Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.

So I'm standing in the med room today, and I'm kicking myself for momentarily confusing which patient was on a nicardipine drip (which is meant to lower blood pressure) and which one was on an amiodarone drip (which is meant to keep you from going into deadly arrhythmias) and getting all upset about not knowing enough, and I squirted myself in the face with the arterial line I was setting up, and started kicking myself about that, and I realized:

I am too impatient.

I am too damned impatient. With myself, with other people, with machines, with *everything*.

If there's one person who's going to be hammering on the microwave, yelling "HURRY UP!!" it's going to be me. If there's somebody who's yelling, "Make up your damned MIND, already!" at the guy in line ahead of her at Big Bob's Bargain Burger Barn, it's me. If there's an individual who wants everything exactly as she thinks it ought to be, both from herself and from other people (and yes, from machines)....well. You're looking at her.

*sigh*

The thought that I am just too damned impatient struck me with such force that I actually took the three minutes it would take to look at my calendar. *Flip* *flip* *flippity*.... yep. About two and a half months ago, give or take, I actually started doing this new thing. And I think that I ought to have everything that I want, in terms of knowledge and skill, rightthehellnow.

Being stubborn and being impatient are my two biggest faults. Arrogance runs a close third: after all, I *am* the most brilliant, most intuitive, most diagnostically-gifted nurse you've ever met, even if I can't tell amiodarone from nicardipine; why aren't you appreciating that?

The task for this week? Putting impatience and stubborness in their places. I plan to step back, to let things fall they way that they ought to, the way you shake your hair out after a good blow-out. Maybe, just maybe, if I work hard on not crowding myself or forcing the situation, I'll be able to stay focused and actually remember who has what drip and which way that (redacted) tubing is pointed, so I don't get soaked and feel even dumber.

Say your prayers, People. This might be the beginning of a new era.