I've been thinking about what to write today and decided that Fridays should be for reflection. Thinking back on what has made you decide to get healthy. Now there's a whopper of a question.
What made you decide to get healthy? Can you answer that question?
For many nurses if we are not healthy we can not do our job to our fullest potential. Think about it. If you are tired or moody, who ultimately suffers? Our patients do.
I decided to start getting healthy a few years ago and believe me it has been an up hill battle. I realized that I wasn't as healthy as I thought I was when I ended up with a shoulder injury. I was at work, I was going through a lot of family stress at the time with my mother having surgery and my father having a stroke two weeks later. I went to visit them up north to help them for a week then returned to work. I thought I was fine and did all the things that I normally do but I was taking care of a patient that was too large for me to handle. I was helping an RT change the tapes on an ETT when my patient started to vomit. I reacted, that's what nurses do! I reached over with my right arm grabbed the patients shoulder and pulled him over onto his side while still holding the ETT. I hurt my shoulder due to that movement. I went on modified duties, and did all the right things but I ended up injuring my left shoulder due to over compensation. Now I'm stuck with a bilateral shoulder injury and it sucked. So I went to physiotherapy and slowly started getting stronger. I realized that I needed to get strong again and I was determined to do just that. I did all the exercises that I was told to do but it just wasn't enough. (I tend to be a bit crazy with workouts). So I decided to do a 30 day challenge, then I did another one and so on. I kept working at it and now I can do push ups again, granted only about 5-8 full push ups but I can do lot's of modified ones.
How many of you have injured yourself while working with a patient? I bet it's a lot. Nurses do a lot of repetitive motions which can potentially cause an injury. How do we protect ourselves? Your not going to like the answer. You have to exercise and get stronger. Exercising is a great stress reliever and by gaining strength we have better control over our body mechanics. We learn to breath better, sleep better and you tend to have more energy. You also feel good about the simple accomplishment you made.
Reflect on what you believe is the reason you want to get health. Write it down in your inspiration journal. It's amazing what we learn about ourselves and how strong we really are.
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