Long Overdue Update!

I cant believe I haven’t updated my blog at all this YEAR!  Shocking!  I’ve just been so busy, work seems to never stop and I never seem to get any time to myself to chill.  I really must learn to put holidays in.  Well, I had a week away in London in March, which I desperately needed, but apart from that it’s been non stop.

So, where to start.  Guess I could start with right now and then work my way backwards?  Not the usual way to go about things, but I think that by thinking about how I’m feeling now, than going back over to work out why I’m feeling like this, seems like a good idea?

OK, so right now, I am feeling really stressed, really unsettled, and doubting everything I am doing.  Not the most positive start to my blog I guess.  I’ve always struggled with self confidence, I still feel now that I don’t know anywhere near enough about anything, and sometimes the ward I’m on doesn’t help the situation.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the people I work with, so so much, I really do.  But sometimes the management of it all, puts people under so much stress, its just too much.  We’ve had some new starters, one of which has left already.  But as well as that, having more new starters means if I was working with them on a nightshift, I’d be in charge, which is something I really don’t feel anywhere near ready enough for, but being so short staffed and having bank nurses too, we don’t really get the choice.  We’re also getting loads of patients which are not our speciality which means that I feel as though I’m not doing my best.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to pull over on the drive home from work to cry, cos I feel like I’ve not done a good enough job. 

When I got this job I was completely over the moon, being given the chance to do something which I know I love.  It just feels lately that I’m getting more and more worked up, it’s a constant pressure, and whilst I try my best, I feel like I’m not making any difference.  If our ward gets shut due to lack of patients, we can get sent anywhere at all, at the last minute, and it really panics me.  I hate now knowing how to do things, so send me to a cardiac ward, or orthopaedic ward, so something completely different, I feel it’s dangerous and shouldn’t happen.  The patient needs the best care, and having me as a ‘nurse’ when I know nothing about that specific speciality is wrong.  It’s got to the point now where I am seriously thinking of leaving nursing.  Even though that’s the last thing I want to do, I feel like the way the ward is run, understaffed and overworked, something majorly bad has to happen before the big bosses notice we’re struggling, and makes the changes we so desperately need. 

I wish it could be a happier blog but, this is really the most positive I could make this post, I’ve had a day off and put things into perspective, which has helped me paint things in the most positive way that I can.  I love my ward and the people I work with, but sometimes it’s all way too much and I feel like I’m suffocating.  Sometimes my old job in a care home or an office job seems so much more appealing.  Is it really worth getting palpitations, being unable to sleep or eat, and barely managing to function when I’m at work? I’m not too sure to be honest.  I’d love to say I will be a nurse for life but sometimes I doubt it.  But then again I have that ridiculous stubborn streak of not being able to give in, which is the only thing that’s (just about!) getting me through this horrible stressy time.  Thank goodness for stubbornness, I’d like to think it’s character building, but maybe it’s more character destroying – only time will tell!  Next blog I’ll try really hard to write by the end of the year!