Jacqueline Vance, RN

You ever have one of those days, weeks or even months when things just don’t go your way? In other words, life is just lousy and no matter what you do, it still just stinks?

We’ve all heard that we should put on a happy face, pull a positive attitude out of our… well, thin air and it will just get better. Sometimes, that doesn’t work. Sucky life just doesn’t disappear like a David Copperfield trick where you wave a magic wand and put on a smile.  Sometimes no matter how hard you try, you’re not going to make that lemonade!

We can’t go back to bed. We have patients to take care of (and families too, I am sure). There are also employees to work with or manage, documenting, our own families to care for … the list (and life) goes on.  So we can neither bury our heads in the sand nor pretend the crappy situation doesn’t exist.

So what do we do? I was reading something on the Internet the other day and it really spoke to me. It talked about just “accepting” the situation. It’s a reality. We can learn we can become stronger for it, we can find out who our true friends are, find out who we are, find out our own depth of faith, and we can grow from the situation. Remember: Gold is refined by fire.

So if there is a stinky life situation going on right now, accept it, ask for help, learn what you are supposed to learn from it, but know that always — even if takes a really long time — life will get better. 

Will Rogers, one of the greatest humorous political sages this country has had, once said, “One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.”

If a friend or coworker is going through a tough time, please, just support that person. You’ll never know how much that will help them see the sunrise to come.

Just keeping it real,

Nurse Jackie

The Real Nurse Jackie is written by Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC, a 2012 APEX Award of Excellence winner for Blog Writing. Vance is a real life long-term care nurse who also is the director of clinical affairs for AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. A nationally respected nurse educator and past national LTC Nurse Administrator of the Year, she also is an accomplished stand-up comedienne. She has not starred in her own national television series — yet. The opinions supplied here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer or her professional affiliates.