Am I That Disposable

I was training to be a nurse when I had an accident that changed my life.

I had a traumatic hand injury.

On the way to A&E, I phoned work and told them I wouldn’t be in.

I was so full of adrenaline and shock, I sounded completely rational.

The next day, while I was in emergency surgery, my manager told one of my colleagues I was over-dramatizing and had left them short-staffed.

Then I heard nothing from work for three weeks.

After that, it was constant.

“When are you coming back?”

“When are you coming back?”

I wanted to go back.

I loved nursing.

Caring for people was my thing.

After three months, when I returned, I was reassigned to admin.

My hand was still in splints.

I hadn’t been signed off for clinical work.

But when they were short-staffed, I was told:

“We need you in numbers today.

You need to get into scrubs.

You need to go into the ward.”

So I did.

I was trying to keep my job.

I was trying to keep on with my university degree.

Eventually, I was taken off clinical work.

Then, completely out of the blue, my manager said:

“I can’t afford to have you in my budget if you’re not going to be clinical.”

We weren’t sitting down having a meeting.

It was just a passing comment.

“You can’t be a nurse anymore. You’re going to have to reconsider your career options.”

Okay.

Not quite ready to hear that.

It was overwhelming.

I thought at least work would have my back.

I’d already lost so much.

I was suffering with the trauma of the accident, trying to work through it.

I now know it was PTSD.

Looking back, I can see how lost and confused I was.

I was trying to hang on to the last thing that was left.

My nursing career.

I’d lost everything else.

This was the one thing.

I was trying to cling on with all my might.

Am I that disposable?

Eventually, I asked the consultant treating my hand to be completely honest with me.

He told me my hand wasn’t going to recover enough for me to return clinically in time.

I had at least another two years of recovery ahead of me.

Okay.

Okay.

When I went back to work, my manager pressured me to resign.

I was told: “You’re going to have to hand in your resignation because if you’re not going to be back, we can’t keep you on.”

I felt forced into resigning.

I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I didn’t have anything left in me.

So I resigned.

After three and a half years at that hospital, nobody remembered it was my last day.

I went to my manager and asked what she wanted me to do with my apprentice uniform.

“Oh my gosh. It’s your last day, isn’t it?”

And that was it.

Nobody on the ward even acknowledged it was my last day.

I arranged my own leaving drinks.

Only one person came.

The same person who had been there for me the night of my accident.

I loved nursing.

I could go back to it now.

But I don’t want to.

I’ve lost all my passion for it.

The people that are meant to be caring for other people couldn’t care for their own staff members.

It took a lot of trauma therapy to get to where I am now.

I’ve found another way to use that part of me that wants to care.

I’ve just moved the passion from the humans to the dogs - and their owners.

And I can see how much I’ve brought from my nursing degree into the nutrition world.

Everything had to be backed up by evidence.

But I still feel like I failed at nursing.

I call myself a failure because I never completed it.

And I always tell myself I should have fought harder to stay on the course.

I think a lot of it is me having very low self-confidence in what I can achieve.

I have this fear of failing again because I’m like,

if I failed once, I can’t fail again.