The RN

By RJ Austin

Jacob finally has the life he has always wanted. Years of hard work have finally paid off. He's an RN. But one night out after work with his friends threatens to destroy everything he has worked so hard for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483523972

Book preview

Dedications

PREFACE

Despite what you may have heard about this book, it is not, and I do have to stress IS NOT, a nursing manual for a successful career in the nursing profession. In fact, if you’re a new nurse or even thinking about becoming a nurse, put this book down and come back to it after a minimum of at least one year of hospital floor experience. No less please. I don’t want to jade you from thinking you’re not making the right choice in becoming a registered nurse. I’m sure there are a lot of happy nurses out there; I just haven’t met one yet. I don’t want you to think that everyone feels the same way I do. I didn’t always feel this way. The simple fact of the matter is that there probably are more good nurses than bad ones. Everyday schools churn out young eager hungry students that believe in the good of humanity. They still have hearts and think every patient that is lying in a hospital bed is genuinely sick and not just looking for drugs or trying to build a case to win a disability check. So I give you one last chance. If you are thinking of, or are in fact currently in nursing school please stop reading this book now.

I must apologize in advance to my peers for defining and explaining a lot of words that for us seem like common every day words. I intentionally dumbed it down. Not everyone knows that NPO means nothing by mouth. Not everyone knows that the only difference between the red and blue probe on a thermometer is the taste. Not everyone knows our hemostats are actually just roach clips. Not everyone knows when you tell the patient, I have a call out to the doctor, it is just a way to shut the patient up until you can get a free fucking minute to actually call. So you see, sometimes a definition is in order.

In defense of the nursing profession, I really do find nursing to be a rewarding job – one that pays about $2,000 bi-weekly. That is, only if you can manage to complete all three 12-hour shifts without calling off because one of those shifts was so horrible that you’re contemplating quitting the profession all together. Nursing is like going to church. We hate to go, but after words we feel fulfilled, like we actually made a difference. That is assuming you go to church.

This is for real your final warning, for all you noobs to put this book down and pick your Fundamentals of Nursing book back up and learn how in a perfect world nursing should really be like. Nothing is ever really what it seems. I will corrupt you. You will have second thoughts about becoming a registered nurse. I warned you.

Introduction – Call Lights

So here I am on the floor of the hospital that I’ve worked at for six bittersweet years. The walls are covered in their 100th coat of institution baby elephant grey paint. That distinct smell that only a hospital has lingers in the air. The floors finely aged with bacteria. The handrails smothered in MRSA. The light switches hiding microscopic fecal debris because some employees don’t believe in hand hygiene. Anything you touch here has the potential of making you the host of a multi-drug resistant raging infection. The fluorescent lights burned out and flickering. The hospital must have hired Wednesday from The Addam’s Family as its interior designer.

I’m a male nurse. I know what you’re thinking, and no, I am not. In a profession dominated by women, I’ve learned a few things about the opposite sex. Maybe I’ve had cramps. Maybe I’ve been more catty and a better arguer. Maybe I’m even a better dresser; but I still refuse to wear Croc’s or scrubs with prints on them. It’s hard enough to accept the fact that there is still this stigma that male nurses are gay without having everyone second guess me because of what I’m fucking wearing. I’ll stick to my black scrubs thank you very much. But I had issues before my career even began. I like being an RN but everyone automatically assumes I’m a pole smoker.

I think back.

It was 2004 and I was in my college nursing prerequisite Ethics class. First day. I strategically place myself in the back of the room. But not for the reasons you might think. I did this so I don’t interrupt the instructor while she babbles and I text my friends about how boring this class is. I do have manners.

The instructor enters the room. She’s an older woman with a young boy’s salt and paper haircut. Her credentials go on and on. Ugly people have time for lengthy educations. Masters degrees, doctorates, bachelors degrees. Fuck, there are even acronyms for specialties I’ve never even heard of. When I think about my associates degree I wish I was ugly. While they were hitting the books I was smashing any classmate that would open her legs for me.

Good evening everyone, the instructor says to all of us.

I took an evening class because there was no way in fuck I was going to be able to get up early after a night out of partying.

Half the class mumbles hello back.

I’m Doctor Coleman. Welcome to Ethics class. Before we jump right into the course curriculum I want each of you to stand up and tell myself and the rest of the class about yourself. Like what you’re going to school for, your name or anything else you would like to share with the class, the instructor says with a raspy voice. Lets start on the right.

One by one my classmates stand up and introduce themselves and their future degrees. We have dental hygienist majors, business majors, accounting majors and so on and so forth.

This is it. I think to myself. I’ve spent the last two years of my prerequisite classes lying to myself and others about becoming an RN. Well tonight is the night I come clean and tell everyone, I’m in school to be a nurse! I don’t care anymore. I’m not gay. Just because I’m a man and want to become a nurse doesn’t make me queer; maybe I just want to help people. Did anyone think about that? And once I spit it out and everyone in class hears I’m going to be a nurse I’ll take a deep breath and the weight of this stigma will be lifted off my shoulders.

Two more people before it’s my turn to stand up and confess. Two more people before I come clean. Two more people before I can tell the truth.

Hi everyone. My name is Christine and I’m in school for nursing, she says with a soft spoken voice as she stands up.

Christine is wearing the standard girly girl outfit. A Coach purse hangs from her chair and her iPhone screen flashes her Facebook account. She has black yoga pants with the word PINK written across her ass. Her new BeBe shirt sparkles in the light. She rambles some other shit and sits down. I don’t recall whether she was hot or not because I was so focused on what I was going to say to the class.

Fuck that! Just because she’s the ultimate girls girl and is becoming a nurse just like me doesn’t mean I’m going to back down now. I’m still going to stand proud and declare my future nursing degree. We are not the same person. I’m me.

Hayyy, the guy in front of me says as he floats out of his seat.

He’s a middle aged guy. He has wavy mostly black hair. He’s wearing a bright pink shirt that’s tucked into his khaki shorts. Where do I sstart? My name is Dave, he says flicking his wrists.

Right about now my stomach starts to turn. Like I’m about to have the nervous shits.

I think to myself. Please Dave tell me you’re in school to be a teacher, or an accountant. Please anything but nursing. Don’t steal my thunder.

Thiss is my ssecond degree. I was previoussly in finance and worked as a financial advisor for a major bank. I thought I’d try ssomething new so now I’m in sschool to become an RN. Dave says with very noticeable sugar in his tank.

God Dave is a great public speaker I think to myself as he sits back down.

I stand up. My name is Jacob and I’m in school to be a physical therapist, I say with a cracking voice.

I’m what they call a floor nurse. Floor nurses are like what the Marines are to the military. We’re on the front lines. The first to go and the last know. I swear all nurses should get hazard pay. We get shit on, on all ends, every angle, and from every direction. We take it in the ass from doctors, patients, family members, clergy, physical therapists, pharmacists, house keepers, and even worse, other nurses. We’re the middle men. We get caught in the cross fire of a patient and a lousy doctor who hasn’t explained shit to them. I just applied for disability myself. Told my doctor I have PTSD – Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. After the shit I’ve seen and done, the state owes it to me.

As usual, there is complete chaos on the floor. Call lights are beeping. Nurses are running back and forth, hard at work. Doctors are walking by with patient charts in their hands and patients are ambulating in the hallway with physical therapists. These are just the daily routines of any step down trauma floor, or any other hospital floor in the country for that fact. A step down floor is a floor that doesn’t require the patient to be in the intensive care unit anymore. This is a good thing because the patient does not require one on one care; the patient is stable. It’s just one step closer to leaving the hospital in a wheelchair and not in a body bag.

Looking around, I see some nurses are at their WOWs, (Work Station on Wheels). This computer has become our ball and chain, clinging to us for another dreaded 12-hour shift. We go from room to room with these mobile computers, medicating our patients and signing the meds off from here. Every hour that passes that ball feels heavier and heavier, like it’s dragging in the mud. The WOW was formally named the COW, (Computer on Wheels); but some fat nurse with an over eating disorder shit her pants and found it offensive so the company did the politically correct thing and changed the name. There’s always one in the group, that one person that takes shit so personally that he/she would just be better off dead. Fuck them.

Mike, the human trafficker, AKA the transporter, is helping a 60-year-old male patient onto a stretcher to take him downstairs for testing. As the patient struggles to get both bony legs up onto the stretcher, he exposes his man junk to everyone around him. Unfortunately, I noticed and he had no damn underwear on. Really? He needs some serious manscaping. And I mean that in a completely non-homo way.

Damn, Jacob. Are you okay? You look like shit, Mike asks in a voice that sounds like a dragging record.

I touch my jaw line and it feels like a scouring pad. I look at my scrubs and they are completely wrinkled. I never answered Mike back, but I was thinking a simple fuck you would have been in order.

Up over the doorway of a patients’ room is a white flashing light with an annoying ring tone going off that is echoing onto the busy hospital wing. This light flashes and rings whenever a patient presses his/her call button located inside their room. A call button is a device that is used in a hospital to alert the nurse that the patient is in need of help. It’s usually mistaken for room service and typically abused by patients for stupid fucking reasons like handing them their cup of water that’s six inches from their reach; or better yet helping find the volume on their TV controllers. This makes the call light a nurses’ worst fucking nightmare. When I worked as a nursing assistant, I would put saran wrap on the male end of the call light and plug it back into the wall, killing the current and disabling the call light. In my defense I only did this to the patients that abused their call light privileges.

Feeling like I’m floating in air, I proceed into the room to answer the call light. Instantly, I notice the room is unoccupied. There are two perfectly made beds with military corners, IV poles, and bedside tables in uniform position next to each bed. Confused, I reset the call light. As I stumble back out into the hallway, I notice there are now two more call lights ringing in about two second intervals and the hallway is now completely empty.

The hospital is so cold I see my warm breath with each exhale.

Where the hell did everybody go? I say under my breath, as my eyes go from corner to corner checking my peripheral to see if I can spot anyone.

I go from one empty room to the other resetting the call lights. Every time I come out of the rooms more and more call lights are beeping and flashing. The sound is intensifying and piercing my ears. Panicked, I run to the nurse’s station, and it feels like I’m running in slow motion. When I get there, there is no one is behind the desk. All the lights on the switch board are lit up. Continuously, I hit the reset buttons trying to kill the beeping but no success. The hallway is now lit up like a New York Broadway show. With no control over the situation I freak out.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! The sound reaches an unbearable pitch.

Somebody stop the fucking call lights! I yell.

Chapter 1 – Nightmare

Startled, I quickly open my eyes and then squint them to let them adjust to the obnoxious flashing light of my annoying fucking alarm clock. I explore my nightstand hurriedly trying to find this siren without having to open my eyes long enough to wake me up completely. Knocking all the shit over, I locate the alarm clock.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I slap the snooze button and once again there is silence. Damn. It was only a dream. A dream that I’ve had a handful of times since I became an RN. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m working too hard? Or, maybe it’s a sign that I need a new profession? Either way, I know I have 10 more minutes before my alarm beeps again. So I have to make this sleep count. Isn’t amazing how sometimes that extra 10 minutes can be exactly what you need to make your sleep complete? I shut my eyes and try to get back to sleep but all I can think about is my ridiculous dream. Fuck it, I might as well get up.

I can’t even get away from work in my dreams, I mumble to myself as I slowly sit up on the edge of my king-sized bed with black sheets and a black down comforter. I blacked out my room so I can sleep in on my days off without the sunlight awakening me. This would be a night shifters dream bedroom. I place my feet on the frame of my bed because my bed is too high to put my feet on the floor. I intentionally got a bed that aligns with my waist when I stand up, but not for the reason everyone may think. This was strictly done for a better fucking position.

The early morning light sneaks in from behind the black curtains dimly lighting the room. The light exposes a man and woman’s clothing spread all over the beige carpet along with knocked over empty beer bottles and wine and champagne glasses. Scratching my family jewels, I realize I have sticky dick. Damn, I had a good night. There’s movement in the passenger seat of my bed. The comforter outlines an hour glass figure. I stand up and quietly move to my dresser and open my drawer.

What are you doing? says a voice from my bed softly.

Hey, babe. I have to go to work. I didn’t mean to wake you up. Just text me or call me when you wake up, I reply.

Reyna yawns and stretches her arms and legs as she says, Mmmm. It feels so good to not have to go to work today.

Reyna’s also a registered nurse. She’s only been an RN for two years now and it shows. She still has a heart. She still manages to break down and cry every couple of weeks because some asshole patient, or for that matter, an asshole doctor, told her off. I see progress with her though. Day by day, week by week, I see her becoming more numb to all the hospital politics. We all make that transition. And those that can’t, just end up quitting.

No need to rub it in, I reply.

I’m sorry, I wish you could stay in bed with me.

Me too, I’m jealous.

Reyna props