Wedding Annoucement---Country Style

(you don't see cool things like this hay bale bride and groom when you are stuck working in only in the city...)

Some of you may recall that in April I quit my job as a visiting nurse with one home care company and took a job as a visiting nurse with another company that was much closer to home with the promise of less driving. Well, it did have significantly less driving, but had very little else going for it. The main problem was that patients did not get a primary nurse. I was used to case managing as many patients as I could comfortably see in a weeks time. I got to know my patients, they got to know me and a trusting therapeutic nurse/patient relationship would develop. In the new place, patients did not have one nurse who oversaw their care and we rarely saw the same patient twice. The patients weren't happy about it and I found it incredibly stressful and felt as if I could not provide good patient because I never got to know the patients or follow up if something was wrong. I would always be in fear that I missed something important related to the patients health or care because that trust that is so essential in medical/healing relationships was never developed.

And believe it or not, I missed the driving after all. 95% of thepatients I saw were within two to three miles of the office, which meant they were all in the city. I missed driving through the country side, exploring small towns I'd never been in before, seeing cows and horses and chickens, I missed watching the farmers plow their fields and missed watching the corn and soybeans grow. I missed admiring the views from patients' windows and chatting with patients about their animals, gardens, and property. I missed watching the sand hill cranes and turkey families.

It only took six weeks of stressed filled days with very few rewarding moments before I decided to call my former supervisor and see if I could have my old job back. Yes, it was still open.

So I am back to driving several hundred miles each week and seeing my own patients everyday. No, the job isn't perfect. I suspect no nursing job is. There are a lot of things I would change about it if I could. I still  come home very late some days. A lot of days I come home so tired I fall asleep as soon as I get home and don't wake up until the next morning. Some nights I stay up very late trying the finish the stacks of paperwork that Medicare requires of visiting nurses. But the important thing is that I feel like I am able to  properly care for my patients and I don't feel like I am stuck in a prison-like job.