I’m Too Tired to Cry

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I have shed a lot of tears in the last 15 years working as a bedside nurse. Tears of joy, sadness, fear, happiness, frustration, devastation, heartache, and love. Years of seeing people at their worst and best. Being there with patients and families on their most joyous and most devastating days.

Fellow nurses can relate to these tears. I reflect on all the tears shed.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

All of that crying started right out of nursing school. That first year of nursing was hard, but those first few months were incredibly tough. Three months of orientation and I would cry and/or throw up before each shift.

Looking back, I realize now they were tears full of fear and the unknown. It decreased as time went on, thankfully. The tears of fear turned into tears of empathy.

I spent 15 years taking care of fragile babies and their parents. Tears of joy. Tears of heartbreak. I’ve cried with mothers when they held their baby for the first time. I’ve cried with mothers when they held their baby for the last time.

Tears of anger when parents didn’t act in their baby’s best interest by doing drugs or being neglectful. It was never my place to judge, but I cried for babies that we later found out died after being abused by parents. Tears of frustration, as we…