Yay for being recognized

Rarely do us ICU RN's get appreciated, because:

1. Our pt's our knocked out for various reasons

2. Our pt's are "frequent flyers" and have no regard for others or themselves

3. Our pt's have no family

4. Our pt's are mad that they are alive

5. If our patients and families are appropriate to appreciate us, they forget about us after they transer to the floor and we never get recognized on a hospital-wide scale (surveys they send out)

But.......All in one week I got 2 Starbucks teas, a Starbucks mug, a dish of fresh strawberries and 2 family members tell me that they were writting me up for being so great!

As an addendum, I discovered that I am a Nazi nurse. When my pt's are past the point of "pure death" we'll call it and are on there way out of the ICU, I like to tell them that they are at bootcamp. And in most seriousness treat them like so. They have been laying in a crumy hospital bed for sometimes weeks and I'm the mean nurse that tells them that they have to start doing there own work, which includes sitting up in a chair for longer than they want, scooting themselves up in bed, and so on. This sounds minor but these were once very sick people so to have them do little things like these are huge for them. They complain and sometimes cry, but I tell them that my job is to help them get home and if that means putting them through a little pain, than thats what I will do. Pain is enevitable, misery is an option. We really do have to talk to most of these people like children, since most people revert to a child-like state when ill. Strangely enough one of the ladies I made cry is one of the ones above who got me a gift and thanked me! Yesterday my pt kept talking and she recently had the breathing tube pulled out of her throat which can cause swelling especially if you talk a lot after. She kept failing her swallow evaluation and wasn't able to eat or drink because of this swelling(and on top of it has a disease where she doesn't secrete saliva) so she was miserable, but kept talking and was confused so would ramble about nonsense. Finally I told her that I didn't want to hear her talk unless she was dying. And if she started to say something I interrupted her and said "are you dying?". Walking in on it it sounds horrible but I kept telling her to keep her flapper shut if she wanted to eat or drink anytime soon. You will not catch me wearing looney tune or care bear scrubs- I like care bears but do not agree with there position in life- Caring is not always a big fluffly hug its a kick in the pants! My favorite advice I ever got was from a good friend/roommate- I told her about my oh so dreadful problem where someone had offended me and she looked at me for a second and said plainly "maybe this isn't about you". Thats tough love. I feel bad for the children I will have one day