Wannabe Isn’t Just a Spice Girls Song

My grandmother was a nurse. Then a nursing instructor. Blood and guts are her bread and butter. Unless you were unconscious you were going to school. 

I projectile vomited during an episode of the Blacklist. The one where they attempt the exsanguination of Raymond Reddington. Yeah. I don’t do gore very well, yet I insist on watching things like “Criminal Minds”. I wasn’t born to nurse anything other than stuffed animals. I am a wannabe nurse. A disgrace to the profession every time I’m forced to preform a duty best left to them. 

Matt went in for his first surgery while I was in a meeting, for a project at work that I thoroughly enjoyed. A pleasant distraction. The second surgery I was there, which I previously detailed in my first post. 

The nurses that cared for him were truly heroic. I don’t know how they do it. My best friend is a nurse, I don’t know how she carries the weight of the profession. She does it though. 

When they rolled Matt onto the intensive care unit floor I was in the hallway waiting. I had to get special permissions from the administration to even be within the hospital walls. It was after 3:00am on March 18th. He came up still intubated, unconscious, tubes, wires poles everywhere. Over the next ten days I was told that I would have to learn to manage his wound care and colostomy care until he was capable enough t take over. The wound care he may never be able to manage because of the location. 

I learned to clean, maintain and change all aspects of a colostomy. I learned to clean drainage points, clean the wound out, empty the grenades, pack the wound, and bandage. 

He took over the colostomy care the week before I had our daughter. I kept up the wound care, and we’re still packing it five months later. I’m still a wannabe, but a little better than I was before. I’ve learned to be whatever I need to be. I have adapted to preform whatever duties need to be done. I’ve touched blood and guts. I’ve scrubbed blood off flooring with bleach like I myself committed a murder. 

To the caretaker reading this, because there are so many men and women responsible for a loved ones’ care— I admire you. I’m doing what I have to and I know you are too. To those caring for elderly parents or the spouses like me, you’re amazing. It can be thankless and it is exhausting. Don’t lose hope, don’t get discouraged, just keep looking forward. It seems like a lot in the moment. I’ve been on my knees scrubbing with bleach and thought I couldn’t take anymore. But, you can take way more than you know. To those that say they couldn’t do it, you can do all things. You would do all things— if you had to.