Hi folks! I'm a pre nursing student and don't pretend to know much of anything about nursing yet so I had a question I wanted to run by you all.
About a year ago my mother was hospitalized for a spontaneous pneumothorax. She had a tube in her chest and was on some pretty crazy pain meds. She appearently had some issues keeping food down. The RN taking care of her commented that if she can't continue to keep her food down and green shows up in her vomit there is a possibility that she would have to have her gall bladder removed.
I was a bit uncomfortable with the RN making this statement as it seemed to have the effect of worrying my mother (and the rest of us) a bit prematurely. When the staff had left the room I told my dad I didn't think the RN should be saying that because (again) I felt it was a bit premature. The RN walked in as I was saying this to my father and she decided to say it again in a louder tone (in a sort of "in your face" kind of way).
My mother is a very dainty lady and doesn't drink and doesn't like drugs in general. Under any other circumstances it would almost have been funny to see my mom so loopy. When she was given food she said, "Let me hurry up and eat this food so they don't remove my gall bladder." (again, she was dead serious and quite loopy from the meds)
In the end, there was nothing wrong with her gall bladder and they never had to touch it. Although I have no doubt that the RN might have been correct in her statement and that removing her gall bladder might somehow be a future possibility, I was a little aggrivated that she worried my poor mother for nothing (and also restated it in that "in your face" kind of way).
Is this sort of thing normal? Is this common for nurses to do? Or was I out of line for disagreeing that the statment should have even been made in the first place?
