[fergus51]

Originally Posted by Gompers

There is a fine line between trying to have some control of the situation and actually interfering with the medical treatment of your child. I think that line was crossed by these parents. I mean, come on, they gave medication right there in the ER after being told not to. That is interference.
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You took the words out of my mouth. My priority is the baby first, parents second. A lot of families go through similar stresses without becoming like the OP's parents. I don't expect perfection, but it is possible for a parent to control themselves to a certain extent and it's necessary. I feel sympathy for them and expect a certain amount of freaking out, but I don't accept them interfering with medical care.

[RedcarRN]

Analee23,

It sounds like you really wanted to help these people. It doesn't matter how nice you are, or how much you want to do a good job and you understand where they're coming from. It is sometimes SO hard to not get frustrated with them. Ha!

I hope you managed to leave the room for long enough to complain and say a few choice words Ha! It's so nice to know everyone else has been through all this stuff. It helps you have others to compare to these people..well, at least they're not as bad as ..... or.. these people are worse than..... I don't think it matters how much you can "understand" them sometimes.. there's only so much a person can take... lets be real!

We all want to be the understanding, nice nurse, but some nights it just seems like the patients are out to get you. Ha!

I'm sure you've recovered by now and are your usual wonderful, Florence Nightingale self... :-)

[madwife2002]

Originally Posted by Gompers

I've worked in the NICU for eight years. Of course I know that parents can be irrational when their children are sick. That doesn't mean that I can't understand the original poster's frustration at the fact that these parents brought their child to the ER for treatment and then refused to let the ER team actually TREAT the baby. Stopping a nurse from giving an IV anticonvulsant to a seizing baby is a major interferance with treatment!!! The original poster has every right to be frustrated when she was unable to do her job, as ordered by a physician, because the parents refused.

It's one thing to want to control the situation when one's child is sick. It's another to prevent others from doing what's medically best for that child. Irrational or not, these parents stepped over the line.

I am not going to get into an argument with you. I am not unsympathetic to the situation at hand. I am bowing out of thread gracefully as it is not my intention to annoy people.

[2curlygirls]

i was going to say, hey, that family moved to VA? i think i took care of that kid in our NICU in CA. We see it all the time! and i do have kids, and i am sympathetic. to a point..........

[ahsitters]

I can totally understand where you are coming from as well as the parents concern. Rest assured that as the parents 'know better' they will 'do better' when baby has set backs.

Since baby has a seizure disorder i'm betting you will see the regularly if not frequently for the next little while, think of it as a chance to build some trust with the parents.
I can't blame the parents for questioning things even though they were getting on staffs nerves. New parents are bombared by the media with horrifying and true stories of medical mistakes that result in deaths of small children.
That combined with little to no sleep and a sick baby would make any parent a little "nutty"

If they come in again maybe suggest to the parents that they attend a support group for parents of ill children or contact their local epilepsy support group. They obviously need support and reassurance and more information.

Hope your next shift is much quieter,
ahsitters

[StrEssEdX2]

In my opinion, sounds to me like as that child grows up the parents are going to make it a nervous wreck. With this baby having a seizure disorder the parents are going to have get used to being strong and control themselves and letting the medical team that they came to for help in the first place care for the child. It is very hard taking care of a pt when the families are trying to control the situation and not let you do your job.

[KellieNurse06]

Wow...I feel for ya! Did anyone ever explain to the parents before they left the NICU that seizure meds do not stop seizures, they just control them.......to a point.
I have a child who has seizures and she takes Phenobarb, Dilantin & Klonopin for them and still has breakthrough seizures occasionally, but it doesn't freak me out..we just watch her closer...
I remember one time when my daughter had to be taken in by ambulance for something, her blood work was done for her monthly levels of her meds, but it was for something else though...low platelets I think..anyway she has alot of medical issues so I always have an ambulance drive us to the hospital if we go to the big city hospital for anything for safety reasons if I am alone with her ... and one of the ambulance people actually said to me "well her dilantin level is high so we don't need to worry about her seizing" when I was telling them the info on her recent labs..I just said " Oh really.....who told you that" because a person can have seizures from too much meds just as they can for not having enough....I would love to know who told this ambulance person that line of BS...lol
Anyway maybe the parents have no control over what their baby is going through so they try to control whatever they can.....and this just happened to be the one thing they had control over or thought they did......... I am sorry you had to bare the brunt of it though, that is awful.
When my daughter got sick as a baby at 3 weeks old (she's 17 now) I will never forget a nurse at the hospital in the icu......we were told my baby was going to die pretty much...and they next day I was looking in my daughters notes in her flow sheet..and a nurse actually wrote in the notes " mother appears to be under the influence of a substance".....can you imagine????? I was up all night the night before crying because I thought my baby was dying...so of course I looked like crap the next day, swollen eyes and all from crying...and the gall of knowing this yahoo thinks I am on something....gee let's do a cartwheel because my baby may die............ so
needless to say I was stunned..................
Maybe these parents are just really scared..... hopefully they will be ok after everything sinks in.........it is very overwhelming as minor as something is but it is major from their standpoint.........you just have to grin & bare it unless of course they are over the top with being nasty to the medical team .......and that isn't right either........well I hope this doesn't turn you off for the job you obviously do very well at..........

[ItsyBitsySpider]

I just wanted to tell you I totally understand what you are feeling. I think some of the most stressed parents are first, parents of newborns, and second, parents of a child seizing, even with a known seizure disorder. I know it is super stressful to have your child in the ER but some parents are beyond reasoning with.

When I have parents who are freaking I try to just spend a little extra time with them during assessment, if this is possible, and allow them to vent and ask questions and give them some idea of what is going to happen. Also, giving them some opportunities to make decisions about their child's care sometimes helps. Little things like allowing the parents to give po meds, asking them which hand the child favors if we are inserting a line, anything within reason really. I also constantly remind them that we are here to help their baby and we are going to do all we can.

Sometimes none of this works and when that happens I walk outside for a few minutes and breathe and remember it's not personal. Sorry you had a crap shift. Next time you get that big hug from the 2 year old you just gave an IM to you'll remember why we do this!

[PedsER-RN]

Originally Posted by Gompers

I don't have any kids (yet) but I work with parents in the NICU all the time. The problem is that it is so frustrating to try and care for these babies when the parents are trying to run the show. I think that's what happened in that ER. The parents came there for help, but they only wanted things done THEIR way. The ER staff is trained to deal with seizing children and probably has a protocol that they usually follow, but when the parents are refusing treatments, it leaves the staff flustered. It's like, why are you coming in for treatment if you think you know how to handle things on your own?

There is a fine line between trying to have some control of the situation and actually interfering with the medical treatment of your child. I think that line was crossed by these parents. I mean, come on, they gave medication right there in the ER after being told not to. That is interference.

I think the original poster has every right to be frustrated, whether she has children or not.

[emtrachel]

On the ambulance, we get parents of ill patients who can be challenging, to say the least. I had a "aha" moment one day trying to deal with a parent who was being very demanding. This mother was a nurse. As I talked to her I got the impression that she was frustrated because she was a nurse and she couldn't "fix" her baby. Also, as a nurse she knew the long term prognosis for her baby and the worst case senarios- knowledge can be a frightening thing. I try to remember this (ok, sometimes it seems like I reminding myself of this every 20 seconds when I'm dealing with a particularly challenging parents). In the medical field, sometimes we deal with emergencies on a daily basis... but usually they are someone else's emergencies, not our own.

Also, I'd (usually) rather deal with demanding parents than with parents that either don't have a clue how serious things are or don't care about their child's illness or injury.