anything but glamorous

I used to think Nursing would be a glamorous career. The reality is, it is anything but. I learned this sad fact in my first year of school and it is something that I am daily reminded of.

My very first experience in the clinical setting was at a care home. It was 0630 and a client was ringing in the bathroom as I stepped off the elevator -- a literal thirty seconds after I entered the building. Did I mention it was my very first day in any clinical setting??

Being an aspiring nurse (and a naive individual) I walked up to see what said client needed. I opened the bathroom door to find stool seeping towards me. My memory tells me it was gushing towards me, but I like to think I'm wrong. Some of the facts are blurry, but these things stand out clearly in my mind:

1. there was poop up the walls behind the toilet.

2. there was poop all over the client. All. Over. The. Client. 

3. there was poop seeping under the door.

4. there was poop everywhere.

5. I gagged for an hour straight while I cleaned up the lady.

I decided right then and there that I was not cut out for this job.

When I say I gagged for an hour straight I do not mean discreet little gags. I'm talking full on disgustingly embarrassing gagging. Gagging so hard your eyes are watering, you can taste bile in your mouth, your stomach is in knots, your throat is on fire, you can't breathe, and nurses are coming from down the hall because you are so outrageously loud. That kind of obnoxious gagging. And imagine a stool-storm that takes an entire hour to clean up. Seriously -- an entire hour. I was so overwhelmed that I had no idea where to start. I had to chant "clean to dirty, clean to dirty, clean to dirty, clean to dirty" in my head over and over and over again so I would keep working rather than melting into a gagging mess. It was awful.

It doesn't help that the helpless old lady kept trying to touch me with her stool-covered fingers.

I remember calling Erik when I got home and crying on the phone. I was ready to quit nursing then and there. I could still taste poop even hours later.  I can taste poop now just thinking about it. I gagged when I had a bowel movement of my own that evening because I was so traumatized by that experience (tmi??). I gag thinking about it. It was disgusting.

And nursing hasn't gotten much better since then. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my job, but it really is anything but glamorous. I still gag every time I help clean someone up. Still. After doing it for five years. It's not as embarrassing anymore because I have learned to tame the beast that is my gag reflex, but it still happens every single time.

Oh nursing. What did I get myself into??