Sun, Surf, and Smiles

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. Read more

Let Freedom Ring!!!

Ah, July! The month starts off with a bang as firework displays illuminate Independence Day from coast to coast — a great show if you’re not working the night shift.

Of course, if you are working the night shift on the Fourth of July, you’re not going to miss out on all the fun.  As a nurse, you know you’re in for a few explosions of your own: It’s almost guaranteed that the patient in bed 4 will power poop and projectile vomit at the same time. Fountains of festivity indeed, especially if they’ve eaten some patriotic colored goodies a few hours previously…in fact, if you find yourself collecting red, white and blue stool samples, be a sport, shut off the O2, and hand that guy a sparkler!  Read more

June Jocularity

School’s out for summer…or it will be soon! And we know what that means.  Young people with free time on their hands means interesting times in the emergency room — and Very Long night shifts for those of us who have teenagers left to entertain themselves while we’re working.  Finding life/work balance is always a stress, but I think summer puts it front and center.  Everyone wants *us* — to go to the beach, to attend family functions, to host the parties and man the bbq, all the while being the best nurses we can possibly be.

No problem, right?  We can do it all.  All nurses possess superior multi-tasking abilities that allow us to compile shopping lists in our head while we’re passing meds and giving report: on the way home from our double, we can just pop into the store, pick up two carts full of groceries, come home to our magazine-perfect houses, call up all of our charming friends, and have a lovely impromptu summer get together with exquisitely catered food that we whipped up ourselves while waiting for our guests to arrive. After the festivities, we retire for a blissfully romantic evening with our partner, awaking after a perfect night’s sleep to do it all over again… Read more

May Means Mirth

May is, for many nurses, the most wonderful month of the year. After all, this is the month where we celebrate a holiday that not everyone can appreciate — only those of us who have gone through or been close to someone who’s undergone a truly transformational experience; the sort of life journey that makes you really look at who you are, contemplating with shock changes you didn’t even know your body was capable of making.

I’m talking, of course, of National Fungal Infection Awareness Month!  Here at the JNJ headquarters, we’re already decorated and stocked up for the non-stop round of parties that marks this special time of year.  If we knew who’d founded this celebration, we’d absolutely invite him over — he’s likely a fun guy!

Yes, May means mirth and mirth means many things.  Being willing to be surprised by the unexpected, to look at experiences from a different angle, to groan in company at a colleague’s bad puns -  all of these are demonstrations of you being open to the joy and laughs the universe has to offer. Read more

Hello Humor Month! The 30 Smile Challenge

They say April is the cruelest month. I’m not sure why, really…it may have to do with the fact that April 15 is the dreaded Tax Day.  It may have to do with the fact that soon, bathing suits will be considered reasonable, even required, attire for some events.  Earth Day is this month, which always leaves our editor feeling inadequate about her recycling habits.  There’s a lot to stress over…but why should we?

It’s National Humor Month, after all!  That’s something we should be feeling great about! Read more

Now I Know How A Muppet Feels!

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month, and if ever there was a cause we can get behind, this is it! When early detection and treatment can have such a significant impact on patient outcomes, we’re all about spreading the word.

Let’s not kid ourselves.  Having  a colonscopy is not on most people’s Absolute Favorite Things To Do Ever list.  There’s a lot of fear and misunderstanding out there about exactly what the procedure involves, compounding by the embarrassment people feel when talking about sensitive areas.

As health care providers, we can use humor to help patients overcome that fear.  Providing education doesn’t have to be boring — in fact, a little laugh can help the patient retain information.  We remember what we laugh about. Read more

Laughing To Keep From Crying

The first month of 2010 has been rough, no way more so than the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. In the face of unmitigated tragedy, is there a role for humor?

“You know it is a catastrophe,” a colleague said to me, “when even the shock jocks don’t joke about it.”

The absence of crass one-liners capitalizing on other’s pain doesn’t mean that humor doesn’t have a real and vital role in helping people process and address tragedy.  It’s been fascinating to watch some of the ways nurses, emergency response workers and the public at large have been reaching for laughter in the face of all that has happened. Read more

Looking Forward to a Great New Year!

It’s 2010! Hooray!  It’s not a hardship to wish 2009 farewell — it was  a rough year for many of us and we’re ready for something better!

As is our wont at this time of year, we’ve indulged in a little trendspotting and future forecasting, trying to see what might be around the corner for nursing.  Some trends are easy to spot: our aging population means we’re going to see more and more need for geriatric care.  Chronic conditions will be taking center stage.  Nurses are still being asked to do more with less…and health care reform efforts will probably (and we’re going way out on a limb here prediction wise!) take at least a little bit of time to manifest. Waistlines are still increasing…or is that just mine?

Either way, there’s a lot about these trends that we don’t like.  The future holds challenges for nurses, individually and as a profession.  It’ll come as no surprise to you that we think that humor is going to be more important than ever before.  Laughter and the ability to see funny will be more than something we do for fun; they’re critical nursing skills that will sustain not only us but our patients.  A low cost, always available resource, humor will be there — and we here at JNJ are devoted to helping you make the most of it!

When The Weather Outside is Frightful…

You know exactly how high you are in the nursing heirarchy when the holidays roll around.  I remember one of my first supervisors coming by and rattling off the litany, words coming a mile a minute, “Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, pick your top three preferences.”

And I’d pick, as if it was going to do any good.

You know how that turned out!

So, as I’m getting ready to work on Christmas, let’s just say I wasn’t particularly full of holiday spirit.  If there weren’t a million places I’d rather be, there was definitely one — home! But you do what you have to do, and in I went…where I realized that there were certainly people who wanted to be in the hospital even less than I did — the patients.  And it was their appreciation, their grace, and their gratitude for what we were doing to make their holiday — which was certainly not what they had planned, either — more bearable that really gave me back that perspective.   Yes, it would be nice if healthcare came with banker’s hours (not that the bankers are enjoying short hours much anymore!) but nurses are needed 24.7 — and we’re there 24.7, 365 days a year. Read more

Giving Thanks For Good Times

I can tell that Thanksgiving is nearly here…the stores are fully of jolly fat men in red suits and reindeer with bizarre sinus issues! And what is this time of year for if it’s not for gratitude and being thankful for all of the blessings in our lives?

Being a nurse means developing the ability to see blessings in the strangest places.  How many times do we spend every minute of a shift dancing just as fast as we can, answering this call light and stopping that wandering patient before they make it to the elevators, comforting that confused, frightened soul and firmly assuring another equally confused but in this case frightening patient that no, getting out of bed is not on the agenda for the evening? It’s frentic, flat-out, non-stop action — and most of it is vitally important, literally life or death. Read more

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