It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

So today marks the day I first cried at work. Not just tears-in-the-eyes snuffles, I mean run-to-the-bathroom-and-sob-for-five-minutes-until-another-nurse-hears-me-and-comes-in-to-ask
-what's-wrong.

You know that story from yesterday? The one where Psycho Patient Family Member yelled at me for about five minutes straight about what an incompetent nurse I was because, God forbid, I went in to change up her husband and it wasn't quick enough for her liking?

Well. She complained to my head nurse. And boy, what a fucked up complaint. She complained that I called her "honey" (better than "bitch" I thought) when I asked if she was alright, and that I mentioned I had a back injury. So what was I supposed to do?! Smile and walk out the door when she asked me to do something out of my current job restrictions without a reason?! Who the FUCK complains about a nursing explaining she has a back injury and that's why she can't lift a 200 lb man up in bed?!

On top of it, some hospitalist CHARTED the incident. Without even so much as consulting me and asking what happened, he took what Pyscho Person had to say as point-of-fact. So now it's part of the man's permanent record. Thank God he didn't name names, but WTF ever happened to professional courtesy?

So now this whole thing is a documented incident and goes in my permanent record. BECAUSE I DID MY JOB AND APOLOGIZED PROFUSELY.

FUCKING. INSANITY.

I went to the manager to explain the incident, and, though I managed not to cry in front of her, I immediately went into the bathroom and sobbed my heart out, because somehow, it still ended up being my communication issues that were the problem, not her irrational demanding and rude behavior.

So of course, then I had to go pass medications to the roommate-of-the-patient-whose-wife-had-complained, and despite a kind and concerned debriefing with the other floor nurses (I cried in front of them, too, and was just mortified, but I couldn't help it) I was still crying while I hooked up the man's heparin drip. I apologized for crying but I just couldn't help it; I felt so beaten down, demoralized and frankly, like the biggest piece of shit on the planet at that point.

His wife, who had been happy to see me, asked what was wrong (she liked me, any way), and I told her I couldn't really talk about it. Then, she asked if I needed a hug. And she gave me one. Bless her heart. She was there last night, too, and probably heard the whole thing, and probably knew what why I was crying, because she said, "You are a great nurse, and you've done such a wonderful job." It made me cry even harder.

I then went out and had a smoke with a co-worker. I only smoke when I'm a) depressed or b) freaked out. I was both at that point.

Before I left work tonight, I said goodbye to the patient whose wife had hugged me (he's being discharged tomorrow and I won't be working). I shook hands with him and told him it was such a pleasure to meet him and his wife (they really had been lovely) and he squeezed my hand and said quietly, "Are you alright now?" I said yes, embarrassed I'd made a scene earlier. And then, in a much louder voice (the Pyscho was visiting her husband at the time), "You were wonderful. You are an excellent nurse!" He was a retired medical doctor, of the good old sort, and it made me just glow inside that he had praised me.

And I smiled and said, "And you have been a wonderful patient."

And he was.