Aloha! I need your help.....

pat8585 · Mar 30, 2007

there is a thread on here about hawaii having a severe nursing shortage.

Do you expereience that?

TazziRN, RN · Mar 30, 2007

My brother was 31 when he died unexpectedly. I had been a nurse for just over a year. Not long before I had tried to talk my parents into filling out a living will but they resisted, with the argument that "nothing will happen to us." When my brother died my mother kept saying she wished he'd survived even with brain damage, which was almost guaranteed. I tried to tell her that he wouldn't have wanted to survive that way. She said "We don't know that, do we?"

Me: "No, and if you hadn't fought the conversation so hard when I brought it up, we would know because he would have told us what he wanted done for him."

Every adult in my family now has a DPOA and I am the designee for all of them.

jmadera · Mar 30, 2007

Thank you so much for sharing Tazzi RN. That is the exact point I will be trying to get across to young people. I'm hoping to get past the stigma and denial that people face.

jmadera · Mar 30, 2007

about the nursing shortage.....I live on Maui and we only have one hospital so you think it wouldn't be bad. We have lots of travelers working in our humble hospital so I imagine that it's bad here too.

htrn · Mar 30, 2007

My youngest sister died when she was 4 years old (30+ years ago) and her death brought this discussion to the forefront in my family. My father and sister and I have this conversation quite freqently, my husband and children (ages 9-16) have this conversation on a regular basis as well. We also very openly discuss organ donation and my 16 y/o has even signed the organ donation consent on his drivers license (I know it isn't legally binding, but it sure makes his wishes known).

About a year ago, a woman that had just had a baby with us less than a month earlier hit an overpass support - great big concrete column - at about 70 miles an hour. Baby was fine, mom was in ICU on life support for several days. I now use this as an example when asking my labor patients if they have advanced directives. No one is immune to an accident.

We do have incidents where 80+ year-old patient with end stage cancer does not have a DNR and the family is still arguing over it when the pt codes. Poor patient gets intubated, CPR and the whole 9 yards. Goes on a ventalator for several hours/days until the family finally gets it and the patient either days because they agree to stop the heroic measures or the heroic measures no longer work. I really equate these situations to cruel and unusual punishment.

Sorry for the rant. I will come back and haunt anyone that does that to me.