Grateful for grateful patients....Tears and Thank yous.

[NO50FRANNY]

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the old ER, rotten shifts and yet strangely awash with genuinely sick and unnervingly pleasant patients. I've had a tear in my eye more than once because a few words of kindness from patients have been thrown my way... Maybe I'm going soft in my old age. Tell me some of your stories, here are a few of mine.

I had an altercation with an ICU registrar during an emergency I responded to on one of the wards and was feeling decidedly unappreciated. Back in ER, I took over workup of a nursing home pt. in resus with some sort of compromised sepsis. I assumed he was demented /non-verbal or delirious and he had been doubly incontinent. I catheterised & collected bloods and then gave him a quick bath while chatting away to him about utter rubbish. As I was leaning across to finish buttoning his gown he whispers "You're very kind". 3 words, instant tears. Annoying really, I just wanted to be angry all day.

Unloaded patient into resus looking very ordinary - collapse / abdo pain / diarrhoea, bedside USS=Ruptured AAA. I just kept the morphine coming and called his son. Vascular surgeon blusters in after CT (without even introducing himself) saying "Okay, we need you to sign a consent form....." At this point, no one has even told the patient officially what is going on. "Um, doc, the patient isn't sure he wants go forward with the operation so you need to explain what's going on and discuss it with him". I am saying "best of luck" after getting him onto the operating table and he puts his hand on my cheek and says "what is your name?" then kisses my hand and says thankyou. Sigh.

Triaging a lady miscarrying at 13 weeks, starts sobbing at the desk so I stop asking questions and take her to a bay in acute. She keeps apologising to me for being upset- "I'm sorry but this is the 2nd time this has happened and....." so I go in for the hug, then I start to well up. We chat for a little while, I head back out to triage and a few hours afterward a man comes to the desk asking for me. He has come to say thankyou to me for looking after his wife and being so nice, that she was sorry she didn't get a chance to say so herself. What can you say to that?.

Lady patient unloaded in acute with chest pain. Her husband is grinning at me and says "You don't remember me do you?". "Well, your face is familiar". "You looked after me 4 years ago when I was having a massive heart attack". "Oh jeez...Was I nice?". "You were amazing F__N (remembered my name), everyone who works here is". Love it.

That's what I love about nursing, I sleep well at night because of patients like these.

[lmccrn62, MSN, RN]

One story I remember and was probably my most memorable. One day I arrived to work in the ICU and one of my colleagues said that a woman had stopped by looking for me. They told me she didn't leave her name and she would come back. So while working I was called to the desk and a middle aged woman said. You probably don't remember me but you took care of my dad 7 yrs ago. We have never forgotten you. She said I have wanted to come many times over the years. She jogged my memory which I did remember him. He had brain surgery and while I cared for him he had a seizure. She said I brought you a small token of appreciation for all your kindness. She pulled out a old tattered wrapped gift inside was a pretty necklace. I was floored. I told her that just her thank you was more than enough.

I learned that day it's those small things we do that makes a difference and what I do truly makes a difference in the lives of our patients.

[Munch]

I have been on both sides..the grateful patient and the patient grateful to me.

I mentioned this on another thread, after my neurosurgery I was in the PACU in tremendous pain despite a PCA loaded with dilaudid and one of the nurses pretty much moved heaven and earth to get pain management and the surgeons down to take care of my pain..every 15 minutes that passed she literally got on the phone and told them to haul their behinds down there. They adjusted my dosage and I was feeling better. When I got into my room I wrote her a thank you note for being so aggressive in treating my pain.

Another situation in which I was the patient(this actually had to do with EMS) I was in a really bad car accident. My mustang had flipped over an embankment and landed upside down...the jaws of life had to get me out. The car was so bad my brother later went to check the car out and he screamed(and he's is a FDNY firefighter) because he didn't know how it was possible I lived with the condition of the car. I had to be airlifted to a level 1 trauma center and I was scared to death. The Paramedic was absolutely amazing. He held my hand the entire time and kept reassuring me I was going to the best place to be cared for. It's amazing those little words that really make a big difference. My brother later went to them to get some of my belongings and thanked all of them(the EMS workers, the police officers, the firefighters, etc for taking amazing care of things)...I would have went myself but I was in the hospital for a while. I wish I knew who it was that held my hand in that helicopter that day because he really changed my life.

Okay now here I was on the receiving end of the gratitude. I was caring for an older gentleman that had and endovascular coiling procedure for an aneurysm. He was pretty low maintenance and was only staying for a couple of nights for observation. His wife was sick with the flu and obviously wasn't able to visit him and his grown children either worked all day or lived out of the state so he didn't have anyone to visit him. I was working overnight and I came into to check on him at around 9pm to see if he needed anything. He said "can you just sit with me for a few seconds, I haven't had anyone to see me and you've been so kind the past couple of days and remind me of my granddaughter." How could I say no to that? I told him I could do better than that(things were quiet on the unit, meds were passed out to everyone, people were getting ready to sleep, etc). So I left for a second and came back with coffee and had a cup of coffee with him for a few minutes. It was no big deal to me at all but to him you would think I just gave him the hope diamond. A couple of weeks after he was discharged I got a card/letter in the mail from his wife thanking me for taking such good care of him and making him feel comfortable and less alone during a scary situation. I had to read that letter in the bathroom because by the time I was finished reading it I was sobbing.

For one patient like this makes up for 10 patients that pretty much spit in your face.

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

I once counseled a patient on needed travel vaccines (he was off to Africa on safari) He is also a paraplegic and has urinary/bladder issues. For the most part he was able to get himself on a voiding schedule, but was concerned about facilities in another country.

I suggested he get a condom catheter and drainage bag. He had never heard of that. When I explained how is was non invasive (vs a Foley) and that he could go for several days with out a change he was ecstatic.

He called me Goddess and a lifesaver!!! He immediately bagan making plans to start doing more (ie concerts etc) armed with the knowledge he would not have to bug his buddies to help him to the bathroom.

Yah, that was a good day!

[musicistheforce]

I was working on my hospitals step down unit as a tech one night and probably about 6 am i answer a call light. This little elderly woman, who was nearing the end of her life, got anxious when she was by herself. I go into the room and all she wants to do is hold my hand for a few minutes because she was scared. She looked me in the eye and told me that I was very kind and had taken really good care of her and that she was grateful. When she had calmed down I told her that I would pop in before I left to see her and when I did, her family was there and had thanked me for everything that I did.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

A friend of my dad's was getting chemo in a outpatient chemo unit 60 miles from home, but I was up in the city near there for a case and I stopped by to say hi to him and his wife. He was in one of those big recliner chairs and his wife was upset because it was the only place he was comfortable (he had awful bone mets) and she was dreading the inevitably agonizing transfer back to the stretcher for the long ambulance ride home.

So, it was about 3:30 pm. I asked the staff if they needed the chair before morning-- they looked at me funny but they had like 8 or 10 of them, so no, they didn't; they would be there with about 6 patients til around 8:30 pm and their first patient came in at 8:30 am. I asked the ambulance guys if they were coming back this way in the morning, and they said, "Heck, we have two more runs back here before we finish our shift at 8:00 pm." So, I said, "Let's just you take Ed home in this chair and the guys will bring it right back." "Why not?" said everyone. And they rolled this chair down to the ambulance bay and lifted it up with him in it into the back of the rig.

Ed died at home a few weeks later and I didn't see him again, but his wife thanked me for this over and over for a decade. She said they were so gentle with him lifting him out of the chair into his own at home; she called me a life-saver and gave me a Tiffany life-saver-ring keychain. Still makes me sigh when I see it.