What is the worst hardship/story you have ever seen/heard in your nursing career?

Nurses General Nursing

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As nurses, we get to know our patients intimately. So I'm asking this question: what was the worst hardship you have ever heard about that your patient has gone through? Abuse? Torment? Homelessness? AIDS? Trauma? Personal illness? Children with no parents?

Anything. I would love to hear your stories.

I wish the OP would return and tell us what they think of our working lives. We all have tales of how miserable humans are to one another. Some we just don't want to share.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Transplant.

Young Asian patient (late 20s if I'm remembering correctly) who had been in the U.S. for about 3 years; her ex-husband back in her home country had caused TERRIBLE chemical burns to her face by throwing some sort of acid at her. She was in the process of getting multiple skin grafts to her face/neck and was admitted with graft site infection (thankfully the infection wasn't on her face). My heart really broke for her because despite the horrible damage these burns had done (her face literally looked like melting wax), she was so sweet and grateful. Her English was still limited enough that we had to do most of our more substantial communication through the language line phone but I was glad that I had a few extra minutes just to chat/discuss more than just the medical basics with her during my shift.

The part that will really make me always remember this story was right at the end of my shift. She grabbed my hand just as I was saying goodbye and asked me to look at something. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse showed me a picture of this jaw-droppingly gorgeous woman-she literally looked like a beautiful porcelain doll. She told me that it was her, "before," and that she just wanted to show me. She then thanked me again for being so nice to her (which was ironic - she was so undemanding and just an "easy" patient that I barely felt like I'd been working) and I gave her a hug.

I know that amidst all of the tragedies on this thread this is hardly the worst/craziest (how sad though that we even subconsciously think like that!), but so many things about it still resonate with me. Such a combination of the best and worst of what we see every day.

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Specializes in ICU.

30-year-old BEAUTIFUL Asian woman with a handsome husband who often gave her deep tissue neck and shoulder massages. Well, this time he went too deep and severed a vertebral artery, leaving her completely hemiplegic - her right side just completely flaccid. I helped her with the bedpan several times and each time she cried out of humiliation and shame- especially with the briefs (her choice to wear)- she could not talk either. They had 2 young kids.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
Bless you for being the caring person we all should strive to be.
I second THIS.... :yes:

I thinks our stories (including ones who don't want to share) are a sobering aspect of what we do; and what I takes to keep being in this business year in and year out for the long haul.

I have a few that stand out in my mind:

A pt with HIV that wasn't washed in days because no one wanted so touch "him/her"; mid you, this was 2002. :blink: I made sure that my pt got what they needed while having a CD4 count of 42.

Giving another pt their last bath after this pt refused dialysis and "wanted to die"; after proclaiming this; pt wasn't washed for days; died 10 hours after cleaning up his room; changing sheets, bathing re entire pt and keeping the lights low.

Both of the above pts were my pts for that weekend; the HIV/AIDS pt was transferred to hospice.

I remember having a pt assignment that included Pt A : a pt that was hit by a car, became a double amputee and blind; she also had a TBI; I would let her touch my curls for her to confirm who I was; her next door "neighbor" Pt B: was a 6' 7" 350 lb young man with sarcoidosis that spread to his brain; one night was very memorable-both would call out and say "Hello?"; so they dialog came as follows;

Pt A: "Hello?"

Pt B: "Hello? Where are you?"

Pt A: "In the basement; where are you?"

Pt B: "In the attic; come on up"

In their confused state, they were able to keep each other company; hours later; he coded and was not able to be saved.

Now my Peds cases:

Caring for a child of deaf parents who was supposed to go home on a NGT; was found in the nursery blue; went home on a vent and was severely anoxic.

My PTSD cases (post my own PTSD from a major medical illness in my life):

Care for a child with recovering skin grafts after a mother "cleaned" her child after she accidentally had a BM-in potty training phase; stated she "fell in the tub."

I would do her skin treatments ROM and had I remove and replace stockings twice a day; her screams chilled me to the bone; on admission day, mom just say there and stated with no emotion; that was the one time I was shaken, move to intervene and told her to leave the treatment room. Was living with her mom (child's g-mom) and already had a stint in foster care before "re introducing and rehabilitation."; was returned to foster parents and they were able to gain legal guardianship by the end of the month during care.

THIS child shook me to the bone: car hit 2 year old, 4 year old and their aunt; the 4 year kid had to have reconstructive surgery and had venous and arterial graft to his leg; what broke my heart was he was watching TV and thought he saw people getting hit by a car; he said: "I don't want to watch people getting hit by a car; I don't want to watch TV anymore."

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The saddest sotry I heard was from a nursing friend I had gone to school with. She was assigned an ICU patient who had been hiding a pregnancy. Her BP was out of control and she herniated. Baby was delivered stillborn and patient left on life support until out of state family could be contacted. She wasnt married. I cant imagine hearing that news about a loved one.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
How sad!!! This alone would make me recover just to make his life a living nightmare. Do you know if she ever recovered? Talk about divorce, law suit & anything else I could possibly throw at the low life.

She died in a nursing home a short time later. He inheirited all of her savings. Sometimes life is not fair!

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
She died in a nursing home a short time later. He inheirited all of her savings. Sometimes life is not fair!

True... :yes: what keeps me going is my comforting belief of karma...

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30-year-old BEAUTIFUL Asian woman with a handsome husband who often gave her deep tissue neck and shoulder massages. Well this time he went too deep and severed a vertebral artery, leaving her completely hemiplegic - her right side just completely flaccid. I helped her with the bedpan several times and each time she cried out of humiliation and shame- especially with the briefs (her choice to wear)- she could not talk either. They had 2 young kids.[/quote']

Oh. My. Gosh.

This is just too much to process.

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Specializes in Pedi.

So hard to pick just one. I've seen a few families who sold all their possessions to buy a ticket to get their child to our children's hospital- in one case they were told as soon as they came that we had nothing more to offer them and that their child's disease was fatal. People will go to incredible lengths for their children. On the flip side, shaken babies and abuse cases are the worst, IMO. We once had a trauma X baby who had fractures in almost every bone of his body noted on his skeletal survey. A case that broke my heart recently was one in which abuse was suspected- an infant with a femur fracture, he didn't walk so he shouldn't have been able to sustain that kind of injury. The state swooped in and took immediate custody of him. Family didn't speak English and didn't understand what was happening at all. Turns out he had Osteogenesis Imperfecta so the family basically got told "sorry we thought you beat your baby and took him away, you can have him back... but also he has this horrible disease."

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Had something similar in LTC as a new grad (not young-I was already 35) where a sweet little old Italian man had NO visits from his large family. I assumed (and we know what happens when we do THAT!) that he had a horrible, neglectful large bunch of kids. Only through a phone call to the health care surrogate about a care issue did it come out that this sweet old guy had raped all of his daughters from age 4 or 5 onward, and beaten the snot out of all of his sons. Then, the lack of visitors and Father's Day cards made a lot more sense, sadly.

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Sorry but for me a depressing topic. I have been in acute care hospital nursing 30 years and I have a harder time now then ever with the pain of caring and watching people suffer and the effect on families. I have seen it all too. Several stick out in my mind.

1. The elderly woman whose son had them cut her leg off instead of letting her go peacefully. She never recovered and was in extreme pain. He wanted NO pain meds for her so when he would leave the room which was frequently, I would have that syringe of morphine in my hand ready.

2. The young guy with aids. His abd was completely open and could see his organs. We would put sterile saline and pads on it. He was told that it would heal. No way would this heal. He would look at it and ask me "is it looking better"? And I would say "yes". Then he died.

3. The youngish woman dying of cancer and the family wanted her "gone". We had her on so much drugs that it would kill the entire hospital! Like 45mg/dilaudid/hr. Nothing worked. Everytime she twitched the family wanted more drugs. After days of this the surgeon called in the anesthesiologist and propolol was given and that was it. When she was alert she said to her husband "Bob are you trying to kill me"?

I am ready to leave this job.

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Specializes in None.
Had something similar in LTC as a new grad (not young-I was already 35) where a sweet little old Italian man had NO visits from his large family. I assumed (and we know what happens when we do THAT!) that he had a horrible, neglectful large bunch of kids. Only through a phone call to the health care surrogate about a care issue did it come out that this sweet old guy had raped all of his daughters from age 4 or 5 onward, and beaten the snot out of all of his sons. Then, the lack of visitors and Father's Day cards made a lot more sense, sadly.

This is way off topic. However, this is the reason when we get inmates admitted to the hospital I just assume not even know why he/she is an inmate. I don't even want to know because, if it is something horrible I would treat him/her different than my other patients.

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