My first unconscious break down!

I had my first real stress breakdown last night. This morning we had our first real big nursing exam. It was our third exam, but this one covered urinary and bowel elimination as well as nutrition. All of these topics were fairly heavy and we also had our first prioritize question. Well, last night I had been up studying, but my son was having a bit of a rough night, so I figured I should get some sleep just in case he decided to wake up. 

Well, I ended up having a horrid nightmare. I was in clinicals and I was in my patients room by myself. I couldn't really see my patient because they had a book they were reading from, which turned out to be my fundamentals text. She started asking me all these really strange, what I assume were supposed to be, test questions. I mean REALLY weird. One that I remember was you walk in and your patient is covered head to toe in diarrhea, which janitor do you call? Yeah, that weird...

So I'm stressing over these questions, trying to get them right and all of a sudden people start trickling in from no where. They're all people I know, from class, instructors, even family members were coming in until the room was nearly full with bodies. My mom came up next to me and asked me if I was taking it well. I turned to ask her what she was talking about, when all of a sudden my patient started coding. I turned back to find that my patient was my grandma who had passed away from cancer some years ago.

I attempt to jump up on the bed to start CPR, but a couple of the students and my instructor are holding me back. Across the bed is Dr. Cox from scrubs (yeah, I'm a scrubs nerd) and he's holding a sign with the letters DNR. That was about the time I fell out of bed...

I'm telling you this story more for my own sake. For the most part I can deal with death, or so I think so far. We'll see what happens when I'm really faced with it, but what will be really hard for me to deal with is getting a patient with a DNR order and being forced to just walk away when something could be done to save them. Knowing they lived a good long life won't necessarily make it any easier, but it would sure help...I guess it's just nice to know I'm still just a human being dealing with things most of the world donesn't have to face on a daily basis. 

We'll just continue to go one day at a time. I don't look forward to this situation, but I know the day I'm faced with it will be a big learning day for me, as well as something to grow on as a nurse, and as a human being.

~THE Future Nurse Moudry