The world needs to know the truth. If you are a nurse, WANT to be a nurse or all the like, brace yourself. Your wits, your sanity, it's all out there-- pending, swinging out on a limb awaiting for it to be snatched by some swooping eagle that then soars to the end of the Earth to give it to some dainty kid on the beach. Not so cool.

So if I was a recruiter for nursing, this would be my honest draw-in: "What do you want in life? Do you want a rewarding and satisfying job to make all the difference in a person's life? Do you want to care for people in a way that's life-changing, life-giving? Well, what the HELL are you thinking getting yourself into nursing? GIRL, please." I would then show them the poster in the break room of the patient and nurse holding hands with the slogan--"Nursing: Where hearts and hands meet." I would next hold up a poster that is a TRUE depiction of real life nursing: A nurse held up against a wall with a fork in hand about to attack while the patient just sits on his/her bed smashing the call light over and over and over again. The slogan would read: "Nursing: Where saving lives really becomes questionable."

The irony of IV pumps exists in that when they beep, or malfunction, they do so in an attempt to make a hell of a choir out of their sounds. They must pre-arrange who is alto, soprano, etc. I find it even more lovely when I am in the room with a patient, fixing the pump and he decides to ring the call light again to let then know it's still beeping. I want to prize him with a badge of honor, thank him, I will now willingly admit myself to the Psych ward. These sort of days are when mimosas are the sweetest things on Earth.

I mean is it too much to say I imagine myself out in the meadow with 50 IV pumps, all of them singing, DINGING the hell along, and I hear the cued rap music, "Let's GO (let's Go)....If you wanna you can get it, let me know (let me know). I'm about to break this thing up. LET'S GO..." Next I pretend to be in that scene of Office Space with Michael and Peter where they beat the fax machine with the baseball bat.... playing Fight Club until the little piss pumps can pump and ding forever no more.

So how's that a depiction of real-life nursing? The irony is ever-so incredibly tormenting in that, i still want to do this. You realize that you have to give them yourself along with the lack of patience and the anger. You learn to shake your head, scream in the break room as you fling yourself from wall to wall and somehow, love them like your own family. (And anyone could be your family here in West Virginia). Because really, they are my family. I'm just like them, they're just like me, and here we are, truckin' our own little puny selves mightily along.