Sigh

A long, sad sigh is pretty much the only way to sum up my night at the hospital this week. It was my first time working at this particular hospital and I was a little apprehensive, and not really looking forwards to working. Occasionally I have great days nursing, but this was not one of them.
I arrived at the hospital and parked and went in and forgot to key in the combo at the door and set an alarm off. Someone came to rescue me after a minute and turn it off. I walked down the hall and to the nursing station and it was a dreary place with pale yellow walls and floors of a non-descript greenish colour.
"Hi, I'm Heather and I'm from the agency, here to work this evening."
The nurses were pleasant and we went into the med room to start report. The director of nursing care had been doing rounds and she stopped in to talk to us. One of the patients had a foot ulcer that was necrotic and very painful, and the director had a bee under her bonnet about it.
"Her foot is red and swollen and very painful. It's a mixed-vascular injury, which is very difficult to treat."
She went on and on and I have to admit I tuned right out. Suddenly I was snapped back to attention when I realized she was asking us a question.
"What would indicate that the foot is necrotic and not an ordinary infection?"
There was silence. She turned to me with a piercing look. I should have just looked away or kept my face as still as marble or slowly started to say an answer, slow enough that someone else could jump in and save me, but instead I gave a very cheery grin. Her glare could have frozen blood.
"It was cold! A necrotic ulcer is cold!"
Duh, of course. I suppose I should have known that.
A few minutes later she was still ranting, but this time about the stupid agency nurses who don't do a good job at assessing and who never sign charts properly, etc. etc. I could feel my ears burning and I tried to look like I was busy signing charts. Lord, get me out of this place.
After report I wheeled my medication cart into the hallway to start giving out pills. I had put the keys in the top drawer and then shut it for safekeeping. I heard something click and then realized that the whole cart was locked, my keys inside. Slightly sheepish, I cornered one of the nice nurses and asked for the spare keys. We found the spare keys and tried them, but the lock had jammed shut and wouldn't turn. I could see the nursing director come striding my way. She took the key with a huge frustrated sigh and tried to open the lock.
"Why did you lock it?" She demanded.
I tried to stammer an excuse (why do people normally lock things?) but after a second I thought, what's the point?
"I'm really sorry." I said. "I didn't realize I shouldn't lock it."
She gave another sigh and strode off.

The cart was well and truly broken. One of the nurses called maintenance to come and they had a backlog of things to do and said they'd be there in a while. There was nothing for me to do in the meantime, so I sat down at the nursing station and waited, fidgeting while looking at the clock and knowing the longer it took, the later I would be at finishing my med distribution, and I would be behind schedule... One of the nice nurses kept going by and ever time she'd say, "Don't worry, just relax! It'll be okay, it wasn't your fault!" But I could just imagine the nursing director sitting in her office, muttering about the stupid agency nurses who just sat in the nursing station instead of working.
The guy from maintenance finally came. He set down his toolbox and stuck the spare key in and strong-armed it open within 5 minutes. "There you go, it's fixed!"
Need I defend myself? I didn't say anything except 'thank you so much', but as he went past me to leave he laughed and said, "Now I bet it makes you really mad that a guy could open your cart and you couldn't!"
I could've hit him with my metal pill crusher. That would've made me feel better, but I'm pretty darn sure that the nursing director would file a report about abusive agency staff and that would be it for me. Instead I just sighed. A long, sad sigh.

Some days nursing are great. Occasionally. But most days I have to fight for joy. I always thought that if someone didn't like their job, they should either get another one or learn to like it. But now that I'm in the midst of my own object lesson it's not as easy. Someday I will have another job. But for the meantime, I am struggling to find joy and meaning in it. It is there, I know it is. I've already discovered other good things like humility, after all.