I was a very young, too young DON at a care home. I was working late one night doing paperwork. I heard odd noises coming from outside my office. I went out to investigate and I saw Marjean, one of my fav's sitting under a tree rocking back and forth.
I asked what was wrong, she kept rocking telling me she was just gang raped on the pool table of the game room.
Marjean was a hard core, paranoid schizophrenic. It never happened, while we had a game room we had no pool table and, we had cameras in that room. Naw, it didn't happen but SHE totally believed it did, it was one of her hallucinations.
While it did not *really* happen, it did happen in her reality and she was going through the same emotions as a true rape victim would experience.
I finally got it, I finally understood. Hallucination or not, it was still real for her. I just sat with her under the tree rocking back and forth.
We ALL have one or more of those moments, what is yours?
As a nursing student, working a dementia unit for our clinical studies left me in tears all the way back home. The lady I was assigned to was no longer very vocally lucid, needed to be fed, and had no bladder/bowel control. I'd come in to her room, greeting her cheerfully which was usually met with a groan. She remained limp as I washed her and dressed her for breakfast. After feeding her and finding a quiet spot for her to sit, I'd go back and tidy her room. Pictures displayed on a cork board showed a very handsome woman in her younger days. Articles of her accomplishments in local government told me she was very bright, enthusiastic, generous.
Her husband came every day joining her for lunch to feed her himself. He told me she always watched her weight as he whispered loudly into her ear, "you're getting fat my dear", knowing she could no longer respond to his ribbing. What dementia does to the family, watching a loved one lose control of their mind, spirit, and body was the heart-wrenching part of nursing for me. I mentioned to her husband that we would maintain the care of "our patients" every day for the next two weeks and if he needed some time off, we would be lovingly caring for them during that time. He accepted that offer as he worked on their old cottage by a lake (another picture I'd seen in her room}so he could sell it to finance her care.
One morning, as I gently brushed her hair for the day, I told her, "It's going to be a good day!", she responded with, "Yes, it is!". Another morning I asked her, while pushing her in her wheelchair towards the dining area, "How fast you want to go to get there?" and she tossed her head back with, "Fast as you want!" And we did, smiling all the way. My last day feeding her lunch slowly, she turned to me and said, "You know sometimes..." ....the thought was just totally gone and a tear trickled down her cheek. I asked my instructor to take over so I could step away.
Years later, I cared for a lady with early stages of dementia by visiting her at home once or twice a week and going out to eat where we acted like completely goofy teenagers. Later, yet, I stayed with a lady who was nearing a time where she would require round-the-clock care and we loved putting puzzles together or just watch TV. In both cases, I'd be told the same stories over and over again prefaced with, "Have I told you this?" but I'd always let them tell me again. Stories were usually from childhood, but some were more recent and traumatic to them. I'd often be asked the same question repeatedly in an hour's time but I knew in their mind it was the first time they were asking me. Answering patiently was never difficult because I would want to be treated that same way should I someday be walking in their shoes.
I will still always agonize with/for the family members watching this cruel, devastating decline. God bless those who choose to really care for these once bright, enthusiastic, generous persons needing your patient, loving, time consuming tasks.
I don't have any contributions yet, I'm just starting school. But I do want to say one thing to OP: THANK YOU! Your post can really benefit people (like me) who have a really, really hard time admitting we need help. A safe place like this gives an out for things to be released that are just eating someone inside. For example, nobody knows that my last shift in the ER I worked about 9/12 hours with stress induced chest pain. I tried to hide it just because I didn't want sympathy or extra attention or anything. I still don't know if that's good or not.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
ReadyToListen said:
I don't have any contributions yet, I'm just starting school. But I do want to say one thing to OP: THANK YOU! Your post can really benefit people (like me) who have a really, really hard time admitting we need help. A safe place like this gives an out for things to be released that are just eating someone inside. For example, nobody knows that my last shift in the ER I worked about 9/12 hours with stress induced chest pain. I tried to hide it just because I didn't want sympathy or extra attention or anything. I still don't know if that's good or not.
YIKES!
The thing is, ReadytToListen, you need not just be ReadyToListen, but also WillingToHear. Your own body is trying to tell you something, insisting you pay attention and really take in the meaning of its message.
Just because you 'know' it is stress induced doesn't mean you can ignore it and not do something about it. Like see a doc? Yah? There are many and multiple ways to help your body to stop yelling at you.
It doesn't mean your a wuss for caving to pain, it means you're smart enough to see what can be done about it before it gets worse and goes in any one of the several directions it might take.
I have had several as a nurse, but none so terrible as a personal happening. My neice died of SIDS at 15 weeks of age. On the day of her funeral, after she had been interred, my son, who was six at the time, grabbed my arm as we were driving away and begged me to go get her because "you're a nurse, you can fix her." It has been 11 years and that still breaks my heart.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
My first patient death came when I was a brand-new nurse working in a SNF. The patient was a 53-year-old lady who was dying of pulmonary fibrosis, and as night fell she became weaker and more uncomfortable. I called hospice and her family and did what I could to help her, including frequent administration of morphine and Ativan. The family and hospice nurse arrived at about the same time, and this large group surrounded her in the small single room we reserved for hospice patients. I turned to leave, and they asked me to stay and pray over her with them.
I wasn't doing anything that couldn't wait, so I agreed and joined the circle. As we prayed, I could hear the faint strains of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King playing on someone's radio down the hall. Yes, I could definitely feel the love, and I hope she felt it too...and as her soul left her poor, wracked body, the group quieted and marveled at how tranquil she appeared, for the first time in what seemed like forever. We said a final prayer and I left them to go do what must be done after a death in a nursing facility.
It wasn't until I'd finished my duties, given report to the night shift nurse, and got in my car that I lost it. I bawled all the way home, as much from the beauty of what I'd witnessed as from sadness. I'll never forget it.
I have several. I worked my entire career in oncology. You often get to know the patients and their families pretty well as they are with you for extended periods of time (especially leukemia patients) or are admitted frequently over an extended period of time (or both).
One of my first patients to pronounce had been with us frequently. Mr. B was an older gentleman and he and his wife were the sweetest people I have ever met in my life. He always had a smile on his face, even when he was in obvious pain. He had prostrate cancer that had metastasized to the bone. The mass was so large it blocked the lymph nodes in his groin and his scrotum was swollen beyond what seemed possible. It caused the skin to split and required frequent wound care and we had to splint his scrotum on a towel. Even with premedicating him liberally beforehand, I know it had to be excruciating, but he never complained. He just smiled and told us stories about his life--travels, adventures he and his wife experienced, about his children & grandchildren. I suppose it was his way of keeping distracted and he was an amazing storyteller!
His wife seldom left his side but occasionally she would go home. We encouraged her to rest but she always came back with some sort of goody tray for the nurses--banana nut bread, cookies, pie, cake. She said that was her outlet, her stress relief. When it got to be too much for her if she could just go home and bake for a little while she felt better.
He fought long and hard but when it became clear that his end was near he gave each of us nurses a magnetic hematite & beaded necklace (they were all the rage at the time). He had picked out a different color for each of us. It's the only gift I've ever accepted from a patient. (Maybe it was wrong but he would have been highly offended had we not.) He didn't want to go to hospice, he wanted to pass at the hospital "with us". He had pretty much been incoherent for several days before he passed. The day he died, his family was there and I had been in and out checking on him and them. His son came and got me, said he thought it was "close". Mr. B took two, maybe three very agonal breaths, very far apart and then something I had never seen before or since--the biggest most beautiful smile came across his face for a split second--and that was it.
Another one. We had a long-time leukemia patient. She was just one of those people with whom I had an instant connection. I'm not sure why that happens. It's really an unexplained phenomenon. Maybe because we were about the same age, both dealing with teenagers at the time and shared the same type of humor. Or maybe because we were complete opposites in some ways--I'm kind of quiet and reserved and she was spunky and outspoken. Or maybe it was just that intangible something that makes two people hit it off from the moment they meet. Anyway, we hit it off right away.
J.C. was one of the patients that was with us both frequently and for extended periods of time. She responded well to chemo and went into remission. At some point she had seen a doctor in a metropolitan area and there was talk of a bone marrow transplant (we did not have a BMT unit). They wanted her to do a few more rounds of chemo and then at some point in the future they were going to do the bone marrow transplant. One of her children was a match. Because we don't have a BMT, I'm not familiar with exactly how all that works. But for insurance reasons we were going to do a few more rounds of chemo, but not the chemo immediately before transplant.
Anyway, she was in for Round 1 of chemo. She had completed it fine and was in the nadir period (think low platelets). I was working as Charge that day not her primary nurse. JC was another one of those patients who seldom complained. Her mom reported to the primary nurse that JC had developed a sudden intense headache, which her primary nurse reported to me. The second I saw JC I knew it was bad. Called a RR, transferred to ICU, stat CT showed a spontaneous massive brain bleed. A few days later they turned off life support. Heartbreaking.
Specializes in Pediatrics, Community Health, School Health.
I have two. The first was about 12 years ago. I was the nurse manager at a hospital-based out-patient peds clinic. It was a Friday morning and our walk-in hours were in full swing. A young teen mom and her own mother brought in a 2 month-old baby that clearly had a horrible cold. The baby was fussy, trying to cough and generally miserable. They said they had been up all night with him because he was so fussy. No fever, O2 sats were 98%, just a bad, bad cold. Doc sent the baby home with nasal saline drops, I taught the 15 year-old mom and her mother how to suction out the nose.
I arrived Monday morning and am called into the nurse's station to take a call from a hospital ER across town. The ER attending was calling to report a suspicious death of a 2 month-old patient of ours we had seen Friday morning and had some questions for me. Long story short, the teen mom was super exhausted and the father of the baby said he would keep the baby overnight to give her a break. 911 was called in the middle of the night for an unresponsive baby. Baby arrived at the ER DOA and was coded for a full hour. Details started sounding sketchy so more diagnostics were done. Turns out baby had a massive brain bleed and dad confessed to shaking the baby after he couldn't get the baby to stop crying. I threw up after I got off the phone with the ER attending.
The other one was when I was about 25 weeks pregnant with my son who is now almost 11. I was working still in the same ambulatory peds clinic and one day a week we ran a pediatric OBGYN clinic. I worked closely with the OB who came down to see the pregnant teens and she was also my personal OB. Anyway, we had this lovely 15 year-old pregnant teen. She came to every OB visit, was a lovely, sweet girl and full of life. I looked forward to our visits with her. At around 39 weeks, she came in and the OB noted her swelling was pretty bad that week. It was Summer IN DC so super hot anyway. She did a urine dip which was + for protein and her BP was up a bit from the previous visit so she sent her down to L&D for monitoring. This was all around 3PM and I left for the day at 4:30 PM.
When I arrived at work the next morning, the OB was waiting for me in the nurse's station and said "let's go for a walk". I knew something bad had happened, but I had no idea what. The patient ended up on the monitors all afternoon, BP stayed a little high but nothing crazy. That evening apparently the nurse was doing vitals and they were going to d/c her and she suddenly started having SOB and then coded. All hell broke loose, they tried to get her back but couldn't and ended up doing a STAT section at the bedside to save the baby. She had an amniotic fluid embolism. I did go to her funeral with the OB and it was awful. It was open casket and she looked nothing like that sweet 15 year-old I had seen only a week before.
Mine was fairly recent. I worked at a large nursing home with a large dementia unit where I was the primary nurse on second shift. One night we received an emergency admission of a lady in her 60's coming from the ER due to her husband who was her caretaker having been in an accident and in the hospital for surgery. When she came to us, she was completely disheveled. Greasy hair, horrible odor, filthy clothes, bruises covering her body, but was the sweetest most outgoing lady I have ever met in my life. She made friends with all of our little old ladies within a day or so. Fast forward about a week and her husband is brought to us for rehab and placed on our unit despite being A&O due to his wife being there. Instantly her whole demeanor changed. She was angry and aggressive. Tearful. Always afraid "he was going to get me." Her husband was very controlling. Didn't like her to go out in the halls and socialize. Took her shoes so she wouldn't leave the room. Yelled at her constantly. We notified social services but nothing came from it. One day I was working and I had just been in the room with him talking and joking when a CNA came out and informed me that he wasn't breathing. We coded him for an hour at the facility and he later died at the hospital. The family lived several hours away in another state and asked that we inform their mother of her husbands passing. So I took my lady aside and we talked. She instantly broke into tears and the only words she said was "I can finally have my shoes back. I can finally have friends. I don't have to be alone." And for whatever reason that just broke me into a million pieces. I have since left the facility. But from that moment until I left, she was thriving. She was my social butterfly and I forever will remember her.
....I try not to dwell too much on the crappy side of things.
NurslingNicole
61 Posts
You all are angels. Thank you for all you do.