Nurses

Having worked in hospitals as a Physio in the past, I have always respected and been thankful for Nurses, the role they play and how they make life for all other medical health professionals easier. They had my patients ready when I needed them for Physio, they could answer all my questions about the patients care, home and social situations. They are the most caring and helpful people out there.

But yesterday I experienced nursing from the other side, as a patient. I was in for my arthroscopy of my wrist, to try and get to the bottom of what is going on in there and come up with some management plan.

I arrived at hospital at 11.30am and finally went in for surgery at 4.30pm. So there was a lot of waiting around, twiddling my thumbs, killing time. It was a long time to wait around, so I sent my mum home to go plough on with everything she wanted to get done today. I don't know if the nurses felt sorry for my sitting there on my lonesome, or they were bored, but they kept popping in to chat with me and find out more about me and what I do.

I must have looked nervous while in holding once I was finally taken down to theatre, because the nurse who had followed me down ask the anaesthetist if he could give me *some drug name* to relax me a little. And that was all it took to knock me out. I don't even remember the surgeon coming into the operating room.

The next thing I remember is waking up in recovery, with the same nurse who had ask to have me drugged out (in the nicest possible way) taking my obs. Apparently they had been taking them frequently because I had a really low BP and heart rate. First thing I was asked was did I do a lot of sport? Because my obs were too healthy and I needed to go eat a burger. I was coming in and out of sleep for a good hour there and answered her when I was conscious enough to come up with an answer, but this nurse who was a younger girl just sat there and talked all about her boyfriends new car, the song that was playing on the radio at the time, sport - after she got out of me what I was into. It was comforting just to know there was someone there.

Back on the ward and my first nurse who keeping coming in to chat earlier was onto my BP like a baby turtle searches for water. I was going home, then I wasn't going home, then if I could get it up to 100/60 when I stood up I could go home, if I was still light headed I wasn't going home. I was pumped with fluids, pretty much turned upside down to get the blood draining back to my heart, force fed to get my blood sugar back up again. And finally after around 2 hours of various positions and drinking a couple of litres, it was up to 99/66 and they let me go home. They wanted me to be able to go as much as I did.

These amazing people are a special kind. They genuinely care about the well being, health and safety of their patients and go above and beyond to do whatever is needed to help. Having experienced nursing on both a professional and patient side, I don't know what the health care system would do without them.