Ah, the dog days of summer. We’re well into a season of heat exhaustion and dehydrated patients — balanced out of course by the crop of over-hydrated patients, who arrive seeking care after some of their more ingenious ETOH-on board plans fail to work out quite as well as expected. The temperature’s rising, supplies are in short supply, and the mood of our colleagues and peers?
It can make all the difference, can’t it? The shift’s going badly, there’s a knife fight brewing in the waiting room, and you’ve got a completely disorientated patient who is sure he’s really named Zamboni walking around without the benefit of a gown, dispensing helpful advice wherever he wanders. You’ve got over 5 hours before you can think about heading home — and your colleague, in the middle of this crazy, stressful shift, does something to make you laugh. A funny face or orders given in a squeaky voice is enough to at least momentarily take the train right off the rails to catastrophe and put the shift back on track: it might not be fun, but you’re going to make it through somehow.That’s the power of laughter. It keeps us going. It keeps us able to cope, in the face of unspeakable sorrow and tragic catastrophe and family members who think they’re helping when they sneak a chocolate milkshake to your diabetic patient who has sugar levels approximately three times their body weight. Laughter gives us the distance and the perspective that we need to carry on.
We can use laughter to sustain ourselves and we can use laughter to sustain each other. Look for opportunities to share a bit of humor with your colleagues and co-workers. Even a pun so bad it makes your friends groan — like the one about Colic the sheep dog! — can shift the experience you’re all having. When someone’s humor makes your day better, let them know. Provide the positive reinforcement that’s so critical: humor is relational – we benefit from the give and take.
So many of us are facing situations of uncertainty: units that are short staffed, floating assignments that bring us side by side with peers we’ve never met, thrown together into the business of saving lives: humor can alleviate at least some of that uncertainty. If the nurse floating the unit for the first time discovers that there will be a friendly face and a smile, that makes the assignment better for them — and for you.
The use of humor benefits our patients. If we’re laughing, we’re less stressed. We’re more patient with them. It’s easier to tap into that understanding and empathy when we’re in a good place ourselves. Those laughs will get us through the dog days of summer and smiling in time for back to school!
