Nursing U's Podcast
Nursing U is a podcast co-hosted by Julie and Caleb. We embark on an educational journey to redefine nursing within the modern healthcare landscape.
Our mission is to foster an open and collaborative environment where learning knows no bounds, and every topic—no matter how taboo—is explored with depth and sincerity. We delve into the essence of nursing, examining the intimate and often complex relationships between nurses and their patients amidst suffering and death.
Through our discussions, we aim to highlight the psychological impacts of nursing and caregiving, not only on the caregivers themselves but also on the healthcare system at large.
Our goal is to spark conversations that pave the way for healing and innovation in healthcare, ensuring the well-being of future generations.
'Nursing U' serves as a platform for examining the state of modern civilization through the lens of nursing, tackling issues that range from violence, drugs, and sex to family, compassion and love. We will utilize philosophy, religion and science to provide context and deeper understanding to the topics we tackle.
By seamlessly weaving humor with seriousness, we create a unique tapestry of learning, drawing wisdom from the experiences of elders and the unique challenges faced in nursing today.
Join us at 'Nursing U,' where we cultivate a community eager to explore the transformative power of nursing, education, and conversation in shaping a more whole and healthier world."
Disclaimer:
The hosts of 'Nursing U', Julie Reif and Caleb Schraeder are registered nurses; however, the content provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing shared on this podcast should be considered medical advice nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Always seek the guidance of your doctor or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or health concerns. The views expressed on this podcast are personal opinions and do not represent the views of our employers or our professional licensing bodies.
Nursing U's Podcast
Ep #015 - Occupational Hazards of Nursing
Do you ever wonder about the hidden dangers lurking in the healthcare industry? Join us as we take a closer look at the peculiar world of nursing, starting with a seemingly innocuous but potent cleaning tool: the notorious purple disinfectant wipes. Are these products changing over time, or are our noses becoming more sensitive? As we explore this and the broader implications for nurses and patients alike, we uncover a culture that often downplays the occupational risks faced by healthcare workers, despite clear warning labels. We also discuss the delicate balance between effective infection control and the potential hazards these cleaning agents pose.
The life of a nurse is fraught with challenges, from confronting infectious diseases to handling difficult patients. We share personal stories that highlight the resilience required to face threats and unsettling incidents, such as patient aggression. Feelings of powerlessness and frustration emerge when nurses are blamed for circumstances beyond their control. Our conversation navigates the impact of training, the trauma from physical confrontations, and how personality differences can sometimes provoke volatile situations. This gritty reality on the frontlines of healthcare demands not just physical strength, but emotional fortitude and unwavering dedication.
Nurses often turn to dark humor as a coping mechanism, providing relief and connection in an isolating profession. We delve into this intriguing relationship, pondering whether it reflects larger societal issues. The necessity for proactive wellness programs and improved safety measures becomes clear, with comparisons drawn to practices in state police agencies. We advocate for change, emphasizing the importance of mental well-being and the impact of staffing ratios on healthcare environments. As we conclude, we urge listeners to engage with us and advocate for solutions that enhance the safety and mental health of those tirelessly caring for others.
we are back so we are just keep coming back yeah, it's necessary yeah and it's, it's, it's a drive.
Speaker 2:It feels like a drive, like I could never quit. I could never be like, let's just not do this anymore yeah, I, I, I never have that.
Speaker 1:Do feel like, uh, I don't land the plane very well. Uh, and my ideas? I feel like I've I have a lot of growth in presenting my ideas and concepts as we do yeah, and so we were.
Speaker 2:It says we're baby, we're baby podcasters. Yeah as we do, yeah as we. It says we're baby. We're baby podcasters. Yeah, we didn't go to podcasting school or broadcasting school. Yeah, we're just silly nurses telling our silliest.
Speaker 1:So today's topic occupational occupational hazards of nursing, and that we were. We were texting back and forth yesterday about what we were gonna talk about today and like I read the text as I was wiping down a cart with purple wipes, uh, purple wipes, yeah, purple wipes Green top.
Speaker 2:purple top red top.
Speaker 1:I was so disgusted by how we get to the bottom of the can of purple wipes and they're super wet and the stink is so bad. They just are so noxious. But they didn't used to be, I don't think to me, not like they are today.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know if the wipes are different or are we different?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I really don't, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Were. We numb to the smell and we just didn't. We're not paying attention. And now we are paying attention. Or is it literally the wipes? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's very, very strong, and you know worse than me.
Speaker 1:Oh my, oh my God. It could be a sign that we're getting older. It could be a sign that we're getting older.
Speaker 2:Well, it could be. I can't tolerate that. There's a lot.
Speaker 1:I can't tolerate and I won't tolerate.
Speaker 2:Another sign of my age A lot like these lines.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I keep thinking, I'm like just julie, it's, it's wisdom and someone looks at me and it's like god, she has thought a lot yeah, right, yeah, yeah yeah well, and how many times you have that that look in nursing you're like like just scowling scowling, scowling, what yeah?
Speaker 1:Occupational hazard. This, totally this, right here. You're going to get this if you're a nurse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the forehead divot. I'm going to start looking at that on people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to look angry. Your face is going to present anger to the world. If you're a nurse, yeah, I try to. I know anger to the world.
Speaker 2:if you're a nurse, yeah, I tried to but yes the white so I did also as we were texting, because I was also wiping down cards, because that's my little retirement job. Um, they have poison control information on the back of them and it says use gloves and masks. You know, get it real wet Like they're just luring you in.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? What do you mean? Who's they?
Speaker 2:I have a they. And it's whoever this is that controls everything and makes all these products that we have to use. And it's whoever this is that controls everything. He makes all these products that we have to use Like you have to use it. When did that come about? Like, who made that up? What would happen if we just wiped the bed down with something else, like a soap and water?
Speaker 2:But it's this noxious and how much does that purple top company make have to use them, so they have to buy them. I don't know. I think too much into you. You go, you go dark I do, yeah, but then I try to keep it light because it doesn't affect me, but it's just things are always interesting to me about why. Who said that you had to use those wipes?
Speaker 2:and why and what meaning was that? What were you talking about that? They were like we're gonna make these super noxious, like the worst kind of things we're gonna make. Nurses have to use them every day, and I don't just pull out one.
Speaker 1:I pull out. I mean that kind of goes into the reductionist thinking, scientific inquiry, where the questions that are being asked are not the question is a human question in the sense that it is the problem of infection control that is being addressed. So the problem is human facing, meaning that infection control is a human issue, that we're trying to prevent infections for humans. So the patient is really the primary objective in the pursuit of reducing what is going to truly eliminate toxic or harmful bacteria. So I don't think that the scientists and the companies that are creating these things are malicious towards us in any way. Really, I think they're focusing on the problem and creating a solution that, yes, it feeds the entire system that we're moving in and it is affecting us because we're the ones that interact with it. So the patients don't interact with it they interact with a clean bed or a clean cart, but we're the ones that are interfacing with that science and so it's an occupational hazard right.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of where, because they I mean it clearly says on the can that it's cancerous.
Speaker 1:But for years I never wore gloves with purple wipes. I believe I was told they were safe to handle. Yeah, I don't know if I read it, or I don't know if I just didn't read the bottle or if um don't know if I read it, or I don't know if I just didn't read the bottle or if, um, it was cultural, if the culture of the, of the unit or the hospital was such that the purple wipes are safe, don't worry, or was it? It's all relative.
Speaker 2:Eff it, it's fine yeah, kind of like, kind of like that, I think. And you, yeah, kind of like that, I think. And you know there are lots of things that have been put in place for patient safety, for cleanliness of the hospital, for to eliminate accidents, like most places. You know the wet sign thing has to be down, you know things like that, but there are so many things that it feels like nobody takes into consideration how it's going to affect the nurses. There's lots of scientific data about the purple wipes cut bacteria and they kill viruses and blah, blah, blah. So you're gonna have a super clean bed, but is there any kind of documentation on how that it affects the nurse's long-term use of it?
Speaker 1:Oh, it just says it causes cancer. Okay, and when you read it I didn't even read it, I just know that I don't like the smell of it and I find myself wiping the bed down and trying to get away from the fumes. You're dodging fumes that are literally cancer-causing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that are literally cancer causing? Yeah, so that's just one thing.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a, I mean, it's it kind of. It kind of gets to the kind of gets to the idea that I was thinking about in this conversation, which is the threats to our life, Like we've talked about the violence that we experience. You know idea that I was thinking about in this conversation, which is the threats to our life, Like we've talked about the violence that we experience. Um, you know that we have been punched, kicked, bit, hit, spit on, shat on, pissed on. Um, do you remember the neuropatient, the guy that had some type of neurological disorder, where he perpetually masturbated and was throwing it on us. Do you remember that? I remember which room he was in, I remember which pod he was in. I remember the whole thing and it was terrible, it was absolutely traumatizing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I have like bits and pieces, like it might be like a fever dream. You know that that's a lot of my memories.
Speaker 1:I'm like Fever dreams is a perfect way to say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. And.
Speaker 1:So it's, we have all these different threats to a lot like um. Do you remember the time that the, the patient called, hits on the nursing staff on fifth floor? And then um and then he. He came to me in the icu no, I don't know that.
Speaker 2:He came to you in the ICU. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, he, he was calling in, hits on us all, describing us, giving our names, the whole thing. Yeah, oh God.
Speaker 2:How do we even? How do we even stay? How do we?
Speaker 1:even stay. Why do we stay? Why do we keep putting ourselves through it?
Speaker 2:I don't really know. I think it's because this is what you chose, this is what you do, this is what society says it is. It is this way. You're not going to change it. You're one little drop in the bucket, your little voice is not going to matter. That's what it feels like, I guess, like when you're in a system and you're, what are you going to say? What would you say? You can't, because a lot, honestly, a lot of the times, even in a violent situation, it turns around to be your fault anyways a lot of times does get pinned on us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah and it's like, well, what could you have done better? Could you not have maybe raised your voice like that, or what did you do to provoke the patient? Or in reality.
Speaker 1:Maybe the thing that you should be doing is raising your voice like put it down, I mean that's. I mean, I would say I definitely turned into that, I, I definitely turned on on patients, not not necessarily in a physically violent way, but once you get to a point where you recognize there is no reason, there is no reason and and I'm not reasonable, after that, yeah, uh, you can't reason with me. If you've proven me that there is no reason, I'm I'm a stonewall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're done talking. We're done talking. Yeah, it's, it's. I'm going to tell nurses that, like you're not, you're not going to talk him into not taking his narcotics, so just give the narcotics as ordered. It'll make your job and my job a lot better.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Give it. Don't stand there and argue, because now you're just making the whole, you're just bubbling up and boiling the situation, you know. But that's one thing, but there are a lot of things that happen completely unprovoked, you know. You know as kind, using their gentle voice, using their nurse voice, you know doing. You know as kind, using their gentle voice, using their nurse voice, you know doing what they try, just trying to give medications, just the simplest little things, being as kind as you are, and that they don't care. Those patients don't care. It. It's done, granny, it's got your arm uh, uh-huh, yeah, with the poo paws.
Speaker 1:Oh the poo paws, your shit sticks.
Speaker 2:Oh, those poopy fingernails as they dig into your skin. Oh, oh my God, oh my God. Well, they teach nurses. Now we all have to go through that silly protect yourself training. What is it called? You know how you? They teach you how to like block with a chair or don't put yourself in the corner, or you know.
Speaker 1:Don't put your stethoscope around your neck yeah yeah and it just came to my mind.
Speaker 2:We're kind of talking about this in a light nature, and I know that there have been nurses out there who have been completely traumatized by even just one situation where they have been completely taken over control and and have been physically harmed and and it it never should happen right it is never the nurse's fault you're right it, just those kind of things and patients acting a certain way. It never is the nurse's fault. I mean you can't.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've seen some nurses that provoke, like there are nurses that provoke. There are nurses that provoke. Why are they?
Speaker 2:provoking why?
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, I mean sometimes it's just that, but sometimes I mean nurses. We're human and so there's every personality type and there are some nurses that have no bedside manner and they say things that are offensive. That is a fact, like that's true. But I mean, I hear, I hear what you're saying. It like yes, most of the time we are, we are subjecting ourselves to abuse like what, why, where, where, where happen, where? How did it happen that the patients became so entitled to to treat us that way?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think well, I think we've talked about this before Like when pain becomes so great that it you lose, you lose touch with reality. You're not I mean so like there. But there are some, there are some that are just flat out entitled and mean and they're abusing the system. I mean like that's a fact, there's an abusive system and then you know, a lot of those people carry infectious diseases that can kill us. You know, I can't actually say that this story is. I can't say that he was entitled.
Speaker 1:I really didn't even know the patient. I was a nursing student and I was observing a procedure and I got splashed in the face with blood. I immediately went and I washed my eyes out and, um, cause it got in my eyes, like, felt it, like it was in my eyes and you know, nobody told me to wear glasses or or do anything. You know, I was a nursing student observing. No one else was wearing glasses. You know, um and uh, and so I went, I washed my eyes out, reported it, and the patient had been discharged by the time they got to the decision that they needed to test my blood and to test the patient. The patient had discharged and they lost track of him and it was maybe six weeks later. They contacted me and said that the patient had HIV.
Speaker 1:And I remember it was Christmas break and they called me into the office and told me that I thought I had, I thought I had done something, I thought I was in trouble. I was like, oh my God, what can I have done? I haven't done anything, you know, and it's, it's the Dean, and like two of the top professors and and they're like we have some bad news for you and and I was like you know, and then they told me, and I was just like it was so far out of like I had, because I had so many other experiences in those six weeks that were so much that like I had forgotten all about it. It was nothing. And so they told me that and it was just so shocking. It was just so shocking and it was. I immediately was thrust into because I was outside the window of protocol for the prophylactic or or it's not. That's not prophylactic, it's, I guess, treating, you know, pre-treating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a whole protocol and order set for you know, if you get a needle stick and and or bloodborne pathogen, whatever, and it's hiv, that you can opt to be treated prophylactically because clearly you would not have hiv but you would be treated with the the medications.
Speaker 1:Right. So I was outside that window. So I was, I was down, uh, they, they set me up with a, uh, infectious disease doc and I saw him for six months. I it started out like he was assessing my liver. Uh, I think it was twice a week. Um, they excused me from everything to go do that, but I was married at the time so there was no intimacy for those six months it was. I was like you know, I'm super young, I'm a young dad and I've got this kid and I'm like this could change my whole life and I just kept going. You know, you just keep going, like what is that?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I mean. So that's one story that I feel like informs my perspective on COVID. When it came to COVID, it was like okay, another life-threatening, unseeable threat. So what, it's Tuesday.
Speaker 2:It just came to my mind. It's similar with firefighters and how they are deliberately running into a burning building. Whatever that drive is, that drive to rescue, that drive to perform what you know keeps them going into the burning building kind of similar, like you know. But you kept going with it. You kept wanting to be a nurse. You were like, well, I mean, I guess this is just part of it I got stuck by a needle once. By a needle once, I think the patient jumped and I was starting the needle and then he jumped and it came back and then I put that to my hand.
Speaker 2:So it had been, had it been him? Yeah, I had perked his skin to go into the vein.
Speaker 2:He jumped, so it came back out and then my hand, like you know, right about here yep and you just and I was pregnant, oh, geez, freeze, you're like you know, now his vein blood is just running down and I'm like, well, you know, so you just keep going. And I think I I washed it, washed it, washed it and um went in. You know you got to fill out all the paperwork. I mean, you know it's a big deal that it. He came back. Non, he was on HIV positive.
Speaker 1:Thank.
Speaker 2:God, what would I, would have done?
Speaker 1:What would you have done?
Speaker 2:But I mean that medication.
Speaker 1:But I mean it's happened. I mean, you know, we worked with someone that acquired HIV from a needle stick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, he was much older and it happened a long time ago, right, and I think he was traveling.
Speaker 2:We knew him and we knew the story. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he was traveling to new york city or something and and got a stick.
Speaker 2:it happens, so it's scary, but so it's so interesting why we don't retreat. Why don't I mean if I was working, if I was collecting garbage, like if that was my job, and I had to jump off the back of the truck, hook the cans up up, get the can off, and I got like run over, right. You were like, oh God, I got to go back. I'd be like fuck that, yeah. But as you heard, you're like I just keep coming back, yeah not the incident report.
Speaker 2:And I'm pregnant and I might have HIV and don't like my baby and we'll just wait it out, I guess, so I'll see you tonight. It's so crazy.
Speaker 1:It's so crazy.
Speaker 2:It just is. That just shows you how I hate the word resilient, but that is what that is. It is a mental strength that comes from somewhere that keeps nurses going and it for me it was glaring during COVID. The I the pull to go help for me because I was in management when COVID first came and I was helping all the nurses and I was way too emotionally involved with all of it and all of them because they had a whole unit out that got COVID.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:The emotional involvement, but the pull to go to like New York or to go work for an agency, to go to the places like, because it, you know, before it hit Kansas City, obviously hit the periphery of the united states. For me the poll could go. I had to be like we are not doing that, julie, like but, but. But we should. You could, you can, you will you not? You need to. They need you, they need you uh-huh, that is exactly.
Speaker 1:Uh, they, they need me, they need me, they need me, my community needs me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They need me that was the hard when I left in 2013,. That was the internal struggle. I have spent all this time, all this money, all this effort to build up the skills that I have to serve the community, and they need me. It was such an internal struggle, but I couldn't stay. It was so hard.
Speaker 2:Well, and then I mean again I think we talked about this several episodes ago but it's like a bad relationship. It's like you keep getting treated like shit and no one's really thinking for you, no one's really out there rooting for you or, you know, putting you first. It's this. You just keep going back, hoping it's going to be different, hoping that he loves you and he never just want you to love me.
Speaker 2:Love me, love me, oh my God. So is that something that is? No, I don't want to say broken, but is that something in our own psyche that creates that need for us or makes us feel like we are needed, and we keep going back to this very abusive, you know, violent, I mean.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think, I think that a lot of times I mean not every nurse has experienced some form of abuse in their past, but I think a lot have I do too, and so maybe there's something familiar.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Maybe, so that's, interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean, one of the things that has come up for me a couple of times, uh, listening to you talk is and this is kind of a mental workshop thing the idea of leukemia.
Speaker 1:So we keep coming back, we keep coming back. But we've got this now. We've got this angry face that like, because you know, when you walk into a patient's room and they're manipulating you and you shut your face down, like you know, when you walk into a patient's room and they're manipulating you and and you shut your face down, like you're you can't penetrate me, like I'm not letting, like, so there is, and I would say I would say that if you really look at all of the dark humor that the content creators are creating on Instagram, the common thread is a hate of humanity. Amongst the nursing community, there is a deep, deep anger and hatred towards the collective humanity. And so, as I've thought about that idea, if you expand your mind to the collective humanity, and so, as I've thought about that idea, if you expand your mind to think about this like, if you expand your mind to think like, think about larger systems, that's alright, we'll just cut it out.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I'm getting a getting a phone call, doggone it.
Speaker 2:That's alright, I'll come back on and then just start with if you expand your mind there am I back yeah where, where is it?
Speaker 1:where are we? Yeah, somebody was calling me. Why can't I?
Speaker 2:see it, I can see you okay, there we go.
Speaker 1:Time. Stamp that at 29, 22. Let's see, was it 28?
Speaker 1:it was it 28 it was like 28, 40 or something okay, it's a good exercise, because this is what we were talking about doing is pausing and collecting our thoughts. So if you expand your mind and think about leukemia, what is leukemia? Have all of the different blood components and the white blood cells are the blood cells. It's not like they're abstractly labeled white blood cells. When you look at them under a microscope, they're literally white blood cells and so their function is to essentially kill pathological cells that are trying to harm and damage the body. When you get leukemia, those white cells turn on healthy cells and start destroying the body itself.
Speaker 1:So if you look at the dark humor of nursing and the healthy like you look at the dark humor of nurses and the underlying hatred of humanity, it's as if the nursing community. I wonder what the ratio of nurses and healthcare providers are to the collective society, because it would be fascinating if they correlated to blood components. You see what I'm saying. Yeah, like we are turning that that that stone wall. Once that patient has proven to me that there is no reason and and they are either lying to me or they are manipulating, or or they just don't have the capacity to reason there's a difference between somebody who's manipulating, lying or being aggressive and someone who is uncontrolled because of their pathology, because of whatever it is that is happening to them. There's a fundamental difference, and we know the difference generally. Um, so it just seems to me that we have one of one of the core issues of modern societies that we have leukemia.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, if you take the nursing and the dark humor and kind of where that, where that has gone and looks like it's seeping, and then you lay over the pathology of leukemia, it could match up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. I think it matches up in my mind.
Speaker 2:I'm not wronging anybody. We're not wronging anybody for doing the dark humor, because I think it's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:So relevant and it makes me feel happy almost to read and to see some of those memes, because I'm like either 100% true or it's just so funny like nurses only would get it like hilarious because it's like they are grasping for something. So it's a symptom of what is happening to to nurses. What has been happening is just creating this.
Speaker 1:It's a natural outflow of, of a result of, of the truth of our experience.
Speaker 2:but it's all. It's a symptom of something that's happening way prior to them being creating the dark humor oh yeah to, to almost gain some, um, just a breath. Yeah, dark humor is literally yeah yeah, because it's it's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's wild it is wild I mean, and that's like that, that goes back to the isolation of of our experience, like that that I think you know I was. I stayed off of social media for a long time and it was the dark humor of nursing that really pulled me into it again. Is that I? I felt? I felt like whoever created this can see me. Yes, they, they can see me. They like they would understand, they would understand me.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, if you think about it, you scroll through social media and you might well my account shows a lot, but you know, say you take five different social media accounts. They don't know each other, they don't know. The only thing they have in common is that they're nurses.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:They're putting out essentially the same content, maybe a different mean, maybe a different saying but it's essentially the same.
Speaker 2:So it is a collective um feeling that, an expression of what it is like to be in, to be a nurse, to work in some of the places and some of the units and with some of the people that we have to work with. And part of that, I think, it comes from all the craziness that we deal with, and you know the hazards, not only craziness that we deal with. And you know the hazards, not only the products that we use, um the, the physical mechanics that we have to do, and I don't care if you send me to a yearly back saving training. Oh, come on for your lift. Put the. You know they used to. It took like four people and you would take it. Put the lift thing under there now they just made it, so it just takes one person and all you got to do is lean the patient up and shove it down their back and you can get it done no I know a thing that that happened and that fucking patient fell out of the hoyer lift and broke her hip.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that is a nightmare. Oh, I hate using those things. I mean, they're great but they scare the crap out of me.
Speaker 2:And I lifted cause I did open hearts for a long time, like that's kind of just what I did. So every morning they had to have a chest x-ray and usually open heart patients aren't the skinniest of the community and when I was taking care of them we would. They were intubated, usually until morning. So they're intubated, they have all the lines in their neck, they have all the chest tubes, you have all your pacemaker wires, all the monitor wires and you know, know, of course mine were pristine and they were oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah everything was gotta feel good like, don't you lose it.
Speaker 2:So then, radiology comes in in the morning you know we didn't have the like nice, like beds that you could slide the thing and slide the thing. No, you had to reach in with your arm and grab the sheet just on one side. Hopefully have someone else and lift that sucker up like this yeah multiple times.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it at the time like it's kind of like when you are like, oh, I'm gonna clean the garage today, so you go out, you clean the garage, you can't do it. You are doing it, you are moving the things around, you're shoving, you're picking, you're picking up. When do you feel it? The next morning, when you wake up, right, you're like I can move my body. So I was never the nurse that was like I, I can't lift. He's too heavy. We're going to have to get four more people in here.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It wasn't. You know, those people COVID patients. We proned them all.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:We had a proning schedule.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:Once your shift Plus, I was charged.
Speaker 1:So for the audience that doesn't know what proning means, oh, explain that Just because I know there are people that aren't nurses.
Speaker 2:Prone is the position that they call when you're on your stomach. So you're prone. I don't even know what it's called when you're on your back Supine. Supine, supine and then prone You're on your belly. And so it was thought that getting these patients onto their bellies would allow the back part of their lungs to aerate for some time.
Speaker 1:And basically expand the alveoli, the smallest functional part of the lungs, so that the surfactant, the pressures, could be overcome and that part of the lung could expand and receive uh, exchange air and gases.
Speaker 2:And it. It works for some, but it didn't work for anybody who had COVID. Nobody who was ventilated that we had in a protein schedule lived so. But we still did it. We still were told that's what we're doing, even though, whatever, I can't even talk about it. But so we had to prone all these patients, and I would. I was the charge nurse and so I might have my own patients, but also then it was my responsibility to make sure that all so we had like the proning team that that was within the unit. But we had a schedule, and so we'd say what are you? What schedule are you on? What schedule are you on, what schedule are you on? And we would go and everybody would just have all their shit ready. Like you, you knew you had the bedding to the side, you had all the lines, respiratory had to be there, like it was a deal.
Speaker 1:It was a deal.
Speaker 2:We're in the middle of the night is when this there was a deal. We're in the middle of the night is when this right, so we would have to turn all these patients, and some nights you had four people, some nights you had two people in the respiratory therapist. But it still had to be done and we did it. And so there are systems that will say, oh, but we have protocols set in place to protect our nurses. Backs Do you.
Speaker 2:Maybe in a, in a, in a world where you know lollipops and gumdrops also come from the sky. Not in normal, not in normal everyday nurse. It just doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen. You know, and, yes, can you choose to rise the bed up and don't bend over, and stuff like that? You can, but a lot of times it's just not even. You don't have time, You're running around. So you know the environmental hazards, the emotional hazards, I mean, the list goes on and on.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, like you know, I think a lot of the environmental hazards are emotional hazards, like just the. Just like the wipes are going to cause cancer for us. We're exposed to radiation All the time. I run and I hide behind walls whenever they're shooting x rays. Yeah, um, you know all of the. You know the. You know when you've got somebody with you know bladder cancer and and, uh, they've, they've got, uh, you know, chemo sitting in the bladder for an hour and then you're gonna, you gotta, you gotta, dress up and and put the suit on. You know the. The inch thick gloves, whatever they are I don't remember how thick they are exactly, but doubled um, and you can't get it on your coil, you can't. You got to be super diligent about the process that you go through to eliminate that chemo.
Speaker 1:All the infectious diseases HIV, hepatitis, tb, what TB? Oh, tb, my goodness. Anybody that goes in one of those reverse isolation rooms, you know, yeah. Rooms, you know, yeah. I mean the fact like, like you know the the the migrant workers.
Speaker 1:I remember when I worked in the er we would have migrant workers come in. They would have an accident. We would do some kind of chest x-ray or or something, see something, test them for t and they pop positive. And you know, a lot of times they were migrant workers, so they would get on the antibiotics for the tuberculosis and then their season of work was done. They'd go back down across the border and stop their drugs, stop their medications, and then now we've got drug-resistant tuberculosis. And guess what? We're going to see that patient back in the ER next year and we aren't going to be able to fix him and he's going to give our healthy population a form of tuberculosis that we can't help, we can't care. Big problem, that's a big problem. What else? What are some other occupational hazards? What are other diseases? Hpv when you cut HPV with a hot knife. When you cut HPV with a hot knife, it aerosolizes the HPV and can go into the surgical technicians, all the healthcare providers in that room.
Speaker 2:It can go into their lungs and cause lung cancer.
Speaker 1:I did not know that one. Yeah, it's a new one. All healthcare workers should be vaccinated against HPV. Wow, regardless of age, that's what our pulmonologist one of my pulmonologists advocates for. Is everyone getting every healthcare provider getting an HPV, especially in surgical services?
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's pretty heavy, really, promoting vaccine.
Speaker 1:It's really heavy, yeah, wow yeah. That's pretty heavy really promoting back pain. It's really heavy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I think we bring this up because Well, it's contributing to the mental health.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know All these physical threats that we are exposing ourselves to. I mean it absolutely impacted my, my mental health Absolutely Like because it's scary, it's fucking scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get around a nurse like me or Caleb back in the day and I'm sure you probably didn't really feel comfortable complaining or bitching or, you know, whining or telling us that you were scared, because you know, I at least I would have been like.
Speaker 1:Well it's it's kind of a, it's kind of a fear that that I mean we, we're so skilled in crisis management. That is like, if you really reduce our technical skills, we are crisis managers and so that means we respond, we step up, we run into the fire. Whatever the critical situation is, we run into it, we do it. I mean, we're doing it right now with this podcast. So, when it comes to these unseeable threats, you can't see HIV, you can't see TB, you can't see any of these things, but they are absolutely part of our awareness and so it's not in the moment that we're going to think about these things. It's very rarely, I think.
Speaker 1:I just told the story about running into a patient. A couple weeks ago. I ran into this room because this woman was coughing. I thought maybe she's dropping a lung, not sure what was going on, but I just ran in. She could have had COVID, she could have had any kind of communicable disease. It ended up not being. It ended up being something totally different. I just ran in without thinking. We just run in and we respond. It's only when we sit down, it's when we're sitting at the desk in the middle of the night and we're like it just comes to us. It's just that flash of an idea that this thing could kill me, this thing could take everything that I love.
Speaker 2:It's heavy, I mean it really is, I don't know. I think just keeping, maybe, just being aware of the hazards of your job, trying to mitigate and be as safe as you can to keep yourself and your body and your mind as well as can be so like some proactive things, because you're not going to, we can't, you can't eliminate all of that, it just is, it's always, it always is going to be there. You know things that can make it better. I mean more people more staffing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean having you know, having having more time, more time to process, having you know maybe a team of counselors that are assigned to us that we have.
Speaker 2:you know it's a state agency, I'll just say that, and a state police agency policing they now have they give them four hours of wellness time. They pay them.
Speaker 1:I think you've mentioned this before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you could either do whatever it would be like go to your yoga class, go talk to the counselor that is hired by that agency, or an outside. It could be outside too. I asked about that because I'm like, really You're going to take problems to the inside therapist that's silly. But they're paying them for proactive wellness, which I never even thought of that when I was in the trenches. That wasn't even I just I don't know. I just wasn't part of my vocabulary, I didn't really know it wasn't talked about, and I think it is more talked about these days, and so things like what you're saying.
Speaker 2:I hope that it becomes more mainstream. I hope that proactive wellness and taking care of your mental health becomes more important to healthcare systems. And I mean, one way they could show their gratitude is by increasing the staffing, and I know that is not system by system or it could be, um, you know, and there isn't anything legal about ratios I think california is the only state that has legislature on staffing ratios wow there and that's just a huge, a huge piece.
Speaker 2:That would make things so much better. Because if you had time, you know now that the incidental and accidental things, that and that's going to happen, and those are going to happen with any job, but especially with violent patients. And you know, in mechanics, if you had more people there, if you weren't rushing, if you didn't have so many things to do, you could take the time, it could be prepared. You could be prepared. Yeah, is there? You might hurt your shoulder trying to run in and help somebody falling out of bed, you know, but again, you should only be running from just like, not from the end of the hall or leaving your other patient on the toilet to run to the end of the hall. You know there, there there would be less falls, but the accidents are going to happen.
Speaker 2:Preventable things, I guess, is what it would be nice to see. You know some of these systems stepping up to try to mitigate some of that stuff for us in a very obvious way. You sit around a discussion table and you know they're just they're. They kind of have a look like you have right now, just like. Well, I mean what we could do about that. Hello, like it's obvious what we could do about it. Hello, like it's obvious what we could do about it.
Speaker 2:But let's not talk about it or say it.
Speaker 1:Don't say it.
Speaker 2:You know or I would be the one to say it in meetings Like well, we could staff with two more nurses. I think that would be very helpful.
Speaker 1:That would be a great answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, julie. Now what are some other ideas, like we? You know that's not always the answer. It's not Because it seems very obvious that it would be the answer.
Speaker 1:The only answer, the only answer. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I know you feel defeated sometimes.
Speaker 1:I just love the way you tell stories. It just always makes me laugh.
Speaker 2:It always has it's loud and animated and I think that's how I release that energy it's so funny so that energy that I need. It's so funny I don't know Wrapping this up today.
Speaker 1:All of the hazards. It's just a lot of bravery. I think that nurses are very brave creatures, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that it does. You can't ignore it Be aware. Be aware of the threats and how you feel internally about things you know. You can't work scared.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:And you know you have to have some bravery to go. I mean, my God, think of those nurses who work like in the site facilities and stuff. You should get a nurse on it that does work in a psych facility.
Speaker 2:It's I would love to hear I have a friend that worked in a children's psych facility and um she's got some stories um and just you know what, how, how other people are, how other people cope and what are some of the things that keep you grounded and keep your mind healthy. Because we can't live in a scared mind, we can't live in a shameful mind, we can't live in a mind that isn't relaxed during some times so that then it can keep protected when it needs to be. You know, if you're always in that like fight or flight protection mode, that's just going to take you down.
Speaker 1:So I mean the, the, the numbers don't lie. I mean nurses are killing themselves, nurses are taking their own lives. I mean it's happening, it's, the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, so just bringing awareness to lots of the different things that make an impact, you know, just giving, giving food for thought.
Speaker 1:All right, well, that was fun, I had fun. Oh yeah, it feels good to to talk about it, feel like I'm I'm feeling a little bit more free to, yeah, share the really dirty stuff yeah, and I think it will as we keep going.
Speaker 2:Our filter, it was this kind of thing.
Speaker 2:When you're a new nurse, you're like well, you know, you're like, you don't say much, and and you're like yeah, I'm like and then you know you, then you go to night shift or then you've been there for two years and you're like this mother, this mother. So I can imagine it'll probably get like that. We do always want, we don't. We're not, we're not bashing like, we're not going to be a bashing podcast. That's not what we're doing. But we are bringing to light and talking about, with words out loud, things that are not cool, things that happen that nobody talks about. That's it.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we'll always have something to talk about. We'll always have something to talk about and again, we're going to ask for what we want, which is more sharing of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Hit the like button on YouTube like, share, subscribe all the things all the things, all of our podcasts are on YouTube, spotify, apple Podcasts. If you go to our website, it's wwwnursingupodcom. They're all there as well. Tiktok now which this will be out. It will have already been, but that's fine. We're going to try to come out of our isolation shell boxes and it's really easy for Kayla and I to talk here on the podcast, but when putting things out live on social media has been a bit of a.
Speaker 1:Not sure what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're working on it though we're working on it because it needs to be out there and that's where people are right now. So if people gathered in parks on Friday nights for festivals, we'd probably be there, but they don't Not really. Actually, it's because I don't want to do that. So we'll see you next week, all right, I would rather just put something in there.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's funny.
Speaker 2:We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:All right, adios.
Speaker 2:Adios.