How do I walk back into a room

resumecpr · Dec 5, 2010

My sincere condolences for your loss. I know how you feel. I lost my father to mesothelioma when I was 16 and it brought me to become the best damn nurse I could be because of the horrible experience we had in the hospital.

It sounds like your father had some medical issues to begin with. Although right now, you have every right to be angry and sad and hurt and confused, there will come a time when things get better, and you can make some sense of everything.

First, I can say from experience that talking about your feelings to anyone who will listen and give objective advice is crucial. It certainly helped me.

Second, use this experience (when you can accept it) to guide your life and who you want to become.

Third, I believe that PTSD is what one makes of it. It's how we cope with a traumatic event such as the loss of a loved one in a way you mentioned.

You CAN get through this. It will take time, believe me - 16 years later and it's still a sore spot. But I chose to push through adversity, and managed to find the gain through my experience.

Don't fight back with your father's SO, or the nurses or doctors. It will not bring your father back.

"What defines us is how we rise after we have fallen."

Again, I truly feel for you. I hope this helps.:redbeathe

FLArn · Dec 5, 2010

please consider getting professional counseling either by a psychologist/psychiatrist or clergy -- but someone who can be objective but empathetic. Give yourself time, maybe see about taking a leave of absence if possible. Depending on the work environment you have, your company may have an Employee Assistance Program which could be helpful.

I have no other advice, but please let me say how sorry I am for your loss and the circumstances that surrounded it. :hug:

dthfytr, ADN, LPN, RN, EMT-B, EMT-I · Dec 5, 2010

Lost my dad slowly to cancer, my mom slowly to Alzheimer's. I hope that you feel I understand your pain. It takes at least a year, generally speaking, to come to terms with such a painful loss. I at least felt the health care system did its best to care for my loved ones. You don't have that same comfort, at least with the oncologist. Are you able to talk with the staff that cared for him and discuss your concerns? It seems like a reasonable approach. Best wishes, sorry for your loss, hoping you can find satisfactory closure.

newtress, LPN · Dec 5, 2010

Well, thanks to you that have replied and offered support and shared your pain. Yes, the medical condition was chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This was a tiny little mountain town in NorCal towards Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains and the medical community (if I can even give it that title) was and is not up to snuff at all. That's part of why this is so tragic in my mind. I knew what he needed and what would have benefited him, and behind the scenes his condition was inacurately given to me and lied to by the "companion." She never offered or gave my dad any of the comfort meds that were delivered 2 days before I got there. The one and only visit the hospice nurse made to the house told me he felt it was severe neglect, the bedroom was 56 degrees etc and that he needs to be removed from her house. I'm certain my father could hear the awful comments she was making standing in the hallway about him and he couldn't talk. If I could have seen my dad reduced to 116 pounds, hadn't eaten in 7 days (I didn't know until I saw my dad, and asked the attending in ER) through my telephone I would have been out there for him way before Thanksgiving. I just don't know what how or when I will be able to be the nurse I was prior to this.

danegerous, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2010

I think this is an amazing experience to have as a nurse. It is so personal, and so fresh because of how close he was to you. Imagine if you are able to keep this entire experience in a little part of your brain. What if you treated every patient the exact opposite of how your father was treated? Whaat if you dealt with every family member the opposite way you were treated? Can you imagine having the complete opposite effect on a person? What if instead you were in this forum raving on and on about how you can't wait to get back to work because of the genuine care you saw your father receive and the amazing way the staff communicated and handled his passing.

It won't make the death any easier, that's for sure. But it can make it important, and not just to you. Your father's suffering can be the reason for so many receiving unsurpassed care. I know that you wish things could have happened differently, but now the choice of how to move forward is up to you. You have such a valuable perspective, one that only a patient and family member can understand. You can truly be the patient's advocate now. I can't emphasize enough how valuable you would be to any healthcare team.

As said previously, seek counseling to deal with your grief, but I would be surprised if really helping other people in similar situations wasn't counseling enough. I hope you do great things.

ammonthenephite · Dec 5, 2010

Such a loss to one loved so much is always painful. Knowing how he was ill-treated only adds to that. What you are feeling is normal and is felt by every almost every member of the human family as they loose a parent they have had and loved their entire life. I second the counsel to talk about it, to let it out. Its not easy but you will suffer and feal pain as you deal with this. It will change you and it will affect you. Do not try to avoid feeling the pain or dealing with the loss. You WILL have to deal with it sooner or later. Take it head on and with support. Its the best way. Excersise a lot, that always helps me.

But as you go through this at no time do you lose the ability to chose how it will affect you. You have the choice to focus on what might have been, to think about all the "what if's", or you can accept what is and what has happened. This is not easy, but it is necessary to begin the healing process. You have the choice to harbor ill feelings towards those that mis-treated and under-appreciated your father, or you can chose to forgive them straightway. Harboring ill-feelings towards them won't punish them at all, it will only punish yourself and serve to canker and sour your ability to love on the whole, including the patients that desperately need someone to love and care for them as though they were a family member.

This may come across as un-sympathetic, and if it does I apologize for I mean nothing negative by it, but over all the best way to overcome all of this is to eventually forget yourself and serve and love those around you. You will need time to grieve, this is a given. But don't let it isolate you, and don't let it cause you to only dwell on how you feel. The sooner you can begin to continue to love and serve those around you the sooner you will see your pain and your ill-feelings enveloped by that very love and charity you are giving to others. Start small if you need to, go spend time in the childrens ward, go work in a homeless shelter. Do anything that gets you thinking of others. I promise you this will have a greater healing effect than almost anything else you can do.

I will keep you in my prayers and know you are not alone as you go through this.........

Ammon

newtress, LPN · Dec 5, 2010

Thank you dangerous, that's quite a different perspective. I only wish I could feel it now and I don't. This triumph over tragedy won't take place for quite some time for me, and when it does I will be there for others "in the room." I have been on a floor with a family member actively dying, seeing the mouth agape in agonal or cheyne-stokes breathing and only by the absolute fact that it wasn't my mother or father I was the perfect nurse on that shift for them. Now I see like a mini Viet Nam experience in my mind because everything went wrong, and not like what I saw other families go through as their loved one died in front of them. I'm a nurse and couldn't tell this back woods oncologist or last minute hospice people what he needed for a more peaceful dignified departure because it absolutely could have been and I was shut out. But I know that I did the right thing by having him transported out of her home and into a hospital for the few hours he had the night before thanksgiving. I had my last thanksgiving day with him, and most likely won't be observing that day as a family celebration. All human beings deserve to be loved and comforted in their final hour.

allnurses Guide · Dec 5, 2010

I am so, so sorry you had to go through such a traumatic event --- mega-(((newtress))) hugs. My father's death had all the elements yours did except he was already gone by the time I got to California from Colorado. Essentially, the story was that he sustained a head injury (how exactly that happened was never clear) most likely not an accidental fall. This horrible woman who lived with him left him there to bleed to death while she visited a friend of hers- it was actually the friend who called 911 without even seeing my dad when she divulged what happened.

When I went to go through his things, blood was splattered all over the house including a few trails. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about what he went through. I have had to deal with the horrific scene that likely was played out before he had help arrive. Consciously, I knew I was too far away to have done anything, and yet I play over and over in my mind the question "could I have done something to save my dad? Should I have noticed something I didn't?

I can tell you for sure that it will get better with time. Try to separate your nurse-daughter dual identity, because the fact is you weren't in the persona of "nurse" at the time all this was going on, I think it would be an excellent idea to talk to a counselor about this - it will help you to not see all things hospital as a trigger for your anxiety over your personal loss. You'll get there -- I know you will. Saying prayers for you.

Spode · Dec 5, 2010

If you are a believer, ask GOD to guide you on the path he has planned for you. Not wanting to enter another patients room are your feelings. Do not feel bad about this. You should take grievance time if possible. I hope you have an emotional support system in place. i.e. family, friends, etc.

Is it possible you feel guilty about notbeing there sooner to intervene? If so, I can relate, I have tried to get my father into assisted living, you name it..

Just because you are a nurse does not dismiss your right to acknowledge your feelings. You need support and you do not have to make any major decisions today. Grieve, I wised I would have when my mother passed when I was a teen. Nursing will be there and whether or not you decide to return to the bedside does not change the fact the fact that your are an emapthatic, compassionate person. May you find strength and wisdom from your loss.

LPN_mn · Dec 5, 2010

First off I am so sorry for the loss of your father. I went through a situation a couple of years ago. I was in a car accident. The other driver was about the age of my oldest daughter. He was high on meth ran a stop sign doing 60 miles an hour and I hit him on the drivers side. He took out a power pole. When I got out of my car I got to the guy and realized he was not going to live. I was so devasted that as a nurse I could not do anything to save this kid. It took 6 months of counseling before I could go back to work. It was so devastating because as a nurse I kept feeling there should have been something I could have done to save this kid. I learned alot about myself and about why I felt the way I did. I am in no way comparing the horrible loss that you have experinced to mine. But just letting you know that with counseling and a good support system you will return to nursing with a whole new perspective. May you feel the warmth of Gods love at this time.

ear · Dec 5, 2010

First off, I am so sorry for your loss. You can, and will walk into another room. I lost my brother this summer. He died suddenly, one day shy of his 38th birthday. There was no reason, autopsy reports didnt clarify anything. I traveled 600 miles the night before to see my family for his birthday, and mothers day. I spoke to him that morning. We were all at my parents house waiting for his family to come over for dinner. They never showed up, he never came home from work. They found him in a bathroom in a store.

He was an amazing guy, he had a wife, three children, (6,3 and 2 months) He had such a zest for life. He was a jokester, and would give anyone the shirt off his back. He adored his wife and couldnt get enough of his children. Have every reason in the world to live.

I tell you this about him because I work in a psychiatric emergency room. Yes, we get very sick, psychotic patients. But, we also get our share of malingering. We get those who have druged themselves into trouble, and need a place to "hide out" for a few days, or other rediculous reasons they feel the need to be hospitalized. Yes, they tell me with a straight face that they are suicidal, and I know they are lying, but they say what they have to.

I knew I needed to get help. I needed to be able to reason through, and learn how to cope with these people. I knew I was going to explode and yell at them all. So, I made two calls when I got home from my brothers funeral. 1 to a MD, for a full physical (yes, I am still worried that I might drop dead any second) and 2 to a therapist. I needed to get my head on straight before I would be able to help others through their hardships.

One of my first patients that I had was there because he was severly depressed.... he had just lost his brother. That was hard. I was professional, and I felt for him. More than anyone else on my unit could at that point. I went on break and cried.

You do need time to greive, and you do need support. I am much more mindful than I have ever been. I hope you find your peace....