I’ve never been comfortable with nurses being called heroes. Yes, we’ll fight for you – even though we don’t know you. Yes, we expose ourselves to whatever you happen to bring our way – whether physical or emotional. It’s all pretty contagious, actually. And yes, as we’ve all seen plastered all over the news and internet lately … sometimes we work under some pretty grueling circumstances.

But we don’t let any of that stop us from helping you.

So what makes us do it? And keep doing it? It’s sure not the accolades. Nor the free doughnuts and coffee. They help, I’m not going to lie.

But we do it because we’ve been called to care. And to care deeply. No matter what. 

The problem is that sometimes we get so overwhelmed by stress that we forget this. We truly have no idea why we keep doing this to ourselves over and over again. It’s happened to me many times over the years and is, in fact, why I write about it so often.

So, in honor of Nurses’ Week, I want to encourage you to keep going. I’ll be sharing some posts that I’ve written over the years as I’ve personally struggled with climbing back into those scrubs once again. I open them back up to you this week because I think I’m probably not the only one in need of some reminding right about now.

Today’s encouragement:

When it’s Nurses’ Week and you have something important to say.