Possibilities.....

So, I am very close to resigning from my job.

:O

Shocked much?

I have already done so, informally, but need to submit my formal resignation to my nurse manager. It feels good, but I am scared. I have applied for 2 other positions already and am meeting with the hospital's human resources manager next week.

I made the decision that I had finally had enough yesterday when I was at work. It was actually a good shift, for once. We weren't understaffed, all the patients were stable, no one was in the process of dying. It was, by measure of what normally goes on there... great!

So, what was it that spoiled this great shift and made me start pounding the nail into the coffin on my oncology nursing career? It was an innocent comment made by one of my colleagues. A comment about the limited amount of time that one of my patients had left to live. We were discussing his chemo protocol and she turned to me and said "Well, I don't know why they're even bothering...he's dying anyway". It's not that her take on the situation was incorrect. This patient WAS dying. But it hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't know why, but in that moment I saw that I could work in Oncology for the rest of my life and it would never get better. My patients would always die. I would always be stressed out. I would always go home and cry in the privacy of my own home.

My stomach just churned after that conversation. I had nausea for the rest of the day and actually had several bouts of diarrhea. TMI, I know, but I find it particularly telling that I routinely have diarrhea multiple times a shift when I am at work yet when I am at home on my days off, this never plagues me. I have several colleagues with the same physical afflictions while at work. It is often unspoken, as we are supposed to "suck it up" and act like machines with no feeling while we are working. But in private moments, I have heard of my fellow nurses losing weight, having their hair fall out, developing insomnia and depression....and all from the stress of working in Oncology.

I have no idea what I'm going to do now. I will submit my resignation soon and then god knows what I am going to do next.

I pray that I am making the right decision for myself, my family, my sanity and for my career.