validation...

I do have lots of updates (car shows, a new baby in our circle of friends, our anniversary, and I probably should do a photo dump of my phone pics) but I have to write this post while I feel this way. 

Ever have one of those weeks (or few weeks, in my case) where you feel better than good at your job? Where you do something or know something somewhat different from the normal routine and you want to just shout out to someone (usually my own self-doubt) how AWESOME you are?

*grinning* 

I'm having a few weeks like that.

First, a friend at work had a sick son and I was able to "diagnose" (read as: give my best guess about) him every step of the way. From his symptoms (lump behind the ear, sore neck/back, headache) to his diagnosis (strep throat) and then his second diagnosis (mono) based on a weird rash after taking the antibiotics for the strep, I called it all. It just made me feel like maybe I would make a good, or even great, nurse practitioner. I'm still not 100% positive that's where I want to go in nursing. And I know I'm not right about these things all the time (or even most the time) because I'm not a trained clinical diagnostician, but it felt awesome!


Next, I was called to one of the other juvenile facilities one evening for a semi-emergency. A girl had been brought in and they couldn't get one of her mouth piercings out. (The little flap of tissue between the inside of your upper lip and your gum? That's what she had pierced. ouch!) They have to get all piercings out for safety/security concerns so if we couldn't get it out she would have had to sleep in the holding cell all night. :(

I was able to find some small hemostats (you'll have to google it because after 15 minutes of attempting to describe hemostats with no coherent results, I gave up). I used the hemostats to hold one side of it while I used the other set to slowly loosen the ball on the other side. I was able to do it with minimal discomfort for the girl and in fairly quick time. But I was also able to keep myself calm so my hands stayed steady (one wrong move and I could have easily ripped that flap of tissue). I felt proud of being able to quickly and efficiently solve a problem that the staff had been trying to solve for hours. I did have better tools, but I'm still proud of my ability to come up with a plan so quickly. 

The last instance happened while I was teaching clinicals this week at the hospital I used to work at. I hadn't really missed that job too much until this week. I've seen so many people that say they miss me. And I miss working with them too! I worked with some great people there and it's just so nice to know that I am missed somewhere; not only because I did a good job, but because I was a good co-worker as well.


Enough of patting my own back...I just needed to write these feelings down. Hopefully I can look back on this post to remind myself what a great nurse I can be.