The Uniform
Between 1988 and 1990 I was truly a lost young woman with no clear direction I had for my life. That was until I put on my first nursing uniform. I remember how proud I felt to be wearing that white dress, the silk pantyhose and that badge with my name on it and my white leather nursing shoes.
I wore my uniform with pride and a sense of accomplishment. It was mine, all mine and no one could take those skills away from me once I had learned them.
I loved every aspect of being a nursing assistant. I wanted to be a pediatric nurse practitioner. That was MY PLAN, but that's not what happened. In 1991 I had a back injury that derailed my nursing career. Let's face it, in nursing your livelihood depends on you being able to use your knees, feet, back and hands and my back injury sat me down for over a year.
I would never be the same again. I made several attempts to go back to nursing on a full time basis, but my back was shot and my body was well on its way to morphing into something I didn't even recognize.
The first time I noticed that my right foot was almost a six inches shorter than my left and that my right hip was completely starting to twist in this odd shape I knew that it was the rheumatoid arthritis that the women in my family seem to be afflicted with.
When I broke my foot stepping off the curb at work in 2000 that's when I found out for sure. The body will try and compensate for it's own deficits, but my walking is very noticeable because it looks as if I am hopping but I am not.
The pain in my hip is very real as well as the constant pain in my lower back. My hands aren't straight anymore and they ache a lot as well. I kept all my scrubs in hopes of one day putting back on that uniform and getting my life back. I think all of this has been really hard to accept that I would never be able to do so.
I wore my uniform with pride and a sense of accomplishment. It was mine, all mine and no one could take those skills away from me once I had learned them.
I loved every aspect of being a nursing assistant. I wanted to be a pediatric nurse practitioner. That was MY PLAN, but that's not what happened. In 1991 I had a back injury that derailed my nursing career. Let's face it, in nursing your livelihood depends on you being able to use your knees, feet, back and hands and my back injury sat me down for over a year.
I would never be the same again. I made several attempts to go back to nursing on a full time basis, but my back was shot and my body was well on its way to morphing into something I didn't even recognize.
The first time I noticed that my right foot was almost a six inches shorter than my left and that my right hip was completely starting to twist in this odd shape I knew that it was the rheumatoid arthritis that the women in my family seem to be afflicted with.
When I broke my foot stepping off the curb at work in 2000 that's when I found out for sure. The body will try and compensate for it's own deficits, but my walking is very noticeable because it looks as if I am hopping but I am not.
The pain in my hip is very real as well as the constant pain in my lower back. My hands aren't straight anymore and they ache a lot as well. I kept all my scrubs in hopes of one day putting back on that uniform and getting my life back. I think all of this has been really hard to accept that I would never be able to do so.
Comments