Com'on, you got one...What is your heart wrenching moment?

Nurses General Nursing

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Mine was....

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?

I was a very young LVN working on a med-surg unit.

My grandpa had been battling cancer for some time and was not doing well. He ended up being admitted to the unit I was working on.

I was scheduled to work that night, and he continued to decline. It became apparent his time was short.

I tried to get the night off from work, but they were very short and needed me. So I had to go in to work and try to take care of other patients while my grandpa was dying a few doors down.

I'll never forget being in the hall as my dad came running out of the room looking for the nurse. I knew then my grandpa was gone.

My charge nurse thankfully let me have the rest of the shift off (I was a mess), but it was still one of the hardest things I experienced as a nurse...trying to tie up all the loose ends with my patients before handing them off to go join my own grieving family down the hall.

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I was a very young LVN working on a med-surg unit.

My grandpa had been battling cancer for some time and was not doing well. He ended up being admitted to the unit I was working on.

I was scheduled to work that night, and he continued to decline. It became apparent his time was short.

I tried to get the night off from work, but they were very short and needed me. So I had to go in to work and try to take care of other patients while my grandpa was dying a few doors down.

I'll never forget being in the hall as my dad came running out of the room looking for the nurse. I knew then my grandpa was gone.

My charge nurse thankfully let me have the rest of the shift off (I was a mess), but it was still one of the hardest things I experienced as a nurse...trying to tie up all the loose ends with my patients before handing them off to go join my own grieving family down the hall.

I'm so sorry. This was so not fair to you.

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It took me two days to read this thread. I've shed some tears of my own. I am not a nurse yet- currently applying to schools and hoping to get in fall or sprin semester. I know this is my calling but these experiences have me wondering if I will be able to do it. Does it get easier with time? Also, do employers offer some kind of support- like counseling for you?

Thank you wonderful people for your service.

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Specializes in ER, ICU plus many other.

No they really do not! We all end up dealing in our own way!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg.
Also, do employers offer some kind of support- like counseling for you?

Our hospital has a peer support team available, they will talk to individuals or groups confidentially, and they also do critical incident stress debriefing after particularly difficult events.

We also have a good EAP (Employee Assistance Program) that offers free counseling by licensed therapists if you need it for any reason, and you can bring family members with you. Also completely confidential.

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.

Oh goodness! I was just thinking about this patient this week (or actually the situation)

Working as an LPN while finishing RN school - long story short, we were the local facility where all severely autistic or Downs young adults were admitted - I had a 22 yr old male from that facility that had severe disabilities- he could walk unassisted but couldn't verbalize very well. S/P open abdominal surgery and he was maybe 5 days post op.

DAT, still had on TEDs, was ambulatory with PT in the halls- this was a Sunday afternoon and we didn't have Sunday PT coverage. I get a noon set of vs with a pulse ox. All were WNL. I walk him and he wanted me to get him a coke before we headed back to his room. I have him sit down in a chair while I buy his coke from the vending machine less than 10 feet from his chair - I turn back around and he's having a seizure, BIG time.

He gets coded in the little vending machine - we get a stretcher and get him in the open where we could work on him. Code team gets there and he gets intubated and we work on him for what seemed like forever. He gets pronounced by the pulmonary doc that tuned him. Doc says to me "I ought to make you call his parents and tell them you killed their son"

Everyone at the nsg station hears this of course - and I am in tears. Charge nurse tries to help the situation - doc pours over my nurses notes to find out how I killed this young man - I was SO glad that I had charted my vs, pulse ox, the fact that he was still in TEDs and on RA.

That pt's primary MD comes around later and hears what the MD said. He just hugged me and told me he had already told the parents their son was living on "borrowed time" due to his state of health declining rapidly.

Anne, RNC

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You know what I just realized? I can't think of a single heart wrenching moment in my career. Not one. I've had them, I just don't remember them. I remember people that made a huge impression on me and taught me something such as my original beginning post for this thread, I remember happy people, I remember people from yesterday and even last week. I have cried many times over the last 30 some years, I just can't remember them. I don't know, self preservation? Or maybe I am a COB (Is that correct) and I'm hardened to it all but I don't think so. I think it is self preservation.

I don't have those experiences today, my job is a happy one, for the most part patients are happy and thrilled to be there. It's not like hospital nursing, med/surg, trauma, ICU.... my folks are happy and excited.

I think I have forgotten a significant portion of my career. How very weird.

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You know what I just realized? I can't think of a single heart wrenching moment in my career. Not one. I've had them, I just don't remember them. I remember people that made a huge impression on me and taught me something such as my original beginning post for this thread, I remember happy people, I remember people from yesterday and even last week. I have cried many times over the last 30 some years, I just can't remember them. I don't know, self preservation? Or maybe I am a COB (Is that correct) and I'm hardened to it all but I don't think so. I think it is self preservation.

I don't have those experiences today, my job is a happy one, for the most part patients are happy and thrilled to be there. It's not like hospital nursing, med/surg, trauma, ICU.... my folks are happy and excited.

I think I have forgotten a significant portion of my career. How very weird.

Most COBs remember. They shed their tears, they get it out, and they move on, stronger and wiser, but they remember. That's part of a COB.

Maybe you are subconsciously blocking stuff out?

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Maybe you are subconsciously blocking stuff out?

I guess I don't know. Usually my memory is quite selective. ;) But I honestly can't think of a single incident in 31 years. If I am going to forget stuff, that seems like the kinda stuff to forget!! HA!

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Have had a couple within the past few days. The first is a patient that is 102. Over the past few weeks I have taken care of her on numerous occasions. She had been very alert and orientated to what is going on, playing cards with one of her sons early last week. Over the past four days I have been working on the hall where she is and every day have seen her deteriorating each day. Sunday it had gotten to the point that she had been telling the day time aids she wanted to die. By the time I was taking care of her during the evening shift her eyes had that glazed over look that her time is coming close. She has one son that is suppose to be flying in Tuesday morning, that I believe she is holding on for.

The other is a gentleman on the unit who is on hospice for cancer. Sunday night the other aid I was working with asked me to help her get him comfortable in bed. When I entered the room he was sitting on the edge of the bed holding his open bible. At that point he told God that he was tired of fighting and just wanted to go home. He than asked me if I would read the 23rd Psalm out loud. While reading the passage out loud I kept tearing up. Here was a man who was broken from his disease. The next morning he told the hospice nurse that he had given up and wanted to go home to die.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
You know what I just realized? I can't think of a single heart wrenching moment in my career. Not one. I've had them, I just don't remember them. I remember people that made a huge impression on me and taught me something such as my original beginning post for this thread, I remember happy people, I remember people from yesterday and even last week. I have cried many times over the last 30 some years, I just can't remember them. I don't know, self preservation? Or maybe I am a COB (Is that correct) and I'm hardened to it all but I don't think so. I think it is self preservation.

I don't have those experiences today, my job is a happy one, for the most part patients are happy and thrilled to be there. It's not like hospital nursing, med/surg, trauma, ICU.... my folks are happy and excited.

I think I have forgotten a significant portion of my career. How very weird.

Obviously you've misunderstood the term "COB". A crusty old bat is not someone who is so hardened they no longer experience emotions or heart wrenching moments. It is simply someone with experience, common sense and the wherewithal to turn insults into a positive.

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Actually, I do.

He may not really want to tell it. Put the pieces together. Peds + flight nurse (sounds to me a kid in critical condition) = a situation you may not wish to re-live as a nurse. Analogy. Think of a soldier returning home from war where he lost men and women close to him, and someone insists that he tell those stories. I think what he wrote was enough said.

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