Dear the Nursing Student Diary, I’m a community nurse and I’ve a lot of untold tales to share with you. But for the time being, I’ll share my first experience in the field that almost made me quit Nursing.

As a community nurse, we were going out on a home visit during my first clinical experience. I went with one staff community nurse who’s a lady and our target was to immunize some children on her list, at least 20 of them.

I do not really know if that day wasn’t my lucky day or if that day was a cursed day in my life. Long story short, when we had gone into 12 houses and immunized only 2 of the children under a hot scorching sun, my Incharge suggested we take a rest and since the only place we could rest was on some benches placed under a huge mango tree. We sat there to escape from the heat from the tentacles of the flaming sun. My Incharge was very friendly and talked a whole lot about the field providing me with ideas and encouragements.

We were still there when there was a loud ‘thump’ behind the mango tree as something fell heavily from the tree. Looking up, there weren’t even flowers on the mango tree to suggest there could be fruits on it and as if reading our minds, the answer to our question of what could that be came in the twinkle of an eye as a black large snake took a sharp turn in our direction with fangs all out.

I still cannot remember which of us bolted first, myself or my Incharge. But all I can remember is how fast I ran in an attempt to put as much distance between myself and that scary thing with its fangs.

As if escaping from a venomous serpent on a hot sunny day wasn’t enough, I crossed a compound in full speed and in complete exhaustion only to have these dogs take after me, barking and eyes locked on me. My speed doubled and if in that moment, I had a speedometer attached to me, I sure think I would’ve broken Usain Bolt’s record of fastest runner. I was lucky enough to have one man fend them off with a large log of wood as I run off. To be honest with you, it took me a whole week to recover from the experience. And till today, I do not really know who went back to pick our home visit box and ice chest from under that accursed mango tree. Not like I care though!

To me, I seriously think we need huge risk allowances on the field because the Nursing Student diary, if that snake had got us paa……

Do you think Nurses and midwives really deserve a risk allowance??? Let us know in the comments section below.