National Nurses United

SNA 2010_5 Page 6/24/10 2:34 PM Page 19 From Heartache to Inspiration One Nurse's Reflections on NNU's RN Heroes Conference BY DEBORAH KLAUS, RN I had a horrible day last Saturday. I took report on a baby who had six pieces of his gut sewn back together in a seven-hour surgery just 12 hours earlier. He had come back from the OR well-sedated, but from the middle of the night on, the nurse and doctor played catch-up with pain that had him arching and writhing in a backwards-C, and took three nurses to prevent him from selfextubating. In the next 12 hours, I proceeded to give him a potassium chloride bolus, Tham, 25 percent albumin, packed red blood cells, and fresh frozen plasma on top of his regularly-scheduled quadruple antibiotics that were either every six or every eight hours, along with his chronic IV medications. And that was just one patient. My other patient was a fragile seven-dayold post-cooling encephalopathy baby who had chronically low blood sugars, was still requiring blood products every day, and ate every three hours. Indeed, I had to give her a platelet transfusion Saturday. I thought perhaps the night charge nurse was unaware of how hefty this assignment was, so I told the day charge nurse that both of my children were going to be needing blood products throughout the day and I really did not think I was going to be able to keep up. Her response was, "O.k., well, let me know..." I thought, 'I am letting you know...am I saying it too calmly?' My heart was already racing and my palms were sweating. I survived all day on a bag of almonds and figs in my pocket, and got my first break at 8 p.m., after I gave report. The patient care tech had helped me by feeding, changing, and performing vitals on my other kid, but the patient did not get all the glucose checks she deserved, because they were still written for every 12 hours, and though I told the doctors on rounds that looking back for seven days, they were unstable, they did not change the written order. Did I say that my day also started circling our large unit, every single nook and cranny, unable to find a single glucose strip? Enter the NNU. How could I have ever worried that I was about to sit through a long, tedious, three-day conference? I was put on notice the second I walked in the door and saw large kiosks proclaiming what the words "Advocate," "Hero," and "Activist" meant that this was something I'd never seen before. And how unprepared I was to end up spending the whole time either laughing or crying and shouting until my voice went hoarse, "Everywhere we go, people wanna know, who we are, so we tell them: We are the Nurses! The mighty mighty Nurses!" M AY 2 0 1 0 I had no idea Texas had hardly any unions. I had no idea they were so close to achieving their first few. I had no idea nurses could be so bonded, so united, so supportive of each other, as they bravely advanced together, rather than being divided and conquered alone...as they attempted to unionize in one of the most conservative, anti-union environments in our country. I had only the vaguest understanding that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had tried to take on teachers' and nurses' unions, but I hadn't understood how resoundingly the California nurses had fought back, won, and emerged stronger than ever before, until I heard it from them. I didn't know that Pennsylvania, so close to us, has been struggling, striking, and winning! I didn't know that Minnesota is in the midst of vicious union-busting tactics, and they are fighting back ferociously, as they are about to face contract negotiations where management wants to reduce salaries and nullify pensions. Story after story, across the country.... It was like walking into a parallel universe, so far from the one the newspapers and TV stations want to show us. The conference meant so much more than merely discovering I am not alone, and I am NOT the only one struggling and praying and weeping over my ICU assignments. In those three days, I discovered that history is so richly alive, as I listened to the nurses standing up in the room and telling their amazing stories of intimidating management back by standing three-strong all day long when one was supposed to be disciplined privately, of traveling to Haiti within days of the quakes. These women are true heroes in the flesh living today, more powerful than any mythology or eulogizing of inspirational figures from the past. Then, to go to Capitol Hill, to have our allies from the Senate and House of Representatives speak so passionately for us, for true universal healthcare for all in this country—it really returned the power to us nurses, and helped us find our voices. There is no president who is going to do what we are going to do. He is just a figurehead. We are on the front lines, with the power to demand that our patients get the nursing care they deserve, or not. We have to unite—and we are—to say that these horrible days and assignments we have are not reflective of us being "bad nurses" who "complain" or who "can't handle a tough assignment." They are reflective of hospitals making dangerous cost-cutting decisions that increase errors and put patients AND nurses AND doctors at risk every day in every hospital across this nation. We are coming together to say THIS MUST STOP NOW. Even if our voices are not heard on our individual units, at one particular hospital, it doesn't matter. We have collective strength across this nation with our new superunion...and by coming together and supporting each other, we turn this from a mere nation into a place truly worthy of the title, "great nation." So if I have another bad day at the hospital this weekend, I'm going to be worrying less about me and more about the nurses in Texas. In Minnesota. Arizona. Pennsylvania. Massachusetts. For the future of California, if "Queen Meg" Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, should actually purchase her way into office. I will be working to strengthen our union here in Washington, D.C., in the hopes that others, like me, may one day transform their problems from personal to political. And I take tremendous solace in my colleagues from D.C. who stood to represent us. When I see them at work, I will surely feel less alone, even if our work continues to separate us. Deborah Klaus, RN is a neonatal intensive care nurse in Washington, D.C. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 19

• Cover