diary of a doll

Originally this was a diary entry that was to stay privately in my diary, but a friend encouraged me to post it so here is a very intimate story told from deep within my heart.

"How do I begin to write about the sadness I feel over a man that I barely even knew.


I don't know what it is about grumpy, unhappy old men but something in me is oh so fond of them. Perhaps it's the thought that I can bring them a little bit of peace that they seem to be missing and the hope that maybe I can show them that world really isn't as awful as it may seem.

Mr B. was just that man.

He was a bitter, frustrated, miserable, and depressed man. He was far from what the average nurse would call an 'ideal patient' but yet he put up with everything that we had put him thorough and believe it or not, he was truly a very kind and warm hearted man.

I immediately took a liking to Mr B. and him to me. I took time my with him and I was gentle. I sat next to him when he was angry and held his hand when he seemed upset.

He would never have said that he needed that, but not once did he pull away. And despite his stubbornness he told me that he only put up with all this medical stuff because I was the one delivering it, and not for a second would he accept any of it, he told me, had it been done by anyone else.

I took a great amount of joy in knowing that, but of course I never let him know it.

On Sunday he had asked me when I'd be back again, to which I told him 'I will be back again tomorrow, Mr B'. and without even making eye contact, he climbed underneath his covers and I could barely even make out under his mumbling, the simple remark 'good.' he said before dozing off.
The next day came and I knew that he was scheduled to go for surgery so I made sure to stop in to room 23 so that I could wish him well before going for his much anticipated operation. He never had any visitors so it was important to me to be there for him. Probably moreso than it was to him.

He looked crushed when he saw me enter the room that day and before I could even say hello he demanded to know where I had been. I told him that I was not assigned to be his nurse that day and I had my own patients to look after. He was not amused.

He said to me in a half joking half angry voice 'But didn't they get the letter I sent that you are to be the only person I ever want again as my nurse?'

I wanted to tell him right then 'you are the only person I want to be my patient'. But I didn't. Instead I made some witty remark, brushed it off, and moved on.

He began telling me that his surgery that was supposed to happen that day had been cancelled for various reasons (now for the second time) and he wouldn't be going now until tomorrow. He denied caring either way but I could tell that he was quite upset about it. In fact, he was more than upset with life at the moment.

I asked him if he was nervous or scared about the surgery at all to which he responded 'why would I be? It's not like its going to help anything anyways. They never do'. And he continued to tell me how he didn't think that he would ever leave that hospital alive, but it was okay, he said, because 'his wife no longer wanted him anyways' so he would have no place to go anyways. He never once said it with the hopes of gaining pity or sadness, it was just a fact and he had accepted that.

I tried reassuring him but I knew that thats what he truly believed. And a part of me really thinks that that really is what he wanted, to never have to face going home. To stop being a burden on people. He spent a lot of time watching and analyzing the other people in his room and secretly telling me which ones were never going to make it out. I think that being a witness of such poor and sickly people really took away any hope that he had at getting better himself.

On Monday he asked me for help dialing his cellphone as he was trying to get a hold of his wife and his shaking hands were a sign that he was clearly struggling with it. I offered to dial for him and as I sat with the phone pressed against my ear.
It absolutely devastated me when ring after ring after ring turned into an answering machine.
He asked 'is it still ringing?' I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise, but he knew. I assured him that it was just the middle of the day and she had probably gone out for a bit. Maybe, I said, she was out buying him a present. He didn't say anything.

I was determined that she really was just out, and she would see the missed call and call back immediately. How could anyone not?? I went back a few hours later to see Mr Banks lying asleep with his phone next to his pillow. No new calls.

I asked if I could try calling again, as it was later now and she might be back. But again, it just rang.

He brushed it off casually and said quite matter a factly that his wife no longers wants him.

This time I think he really felt that. She no longer wanted to speak with him. For whatever reason, she had completely removed herself from his life and all that was happening. When he needed someone the most, no one was there.

They had been married over fifty years and after all of it, good or bad, she had abandoned him completely. For me, not being able to be that person to be there for him killed me. I could never offer him the support that comes from a loved one.
That night, as always he rang the call bell to have me fix up his blankets as he was always very fussy about having them just right. I don't know how he managed to do it, but every night he would twist himself in knots in those things and get all worked up about it. I would just laugh at him and shake my head. He loved the way I would take each flannel individually over him and tuck him in perfectly. And would always finish by saying 'thank you, love'.
And when he wasn't saying that, he was singing to me. I swear that anything I said to him would somehow turn into song and he would belt out into full lyric. The last night, as tucking him in I made note that it sure was cold that evening, to which he sang 'baby it's cold outside....'

I came onto night shift Monday evening to hear from the day nurses that yet again, Mr B. had a rough day. I made mental note to go spend some time with him before he went to sleep.

In nursing report, we talked quite a bit about how this man has been through so much and I found myself not being able to stop talking about him. The other nurses caught on that I had apparently made quite a bond with him. But for once I was actually glad to not be assigned to him that night. I just had a sense that he was going to have a bad night and it would be emotionally upsetting for me. Instead, I liked the idea of being able to just stop in and talk to him without having to actually be his nurse.

After report, I checked my patients and started doing the necessary things before I could go say hello when a fellow nursing student came into my room and said that they needed help because they couldn't seem to wake Mr B.

My heart sank.
I dropped everything in that second and ran into his room. I gave a sigh of relief to when i saw him visibly still breathing. I called his name as I grabbed his arm and gently stroked him to wake up. I knew it was stupid but I thought that maybe, just maybe there was a small touch of a chance that if he heard my voice he would magically wake up and be okay. I knew it was crazy but I just wasn't ready to accept any other option than wake up and be okay.

I shook him harder. It caused me great anguish to try the pain tactics for getting a response out of someone as the last thing I ever wanted was to cause him more pain. But I did it because at this point waking him up was the only thing on my mind.

Far too quickly for what I was prepared for, the nurse resigned that there was nothing more that they could do. Right in front of him she said that someone should call his family to come say goodbye as he was clearly dying.
How could they say that!? He wasn't dying yet! I've seen people dying, I've been there as people pass away. This wasn't how it happened. It takes a long time and people go through stages. There breathing deteriorates and the patterns change. They hold on until people have had a chance to say goodbye. Mr B. was only just fine less than an hour ago, he still had time, perhaps even days.

The nurses stepped out and I stayed behind.

I grabbed his hand, it was cold. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I don't do this. Mr B. Don't make me do this. You stubborn old man, stop it!

I looked at his face which was now pale and his kind eyes closed. His lips were blue.

I should have accepted it right then but I was still sure that he had more time. And I knew if I stayed there was nothing I could do and I didn't want to be seen upset.

I went back to my own patients, struggling to do anything. Dropping things and getting mixed up.

I somehow managed to give out some medications and settle my patients to bed when I heard news, less than 30minutes later, that Mr B had passed. I think that the look on my face upon hearing this startled the nurse a little, obviously not being away of my connection to him.

I dropped what I was doing, still thinking it was a mistake, and went to his bedside where they were already cleaning his body as you would to someone who was deceased.

This time his chest was no longer rising and falling and his blue lips no longer grasping for air. He was simply still.

I put my hand on his leg which was still warm but cooling by the minute.

I am good at holding back tears and emotion in times of sadness, but I was dying inside.

I helped to prepare his body for his family to come and say goodbye, still feeling sick and in shock at the whole situation, only to learn that his wife did not want to come say goodbye.

At this point I could no longer hold back actual tears in my eyes and therefore walked away as to go unnoticed. I walked over to the window where my other favorite 'grumpy old man' was sitting on his bedside, obviously not able to sleep with the commotion beside him. He looked at me and asked what had happened to his neighbor (whom he had also become close with, having been in beds side by side for quite some time). I couldn't answer his question. I just looked at him and he said 'he has passed then?' I nodded. The tears in my eyes got bigger. Instead of me being there for this patient who could have easily been traumatized for having been lying down beside a man who has just died, he spoke instead to me with wise words and comfort. He told me strictly not to cry, so I did everything I could not to let the tears fall from my eyes.

I was beyond grateful for him at that moment.

I came back to the room to see Mr B's body fully bagged and I escorted him down to the morgue.

Only for you, you stubborn old man would I voluntarily go into a Morgue.

Goodbye, love. "

Since I've been looking back at my nursing education, I have been reminded of some of my not so fine moments over the years, and thought why not share my embarrassing stories with you!

I had to cut the list short, as there have been many...but heres a few that stand out

1. This first one that has happened on numerous occasions. There have been (far too) many times that I've attempted to take a blood pressure on a patient only I accidentally put the cuff on inside-out so that as it's blowing up you can hear the velcro coming apart and then it embarrassingly just pops right off their arm. The patients always look up confused, which is when I say... 'oh, weird...that's never happened... must be a machine malfunction'. Then turn the cuff right way around and do it again.

2. Having a patient with dementia call a coworker in close and say in a terrified quite whisper 'There's something behind you". Only to have the coworker then turn around, slightly worried, and see that the only thing behind her was me, standing there smiling obliviously.

Patients with dementia are always interesting...another asked me if my mother was an alcoholic whore.

3. Working in the emergency room and walking straight through the closed curtains to see what was going on in the trauma room, and just as I do suddenly have a bunch of people all yell "X-RAY" at me. I naturally assumed that they were asking if I was the x-ray technician and so my obvious response was "No, I'm an ESN (student)" but what they were actually doing was warning me that they were taking an XRAY and I was stupidly standing there being exposed. Opps.

4. Doing a neurovital check on a patient, including checking there pupils for reactivity and reporting my findings to the nurse:

Me: "I tried several times, but I found the patients right pupil had no reaction to light...?"
Nurse: Well thats good.
Me: Why would that be good?
Nurse: Because it's a glass eye.

After almost 5 years of post secondary schooling, I am down to my last 6 shifts EVER of my nursing education. On December 17, 2010 I will officially (pending any unforeseeable complications) have my Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree!!

I can't even begin to tell you the way that this makes me feel. Everything from wanting to cry my eyes out to screaming at the top of my lungs to kissing random strangers.

Everything I feel seems to be a contradiction at the moment. I'm happy but sad. I feel ready to start a new chapter but yet so unprepared. I feel both motivated and terrified.

Nursing school has given me some of the best and worst moments of my life and it amazes me to think how much it has changed me as a person. When I think back to all of the many patients I have had over the years, and how each one has had an impact on me. I remember being so excited to put on my first pair of scrubs, putting them on and showing them off to my family. And then my first stethoscope that I used to practice listening to heart and lung sounds on my poor sleeping dog. The first time I said "I will be your nurse for today".
I even still remember my first ever patient, Susan. I believe that she was in her 80's, unable to speak, other than little noises that she would make. She was adorable. Even in her hospital gown, with her many medical complications, she carried herself like a lady, and I respected that. I remember that I would sit her up every morning and do her hair, put on her blush, and paint her lips a lovely pink colour that she kept at her bedside. I remember thinking 'wow, this is MY patient...OMG this is MY patient!!!' I think I secretly repeated the words 'please don't die' hundreds of times in my head (and still do...).
Every little task seemed daunting and I didn't think I'd ever be able to do it. I actually have to pause and think now that I am actually here.


It took me a good year to come to the realization that when people yelled 'nurse!' They were actually talking to me.

I remember thinking how far away semester 8 seemed and how those students seemed like 'real' nurses. Back then I couldn't even begin to imagine what that must be like.

Back when every little thing was new and when the tiniest things made astounding impressions on me. I was so naive and so impressionable. To be honest, I'm still very impressionable. I like to think that I just take things to heart, even if I've seen them a million times.

Thinking back brings up a million memories filled with first's. From my first injection, to the first time a patient coded, to the first time I had a patient die and had to bag their body, all way back to the first time I saw a live birth and gave the baby it's first ever bath of it's little life. And then there was asking a patient if they've thought about suicide today, and asking a mother intimate details of her 'flow'. To be honest, these things have not gotten a whole lot easier to this day.

I don't think my memories of nursing school will ever leave me as they are so strongly embedded into who I now am. Certain patients will never leave my heart. Most specifically, my 4th ever patient, a 23 year old heroine addict and prostitute who has forever changed my life.

I like to think that in a way I will always be naive in the sense that I won't become tainted. Far too many nurses lose that, and I don't ever want to get to that point. I want to always have hope and bring hope to others. From all of the light that patients have filled me with, it is all I can do to try and give some of that back.


Even in it's worst moments, I love being a nurse.

Being that people who blog are typically generalized as being internet geeks of sorts, I naturally assume that you all know what Reddit is, but as I tend to make my love quite public, it has come to my attention that this is not the case.

So I guess, yet again, that leaves me alone in my nerdiness. Now that I've typed that out, I suppose that the words 'alone' and 'nerd' do kind of go hand in hand....

Well let me introduce you, Reddit is a user-generated news links website, that basically brings all the best everything from the internet together to one convienient place.

The users (known as 'redditors') are hilarious, intelligent and awesome. My favorite 'meme' going are threads based entirely on puns, such as this one: http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/dwpfs/this_girl_came_up_to_me_and_said_she_recognised/

I've been told that introducing people to reddit is introducing them to the end of their 'daywalking' days, but it's worth it!
Where else can you find pictures like this...

Anyways, believe it or not I actually am going somewhere with this...

So being that I've been single for awhile and somewhat sick of the regular dates and 'club scene' I've been accustomed too recently, I heard about a Vancouver Reddit meetup and got excited.
I thought it would be such a great place to meet people who actually share interests with me and who obviously have a sense of humor (I also kind of have a thing for the geeky-hipster types, so the fact that I knew it would be a room full of them was slightly tempting)

As this type of website is known for being almost entirely male dominated, I was admittedly hesistant to attend so I commented on the post stating my worries...
"Am I be the only girl in attendance? And also, I just have to ask, am I going to get raped?"

I got a few responses mostly saying some version of "no, no we are all kind gentlemen here!" But then there was one that just simply said "I can't make any promises"
I thought, ha thats funny...but then I saw the guys username:
'imgonnarapeyou'
And he hadnt' just made the account either, it was a perfectly excecuted line as reddit is so famous for.
The funny part was that the guy actually private messaged me and asked if I wanted to carpool. Hahaha. I know I am random but I don't go thaaaat far.

So after going back and forth between going and not, my friend gave me peptalk and basically forced me to go. I drove the whole way there thinking "I'm not actually doing this, am I?"

I got to the place, which was a hip bar/lounge in gastown and sat in my car for about 15minutes before I got enough courage to walk in alone.
I love that I can do stuff like this, but honestly, in the moment it takes everything I have to actually be able to walk into a place alone, knowing not one person inside.

But obviously that message didn't get conveyed because the waitress tried seating me at a table completely by myself in the main restaurant (when apparently the actual meetup was downstairs). It was awful. I was literally just waiting for her to turn around so I could run out, but before that happened she realized her mistake (although I guess I can't blame her for not assuming I was part of the nerdy group of computer guys).
She lead me down the stairs (yah, they would place us in the basement), and I walked in to a group of about 30 guys (1girl) all looking at me like wtf are you doing here?

I smiled nervously as one guy offered to take me in, and bragged that he should get props for bringing in a girl to the group. I literally sat down as guys crowded around me and just stared at me. It was pretty hilarious. I even had guys high fiving me for showing up and asking what it's like to be a girl on Reddit.

I admit it gave me quite the confidence boost. I've never been in a situation where the odds were so in my favor. And on top of that, they were the most fun, friendly, hilarious guys ever! It was soooo much fun! I was mad that I had to work the next morning, as a bunch of them were all going out together and tried to get me to come with them.
I even met imgonnarapeyou, and he was awesome! I had to refuse the candy he offered, but other than that, it was a rape-free night! Success!

Overall the whole thing was way better than expected! I love when I push myself out of my comfort zone and it all works out!

And it didn't end there either, I came on the next morning to find 4 new private messages.
I could get used to that.