On Being a Nurse, a Proud Nurse!

Nursing was never really my cup of coffee. I never pictured myself wearing a white uniform and a fancy little white cap on my head.As child, my dream was to become an lawyer. This manifested as I grew up being a fighter and having arguments with others. Taking nursing never even crossed my mind.

All of this changed when one day, as I was just about to take an exam in one university, my father told me that he’d rather that I take up nursing. My mind was refused. What about my dream? My aspirations? But he reasoned that nurses are the most in demand abroad. And that if I should choose one that would give me a better fortune ,which as he said at that moment was nursing.

Being a kind daughter, I said yes to my father. I felt My dream shattered into tiny little pieces that I will never be able to pick up again. The next moment, I found myself enrolling in nursing school.

“Why did you take up Nursing?” This was the question that our teacher threw at us during the first few weeks of my freshmen life. Some answered that it was like their calling. And yes, many others said that it was the most in demand job abroad. And when it was my turn to be asked, I was so confused that all I answered was “to take care a sick person”.

At the middle of first semester, I took the Nursing Aptitude Test which they say measure a student’s inclination towards Nursing. And if you get a low grade, you should start shifting to other courses. When the results came out I never imagined that would pass the exam. I got an 85 percentile rank. Not so bad. I was puzzled. I never thought that I was inclined to be a nurse.

My third year was the turning point of my life.This is when I wore my clinical uniform and my dainty little white cap. And this is when I met my very first patient, JOY, the woman who changed everything I thought Nursing was all about.

JOY (not her real name) was a patient in our affiliated hospital. I was assigned in OB ward. She was about to give birth to her first child. I was assigned to take care of her. I took her vital signs, checked on her contractions, duration and frequencies, listened to her baby’s FHB.

As she was on route to the labor room, I was kind a nervous. I felt for her. It was a deep concern that grew throughout the short period of time that I took care of her. Would the delivery be okay? Would she be safe? Would the baby be fine? These were some of the thousand things that came rushing to my mind. And I could only pray.

The delivery turned out to be fine. The baby was a healthy little girl and JOY was safe. I received them again at the ward. I attended to them both. All the time I thought that I was just doing my job, that it was automatic, that it is what I should to do as a NURSE. But all of these changed when JOY was a about to be discharged.

Before she entered the car that will bring her home, JOY took my hand and muttered a little thank you. I was taken aback. I didnt expect it. Well I was just doing my job. But as I was returning to the ward, I looked around, I saw the other NURSES taking care of the sick people around me. I saw them being thoughtful and caring. I saw their concern. And as I looked at them, I saw me.

As I reached the nursing station, I was a changed person. I knew then that I was not just doing my duty just because I had to, not because of genuine concern for the people, especially for the sick , it is because that I consider that incident as my birth as being a true NURSE. And I knew, for I felt it, that there was no greater feeling that a NURSE would have than a patient smiling back at you, saying THANK YOU for the care that she has been given.

Now after many humps and bumps along the road , Im now a licensed NURSE. And when people ask me why I took this job, my only answer is:

“I didnt pick my job, it picked me”.

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