observations from work...

These are just a few things I have noticed at work:

Families don't care about much anything other than that their loved one is clean and comfortable.  If I have achieved these two things, the family thinks I am an excellent nurse, regardless if everything else is completely crazy.

Our two sizes of post-op surgical bras:  Queen and Super-Queen!

I seem destined to have urine fly through the air and hit every part of my body.  So far, I have been hit on the hand, face, ankle, and very top of my head.

Every symptom is magnified by 1000 when in the hospital.  That tingle in your hand or the weird bruise on your arm becomes something very significant and reportable when you are in a hospital room, which I'm quite sure you'll forget two seconds after you leave.

Never take old people for granted.  They are some of the wittiest and smartest people I interact with.  However, they always seem able to get lost in a circular hospital unit.  I have no doubt that if the exit door had a bright, vegas-style flashing sign on it that people would still walk right past it and need my assistance finding their way out.  

Young men (which on our unit means 40s and 50s) are my worst patients.  They whine more and have a lower pain tolerance than any other age group (men or women).  I am convinced that they are not accumstomed to being so vulnerable and out of control and are so out of their element that they simply forget that they are grown men and that they're going to have to feed themselves and fix their own pillow every once in awhile.

I have a very stressful job.  It is so stressful on some days that I am convinced this has led to me being a little more "chill" about other areas of my life.  For example, on the rare days that I get to cook a decent meal, I am very experimental with ingredients and rarely follow a recipe exactly as written.  I was NOT like this before.  I guess your body can only handle so much stress...