There was only one floor in the whole hospital that I could not work on, pediatrics. I have worked on it more than I wanted. Most of the time was to fill in for someone who called in sick and one time to work as the secretary. It is such a hard floor to work on. It was not the duties or the physical work but the emotional stress for me.

When I was doing my student rotation, I thought "Gee this will be so much fun." My rotation was 4 weeks long. By the time the four weeks were up, I was drained emotionally. I saw everything from deformed children, abused children of all ages, those that came in for extensive workups to only leave the hospital in a hearse. I did see some get well and go home. I learned a lot those four weeks. I could identify with the parents of the ones that died, I knew the heartache of the parents whose child was gravely ill, the anger I felt in regards to the parent who abused his or her child, the joy of the parents who child got well or the child who went into remission from cancer.

It is one thing to watch an adult die and know that all had been done for them. But to watch a child die when all treatments failed is something that I will never in my life get used to. It broke my heart to see such precious children suffer. So young and a lifetime ahead of them that was cut too short.

Two children stick out in my mind that I took care of as a student nurse. One was hydrocephalic, who was 10 months old and only weighed about 14 lbs and most of that weight was the water on it's brain. Her head was a big as a volley ball. The other child was a five year old boy who came in with fever and after tons of tests was diagnoised with cancer only to die about 3 weeks later.

God gives us the wonderful gift of a child and then the child dies. Our children are only on loan to us. Hopefully our children will out live us but that is not always the way of things. I lost a child, a son and there will always be a part of my heart that will never be replaced. I know that God gave him to me for such a short time only to call him home again.

Working on peds is for extra special nurses. God bless those who take care of our children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Those nurses are sent by God and they are "true" angels.

Some nurses are sent by God to take care of the dying, the gravely ill, and those who just require special care and those who just need us to care for them when they can not care for themselves. I guess maybe that I might fit in this category. We are told in nursing school not to become involved with our patients emotionally. I believe that with all my heart that this is impossible. How can you be human and not become involved? I loved all my patients and became involved with them. Love can help you get through the tough times and some of the heartbreaks and the joy of nursing. Getting involved was the only major rule that I broke everyday.