Duckie, Wilma, and Fred : My current reasons for working.

Duckie (affectionately named due to her silk pyjamas with yellow ducks on them) has an infected ankle. The hole is so deep you can see right into the ankle to the shiny metal that was put inside to stabilise it. She has a VAC machine on (a pressure dressing stuffed into the hole, attached to a tubes that sucks out muck while maintaining pressure on the wound base for healing..) and before becoming one of my patients was a very successful solicitor. Her sense of humour is quirky, and we often giggle and laugh at silly little things like my constant sneaking into the educators office to nick minties, the inappropriately timed sucking noise of the VAC that always sounds like someone farting.. or the way I always moonwalk past her room - just to get a smile.

A few weeks ago she was told she may have cancer like growths in her abdomen. She went for tests while the specialist went overseas. Once the results came back.. no one was here to deliver the news. Private hospital politics prevent another surgeon or doctor from reading a report to her and it is not the responsibility nor place of the nursing staff to deliver a diagnosis for fear of litigation if misrepresented. This took my fun loving and well coping patient into a spiral of anger, frustraton and fear. She threatened to rip the dressing off her leg and discharge herself immediately.. the director of nursing was called.. she was crying, swearing and for the first time.. completely and utterly vulnerable.

She had waited days, and suffered invasive testing.. all the while with the fear that she had cancer in the back of her mind and now the results were in.. and everyone was refusing to give them to her. Doctors were called and a massive fuss made. I was completely furious.
She cried, and I rang doctors, my boss called doctors and management and still, no answers.

I didnt know what to do. Sitting on the desk were the results. Clear. No evidence of cancer like tumours.
I did the worst thing possible professionally, but the only thing conceivable morally.
I told her, while explaining that I could be very wrong.. that the test stated there was no evidence of cancer at this stage. At first she just stared at me.. and then she whispered "thankyou". And it was enough to risk serious trouble for, to see her back to normal.

***

Wilma (I call her this because shes partnered with what shes named Fred - her IV machine) swears all the time (and it sounds even funnier because shes british). She had an infected foot and has recently had the metal taken out and the area washed out. She's on very nasty IV antibiotics and is nauseated all the time, so much so shes lost 20ks in 5 weeks. She's still abit tubby, she's jovial.. and rarely rings the bell even when shes got a seriously insane bleeding nose (Which of course results in stern words from me).
Her way of coping with being in hospital is to call it the Jenny Craig institution, burn lavender oil, put tinsel on her monkey bar.. and maintain some sense of ownership over her surroundings.
FRED, as I noted on a small piece of paper yesterday stands for (and this brightened up my day completely)..

F ucking
R idiculous
E lectronic
D evice

Sometimes people tell me that as a nurse, they admire me. That I inspire them.
I find this so weird. I just turn up, do my work and leave.
What I find inspiring is the attitude, the optimism and the sense of humour and creativity that my patients create and possess to pull themselves through the horror it must be, to be stuck in hospital.

In the ED I probably won't have the same opportunity to develop relationships with people like I have in my current job, and as the days creep past and my resignation date comes closer and closer, I can't help but wonder if I've made the right decision.
What will inspire me in the Emergency Department? What will make me smile?

What will keep me going back, day after day?