Why do I put myself through this?

Nursing is an amazing profession. We are always getting crapped on, in more ways than one. There will be days and days where no one will appreciate anything we try to do. We are constantly running around trying to get everything done, and the mountains of paperwork completed before JAHCO or the state come and take away our licenses. Then there is the agency nurse who you are working with who you wonder if she really went to nursing school at all and what is going on in her brain. ER is constantly yelling at you to take patients and they bring ones that should have gone to the unit in the first place, especially when they roll onto the floor at 6:30 during report. Then you have someone climbing out of bed, pulling out their Foley and IV and throwing up at the same time while the family is sleeping or reading a book at the bedside, or better still, the sitter hired to watch the patient is sleeping or reading a book at the bedside. You don't sit down or get to pee for about 13 hours (yeah right only twelve, like you can get out on time) and the family from down the hall is shouting at you because they want to hear a play by play of the last 3 days on a patient you're watching for another nurse as she takes a lackadaisical hour lunch. Also, you'll note that the doctor has just written new orders that contradict all of the other orders that were given a half hour ago, and you can't even read a single line because of the pitifully awful scrawl that they write in. Most of us like to include the letters, or at least the vowels.
Somehow, even through all of this, I find myself pulled back to work every time. I can't seem to say no when they ask someone to work extra. I really can't wait, I'm glad to leave every morning, and complain when I arrive in the evening. However, some sick, twisted, demented part of me really loves it. I couldn't even say why. I'm convinced that no one should ever put themselves through all of that torture, and yet find myself seeking it out. I can't really think of why I continue day after day, but I absolutely love my job even when I hate it. Wow, I really am nutty.

Maybe I'm laughing because I haven't yet gone to bed, but the title of this picture is "Real Nuts", I like to think of this as my own privately commissioned portrait.