Does Anything Scare You?

I was walking into work the other day and saw my assignment was with a very complicated patient. A newer nurse was standing at the desk and she looked and me and said "I'm sorry!". I looked right back at her and said "these patient's don't scare me." She replied with "does anything scare you??"

 I've been thinking a lot about this conversation the last week. Yes. There are a lot of things that scare me. You may not see them every day as I work very hard to be the person I know my patients, families and coworkers need to see. They need to see a nurse that is confident in her skills, that shows no fear even when things are going wrong. But yes, there are many things that scare me and I'm going to share some with you so that you know that like you, I am human. Like you, the stress and importance of my job are still scary. I have just learned over my years in healthcare to hide the terror until I hit my car at the end of the day. So new nurse, this post is for you

A complicated patient with a terminal diagnosis is still terrifying. It is still scary to me to walk into a room where parents and a child have received devastating news. I am scared that I will not have the right skills needed to help this child and their family. I am scared that this may be the day that something goes terribly wrong and their fight here on this earth is done. I am scared that I will lose my heart to this adorable person and have my heart broken into a million pieces when they have finished their fight. But I put on my nurse face, I hide my fear behind a smile and I do what needs to be done. And maybe, when I get to my car at the end of the day, I will let the fear and emotions overwhelm me and I will cry the whole way home. It happens to the most experienced nurse. You cannot do what we do and not have your heart touched. You cannot stand between a patient and death and not feel broken if you lose that fight. No matter how long you work in healthcare, it will always affect you and I pray that you never get too callous to feel. I pray that you will never get to the point where you don't care anymore. That scares me. I hope and pray that I never reach that point.

Codes will always scare you. It doesn't matter if it is your patient or not. If you are involved in a code you will be scared. Your adrenaline will kick in. You will face the fight or flight response. And as a nurse your instincts are to fight. They are to use every single skill you possess to fight off death. Will you be scared? Yes. Terrified?  Maybe.  A life is in your hands and the hands of your coworkers. And when the situation has resolved one way or the other, you will feel the adrenaline wear off and realize that though you were scared, you did it. Your skills and training kicked in and no matter the outcome, you made a difference. You faced your fears and you conquered them. And when the little nursing student who watched the whole thing from the corner of the room looks at you and says "How in the world did you stay so calm?"  you will realize that you have become the nurse that you always hoped to be. The nurse that appears calm when all heck is breaking loose and you are secretly terrified.

So yes, new nurse. There are things that scare me. There will always be things that scare me because when you work in a profession that requires you to give so much of yourself, there is always the risk of getting hurt. And that is scary. There is always a risk of losing a patient. But we go back day after day and we do it all over again.  That is what it means to be a nurse.