what causes, you know, extreme burnout. You know I mean you can be burned out from the week or you do your three in a row and you're just so tired and you got your kids and you know you're trying to manage everything and that is, that's tiring. But if you come back and you fill back up on your weeks and your week off or you know you're you got three days off or four days off and you spend time with your family and you're outside and you're meditating and you're re-nourishing your own self, to me that would ward off some of that burnout. But if you're not even aware that those are some of the things that will then cause you to have extreme burnout, not doing those things will then cause you to have extreme burnout, not doing those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're not doing those things and you're just marching through, yeah yeah, it just will, it can't, it can't not. And then you know you start getting bitter and you don't want to go to work and you don't care. And you know I never had trouble with not feeling like I wanted to work when I was at work. I mean, I always felt like I always gave 100% effort to caring for my patients. But there were lots of times that it just bled out into my life.
Speaker 1:So, it didn't really even seem like, maybe in the beginning, that it was coming from my job or being a nurse or who I was.
Speaker 1:It just bled out into my life and into my relationships and my weight and my social choices and, numbing with alcohol and I don't know, it was just eating away at me, kind of unbeknownst, and maybe I knew a little bit. But I didn't know what to do about it. There was nothing I could, there was nothing I knew to do that I could change. You know, because everything that was under my control while I was at work I was doing. I was doing all that and I still, you know, felt the, the need to care for other people and for patients and to make sure that the best they had the best experience and outcome and that the nurses had the best experience. And you know it was a lot of weight, it was a lot of pressure and you know, then it felt 10 times worse being a manager because I still felt the need to to to make sure the patients were good. Um, but then I had sole responsibility for the nurses on my units you know, and so that was 2019 to 2020.
Speaker 1:And then it was COVID and I mean, I don't even know what to say. Like it just makes me like, oh God, it happened when it did and it is what it was, and it it just ended. My give a F.
Speaker 2:And it just ended my give a F.
Speaker 1:I mean it just obliterated it. I don't even have words Done, so done. But I couldn't leave. I couldn't just leave, I just had to keep going.
Speaker 2:I think that's kind of our generation. I think we feel more of a pull to stay, to help the camaraderie, like. I feel like maybe somehow social media or society, just the generational changes that occur, because you know, times change, things change and we come from a generation that's. That's pretty loyal, I think in some ways, not so much in others, but it seems like the the loyalty to a unit or a group of coworkers just isn't there today.
Speaker 1:I would agree Like it was yeah.
Speaker 2:Like your desire to like. I can't leave Like they need me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in a way I needed that. I mean, I didn't know who I was. Without that, I didn't know what I would do, where I would go. I couldn't picture myself doing anything else in any other place. I just literally couldn't see it. I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I like, I'm thinking maybe this, maybe it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's not a bad thing that these younger nurses aren't staying because, they're not like. I'm not putting up with that bullshit.
Speaker 1:Right, so true and so right. In some of my last years, some of the nurses that would come through, the young ones right out of nursing school, you know they would come stay maybe two years, you know, do their little thing, maybe get reimbursement, tuition whatever, and then go off and you'll get their masters or just like go somewhere else. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know yeah.
Speaker 1:This doesn't feel right anymore. Bye, yeah, and you know at first.
Speaker 2:I. If we stay, we're in mud up to our hips. We're just waving. We're just waving bye.
Speaker 1:Like I guess see you later. I don't it was, and I always wish those nurses like thank you for being here, you know, good luck to you. Almost like I wish I were you. Yeah, good for you. Yeah, I wish I could do that.
Speaker 2:But then there's the other side of that where if I hadn't stayed and had endured some of the things that I endured to stay where we were, I wouldn't have the knowledge that I have, because those old nurses taught me everything I know. Old nurses taught me everything I know and like how many people like I've had the answer to their problem because I stayed and I I endured an uncomfortable situation, maybe longer than I should have, but it definitely gave me something that I've given to others. So there's like this trade off of experience and knowledge that you know. But then maybe, maybe not maybe it's a lack of trust that that young nurse that stood up for themselves or made the choice for themselves and went somewhere else that was healthier was to say they're not going to meet somebody that has has that experience and knowledge. So I think it's maybe a good thing that this younger generation is not staying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a different season. It just is Nursing also had seasons. I mean, there were those career nurses who and I mean career like they stayed in the same hospital they stayed in the same unit.
Speaker 1:They were on the same committees. For, you know, 20 and 30 years, you rarely find that Nurses now that are graduating nursing school. They're different and we were different a little bit from you know, from them too. But um, I don't know. After COVID, my body was dying. I was, I had to increase my blood pressure medicine, I had to increase my thyroid medication, I had to get a sleeping pill, I had to increase my antidepressant medication. All of that and you would think, isn't that a sign? Don't you want to do something? I mean, are you sure you're okay? But nobody asked me if I was okay. No physician asked me if.
Speaker 2:I was okay.
Speaker 1:He just said oh, your blood pressure's high. We. But nobody asked me if I was okay. No physician asked me if I was okay, he just said oh, your blood pressure's high. We got to increase this. And add this oh, your cholesterol is real high. Oh, we need to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay, see, that's what I'm saying about the objectivity. It's so objective and so lacking in. What's your situation? What is your experience?
Speaker 1:that's driving all of this ill health and maybe I wasn't receptive either. I yeah, ill health and maybe I wasn't receptive either. I don't know what I would have said. I would have. I think I went to a doctor about my shoulder because it was hurting me so bad. I just knew it was torn and I so I finally went because I just didn't want to hear that it was torn and I needed surgery because I just didn't want to be at work. But I finally went and he told me it was arthritis.
Speaker 1:I was like oh well, okay, so it's just going to be like this. Then there's nothing we can do? No, there's nothing you can do. You probably need to think about a different career, is what he said.
Speaker 2:Oh well.
Speaker 1:I don't know anything else. So I don't really know what to do with that. So I can't do that right now. But you know, I mean that's, that's just it. It just came to a place where I never it wasn't even an option to leave. You know, until I was literally forced.
Speaker 1:I think when I stepped down from being a manager, it was in the fall of 2020 and I felt horrible. I was actually going to go do traveling, nursing in ICU for COVID. I was going to go to St Louis for whatever a contract, and that's a whole nother story. I I felt so guilty not working in the unit and not taking care of those patients and making other nurses do it. I think part of that is why I had to quit being a manager, because I it was hard being a manager, but the guilt that I felt having other nurses do what I felt like I should be doing was a tremendous. I mean it was. It made me sick. I mean I think it did, and so the only thing I knew how to do is just, we'll just go back and do that then. So that's what I was going to do. I was just going to do that, but then that contract fell through for whatever reason meant to be probably, and so I just went back to nights in the ICU at that same hospital and I did that from, you know, 2020 to just 2021.
Speaker 1:I just did that for a year in the COVID ICU and then at that time, I mean I was literally I couldn't even hardly walk. My back was so bad, my shoulders I mean it was just I felt like a 90 year old, and so I took some time off and did physical therapy and some things like that and and really during that time off, I took about six weeks off because I was so, I mean, I couldn't really even walk. And I just had some realizations during that time that, like, you do have to do something different. You really do. And you know, it wasn't the first time that I thought about doing something different. I remember, years and years back I was like I just want to work from home. Can't I just do a nursing job? That is work from home. I can just stay at my PJs and work on my computer. I mean, people do that, don't they? You know, and nothing really ever panned out and I probably didn't really pursue it, you know. I mean where?
Speaker 2:do you even look for that? I don't even know.
Speaker 1:So we're so pigeonholed we really are and and just a creature of habit and I mean it just has. It's how I became. I think it's what kept me sane during that whole time is just doing the same thing over and over and not making too many decisions. But I always had the pull of like I don't want to, I don't, I don't want, I didn't want to miss my kids, I didn't want to miss out. I was always missing out. I had to. I worked night shift and I had to leave at you know six 30 or six 15, you know well everybody's sitting down for dinner. Well, I got to go to work. It just it sucked.
Speaker 2:Yep, so it's like a whole life of service, whole life of service, whole life of service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you, I can just pour it a little bit of that back into me and really thought what do, what do I want? What does Julie need? You know, I never thought that and things that maybe came to my mind, you know, in my down journaling, you know, you know it didn't seem possible, it didn't seem possible to change. You know, I don't know, I just felt so stuck and I think that's just from the career, it's just from, you know, those the little chronic, insidious to baby traumas, chronic. Insidious to baby traumas, baby chronic stress.
Speaker 2:I don't think you can know until, like, you have to live the experience to, like you have to go through it to gain the wisdom. Yeah, like you just can't. If somebody had told you you know you need to do this for yourself and you need to do that for yourself, it wouldn't have landed the way that it does. When you have to do it, yeah, like I got to do this, I got to do this for myself. I got to you know, setting boundaries for myself, didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 1:No, didn't, I just didn't, cause I think otherwise you just would. Yeah, like I, like I am now, I know I know how to do. I was looking at lots of jobs. I could not. I knew I could not go back physically and work in the ICU. I couldn't do it. And so I looked at a lot of different things and then a job popped up at the same hospital in case management doing like insurance review, and I thought well, you know, I had a good friend who used to be in ICU with us and you know I was like, oh, maybe this will be awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it was Monday through Friday, nine to five. Well, I loved working with her and I didn't mind the work, but it was just another, like a knife to the heart when you learn, you know. So you just learned about surveys and how dumb that is. Well, I learned about insurance and how dumb that is. Well, I learned about insurance and how really dumb that is and how controlling it is and how disgusting it is. Um, about the things that they will and will not cover and how much healthcare and the hospital systems and things have to fight with the insurance company and that sometimes it just comes down to the heads playing a round of golf and like settling things out and then the claims get paid. Wow, it's. It's a whole other world.
Speaker 2:And see, that's kind of one of the things that I see for nursing you is going into some of these conversations to get to to expand the awareness of what the system really is. I mean, I know a little bit about insurance enough to know pretty much everything you just said is spot on and there needs to be some accountability.
Speaker 1:Well, and awareness is the first I mean, it's the key Once you become aware and your mind becomes aware of a situation going on, or or how something really is when you never thought about it before. You know they don't teach nurses in nursing school about joint commission. They don't teach nurses about surveys and reimbursement for medicare medicaid they don't teach. You know. They don't even talk about the fact that the insurance sometimes won't pay or they'll. You know you get denied and so, therefore, you have a discharge that day.
Speaker 2:They don't under they don't understand.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that, and I don't even know if it's something that should be taught in nursing schools. I feel like it jades a lot.
Speaker 2:I was going to say you know there is a. You know, anyone that goes into any form of caregiving is, on some level, altruistic.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That they want to give. Yeah, we want to provide the care. We want to be that person. Yeah, to remove myself from any preconceived ideas of who my patient is or what their situation is allows me to provide non-biased care. Yes, which allows me to be really more altruistic than if I had some awareness of any of that information. Yeah, just bias, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's this and you're that information. Yeah, just bias.
Speaker 2:There's this like I on that, on, on on on the clinical. My clinical side says I don't want to know anything about what this person's situation is, I just want to. I don't, I don't care what their money is, I don't care where they live, I don't care. You know what they believe, what they do Like. I don't want to know any of that, I want to take care of them. Just touching the human soul. Yeah, that's I like that. I wouldn't really want to know the I don't. There's part of me that doesn't want to know that other stuff yeah.
Speaker 2:Because then somehow I feel like it corrupts that true, truer form of altruism. I have nuanced thoughts on what altruism is.
Speaker 1:Well, it definitely can manipulate the way that you, that the patient is cared for. Yeah, I mean, there is manipulation. There has to be, or no hospital would make money. Yeah, so there has to be manipulation around what the insurance will cover for us to even take care of patients. So it's, it's like a nasty part of it and you know, for me that was just. I mean, that was it I. I felt so jaded, I felt so angry at the system. I felt like I was just little pea pod in an ocean that had. No, I didn't make any difference at all. That's really how I felt.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know like I just I could it.
Speaker 1:It just felt so big, you know, like this massive monster, that I didn't even make a dent.
Speaker 2:That's how it felt.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:I've thought you're connecting to something that I've thought a lot about just the. There's a. It's that altruistic part of us that desires to help and when, once, we have the realization that the help that we're giving is meaningless, like that's, I think that's the. I think that's what you know when you see the scale and the scope of everything that's happening and you realize that the contribution that you're making really is very. It's just a spit in the wind, and for me, that was realizing the waves of death that would come through our ICU you know it comes in like there are.
Speaker 2:There are nights that are just like losing three and four people and you know you've got to fill the, fill the bag and you know, you know, start over, start, get them, get them out, get them down to the morgue and uh and get the next one in, and after you do that for you know a decade, you realize what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Like there's just like, whether I'm here or not, it's going to be another wave, yeah, and what I hear you saying is that you came to a place that you believed that what you were doing was meaningless. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that it is meaningless. I don't think that it is meaningless. I don't think the work that we've done is meaningless, but I do think that that is one of the gateways to the burnout. Really, like all the other junk that's piled in then it doesn't mean anything. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:I've given everything. Yeah, that's exact. I mean, that's exact. That's exactly how I felt and I was like I have to do something different. I have to do something different. I have to get out of this. I have to create something on my own. I have to. I have to do something different. And it wasn't just quitting. I didn't want to just not do a nerd. I didn't, you know, because that was my whole career, it's what I knew and was comfortable with and I couldn't take too big of a jump but.
Speaker 1:I definitely knew I couldn't do it anymore, and so I had studied to get um certified in legal nurse consulting and had kind of started up a little you know business website, something like that, to try to get something going so that I could then eventually move out of the hospital. And so so I did in the fall of 2022. But again I took a little PR job, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know, fear maybe, because I just didn't have, I didn't feel like I could just push off on, you know, the legal nurse consulting full time, cause I mean you have to build your business and you know network and things like that. And so I did leave the hospital and just doing that for me was a breath of fresh air, just letting go of all of my ties and my feelings of needing to stay and caretake. And you know I just had to slowly kind of let that go. You know, I mean all the people that would pass me in the hospital, even when I was working in the case management office. You know, I just had to slowly kind of let that go. You know, I mean all the people that would pass me in the hospital, even when I was working in the case management office, you know, cause I wasn't, they were like, oh my God, I haven't seen you in so long. You know where are you? Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:You know I had to let go of all of that and I I felt like I was letting people down my own mind. But that leaving and doing something different was the first step to me really truly healing. Sure, absolutely yeah. And you know it's been just a year and a half, really. Yeah, it doesn't seem like very long, but you know I started disconnecting from feeling so loyal. You know, before I quit, it was, you know, probably right when I started that job I was like, okay, this will be for a little bit.
Speaker 2:And I try.
Speaker 1:I kept talking to myself back into like, oh no, you can totally be here. I love my boss, I love the people I work with. It's so great. You know. Nine to five, you know I can kind of come in when I want leave. You know, just do eight hours here and there. It was very, it was very great.
Speaker 1:I mean, it really was you know, pay was great and people were great, Lunch was great, you know, but I, I think I was just too far gone by then, you know, and I'm glad you know, I think it's brought me here, it's, it's led me down this other path of healing and and recovering, you know, from a, from a lifetime of distress and and the things that come with being a nurse, you know, and I white knuckled it for a long time, not really knowing, not not that I didn't feel strong, or, you know, like strong enough to reach out, or you know I just I mean, why do you think we don't reach out sooner? Cause we just don't know, or we're not ready, or I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think we're just used to carrying the load. I mean, you know, in the ICU, especially in a, in a non-educational hospital, where you know it's super busy, people are super sick very high acuity and you know, a lot of times, especially at night, you know you maybe got a pulmonologist and maybe a cardiologist that you have to wake up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The rest it's on you. Yeah, it is, it's very heavy.
Speaker 1:Even hearing you speak that it's heavy. Yeah, it's heavy on your shoulders.
Speaker 2:It's all on you. You are the decision maker. Yeah, and that mindset carries over into everything. Yeah, I think. Yeah, you're just used to carrying the burden of responsibility, yeah, until you just can't carry it anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, and everybody has a journey into nursing, everybody has a story, everybody has, you know, things that they've endured, um, probably some even a lot worse than me, sure, and then the family stuff that you know, the, the stuff that happens outside of just of your work, because of the kind of personality that you are and the type of job that you have, you know, just, a lot of times just becomes a lot and then too much, yeah, yeah. And so my journey, which I'm glad for and I'm not angry with it, I you looking back, you know you could have been like, oh, I could have done this different and I wish I'd done this whatever, but really it just leaving it for what it is and respecting that and respecting myself and being proud of myself for enduring all that I did and making it through. I mean I had several panic attacks, which I had. I had never had panic attacks, but I had several during COVID, you know, watching CNN, I mean it just feels like a bad movie.
Speaker 1:You know, um, just constantly on the news trying to figure out how can we keep these patients alive, like, what is going? When is it going to end? You know, I it was so bad during, but looking back out of it now, you know I that I had, I had to. It is what we went through. And so taking that and learning more about myself, how much I'm capable of handling, how strong I really am, being able to leave that where it is and then just focus on who I am and taking care of where I am and what I'm doing now, you know I mean that's where my journey is. Now I don't think journey's end. I think you know this is a journey that you and I are on, you know, coincidentally, meeting, um, you know, catching back up with coffee and you randomly asking me if I think you. I think you asked.
Speaker 1:I think it's hilarious that you think I asked that's so funny, but I love it, I love it. However, you remember it is how it is.
Speaker 2:And we just were like oh my. God, yeah, I totally thought about it.
Speaker 1:Whichever way it went, it was just it really was meant to be. And so I think you know, getting to tell our story on a platform that can reach many, many, many people will hopefully help the whole collective. I think everybody should have a podcast. Everybody should write a book. If you're not writing a book, you should at least be journaling about your life. It's all through storytelling. Nurses even do that about their shifts, oh for sure.
Speaker 2:You, storytell you retell the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you had a funny something then you're in the break room and you're like literally retelling the funny story and it's.
Speaker 1:It's funny. You know, or you had a really bad experience and I think those are less talked about. But you know, you do. The charge nurse talks about her night and tells a story of how that happened and how the night went and what how staffing was and who had to go home and who was sick and who died, and you know what the staffing is like. I mean, it's all just a story and you know I've always thought that telling stories is a pathway to healing and you know a way to, and you know a way to nurse ourselves and to nurse other people, and you know so.
Speaker 1:I think our name of Nursing U is perfect for what we're here for and what we're here to talk about, I agree.
Speaker 2:We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode.
Speaker 1:Remember, the conversation doesn't end here.
Speaker 2:Keep the dialogue going by connecting with us on social media posted in the links below, or by visiting our website, wwwnursingupodorg.
Speaker 1:Together, let's continue to redefine nursing and shape a brighter future for those we care for. Until next time, take care, stay curious and keep nurturing those connections.
Speaker 2:Don't forget to be kind to yourself.