Congestion

Bursting at the seams. Overflowing, overcrowded, and congested. That is how one would describe my work environment during the past few months. Working as an emergency nurse is a stressful, fast paced, and often thankless job. But in normal emergency settings, I love my job! But trying to do this job with the overcrowding and congestion we are faced with on a daily basis is nearly impossible. We are drowning. My hospital is not unique to this problem. It is happening everywhere. The sad part is there is no end in site.

It is frustrating, overwhelming, and maddening to work in this environment day in and day out. It also leaves me and my coworkers with a lot of moral distress when we are not able to provide the level of care and dignity to our patients that we feel is needed. We are trying to care for your loved ones in cramped hallways with inadequate lighting, privacy, and supplies. But we do it. And we do it all day, every day.

I wish I had an easy solution. There isn't one. But there are solutions, hard ones, but no one seems to listen to those of us who are in the trenches dealing with the issues constantly. But we also have to be careful what we say. We can lose our jobs if we "speak out" and if we become the "whistle blower" in our job site. That is not what this post is about. This post is about expressing the frustration of working in a health care system that is failing and wishing I could fix things. My employer is not to blame. There is no one place to lay blame, and we need to stop pointing fingers and start fixing things.

We will continue to provide our patients with the best care that we can even in these terrible times of congestion because we care, we truly do.  And please know, that we are as upset and frustrated as you are about the conditions, and if we could change it, we would.

Laryngitis

I have experienced Laryngitis for the first time this past week. This was difficult for me as I LOVE to talk, and I talk a lot with my boyfriend and friends on a daily basis. Not being able to do this for several days was less than fun for me. Sure I have had the old scratchy/nasally voice that would probably make me a pretty penny as a phone sex operator or something equally as savory and the sore throat that tends to go along with it, but I have never completely lost my voice.

The symptoms started suddenly at the beginning of my set back to work with a scratchy voice and slight dry cough. It then progressed into a squeaky voice that would come and go intermittently as it pleased. This made it very interesting trying to deal with my patients in a busy and loud Emergency Room for the duration of my shift. I was also teased relentlessly by my co-workers, that is how they show their love and concern. I then awoke after a good night's sleep the day of my first night shift and soon discovered that I had no voice. I was barely able to squeak out a syllable. This did not bode well for my ability to work that night. I decided to wait it out a few hours, drink a bunch of warm water with lemon and honey and just rest my voice. No dice. The only improvement to my voice was my ability to now squeak out every 5th word of a sentence. Now I had to call into my work and somehow tell them that I couldn't work that night due to my lack of voice. But that was the problem....how do you call in sick with no voice? It was tricky. It took several minutes for the charge nurse to figure out who I was and what I was saying. Then she began to laugh. Yup, full on laugh at me. She told me I sounded awful, and asked if I was on my death bed. I assured her, voicelessly, that no, I felt fine, but I merely had laryngitis and could not talk. She told me to get better and not to worry about calling in sick, I was in no way able to work with no voice. So I missed 2 shifts because of this case of Laryngitis, and had many people laugh at me and my weird sounding voice as I progressed through the stages of Laryngitis.

I am pleased to announce, much to my boyfriends chagrin (he greatly enjoyed laughing at me in my time of anguish and utter distress, as he put it), that my voice is on the mend. I can now speak whole sentences with only the smallest of squeaks. The only good thing about Laryngitis, or at least the version I got, was that I felt fine and was able to still go about my day, but I just couldn't talk. So here's hoping my voice continues to improve and returns to 100% asap, if not, I guess I can look into a new night job in a certain phone industry :)