They never cease to amaze me... of all the patients I get in emergency, children are by far the most fascinating and scary at the same time. You never know exactly what to expect and they are just so full of surprises. They will recover so quickly, but they will also crash really quickly... But for me, there are two main problems when dealing with the little ones, and that is why I have never aspired to be a peds nurse: 1. They cannot always tell me what is wrong, and that scares the hell out of me; 2. They have the "break my heart look"... They look into you, way inside there into your heart, then they grab it with their little hands and they just hold it for you to see in those little eyes... It's as if they could tell you: I am a defenseless little person, I have no weapon, but if you hurt me, I will squeeze this heart with my tears and hurt you back. And then you are at their mercy and you are so scared to hurt them and you fight your best to help them.
Yesterday I had a little girl (5yo) come in with the "break my heart look". She had a nasty cut on her arm, trampoline accident (yet another one..). She was holding this cloth to her arm with such conviction as if her arm would fall off if she only let it go a little bit. Then she looked at me and I was sold. It was that look, half filled with tears, straight into my eyes, scared but at the same time so hopeful that I could help her. It needed sutures.. She cried, with that sincere cry that children have, and I had to endure the pleading eyes and the "no more medicine" "please" "no more medicine" cries while the doctor put some freezing on the wound and proceeded to stitch it up. I know that stings and hurts, so now I feelt like crap for hurting the poor thing. That is why I am not a peds nurse. I hate being the witch with the needles, or to hold them down. Hate it. But at the same time I do love being able to help them, even if they cannot understand it, because I want to, because I can. I love watching them recover their smiles. There is absolutely nothing in my profession that tops that satisfaction. So I keep doing it. I am the witch with the needles, and I just hope that one day they will understand. By the way, she got a pink smiley face sticker on her bandaid after it was all done, and gave me a big smile for that. Forget about the money, I got my payment for the day, right there.
Ps: you will notice I put up a link right below the title of the blog for a petition that MSF is organizing. Please follow the link and sign the petition, we need as many people as possible. Thank you :)
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