How Nurses make a difference in the life of one person:Tell us your story.

I can tell you how a nurse made a difference to my husband and me.

In 2002 my mother-in-law lay dying in the ICU after she was diagnosed with colon and liver cancers. Her surgery (they attempted to give her a chemo disc for her liver but she was end stage and it was too bad) failed and we slowly were coming to grips with the fact that this beautiful vibrant 46 year old woman was dying, and it was a matter of time before she would be gone. She died one week after her surgery (2 weeks after her initial diagnosis).

We had an RN named Maricella (I say "we" because she treated us all, not just my mother-in-law). She was like an angel and we told her so. She always had time to talk to us, explain what she was doing, interpret the doc for us (we were always so shocked when he finally came around we couldn't get our brains to function enough to ask him questions). She cried with us, hugged us, backed our DNR request, provided us unconditional support. Everything the picture of a nurse should be.

We got a card for all of the nurses who took care of my mother-in-law but we got a special card for her and some flowers. She made the most difficult time in our lives a bit more bareable.

Like I said, my mother-in-law died, but we were there with her holding her hand. She was in a coma the whole time after surgery (we had one day of lucidity -- the day immediately following surgery). Maricella encouraged us to talk to her, read to her, sing to her, tell her anything we needed to say. She finally passed on when I told her I promised to take care of her baby (her only son - my husband) and it was ok for her to go.

We felt a lot more at peace with the situation because of the support given by this wonderful RN.

Nurses can make a difference.

Wonderful, touching story, Sarah Kat.

:kiss

Long story but My Brother was a quadriplegic from a MVA single vehicle accident thrown from the car and landed on guardrail and fractured his spine and severed his spinal cord C 4-5.

Ok I moved to Texas for a while and went to school to become an LVN while I was away my brother let himself deteriorate, he was living in a college town and was originally supposed to go to college, but he hooked up with this chick with Guillian Barre syndrome and they moved in together and began working 4 or 5 docotrs for scripts and basically just stayed high on valium and codiene and xanax and everything they could get scripts for. My brother had home health nurses seeing him twice a day for dressings because he had been in bed for almost a full year and they were both happy with this arrangement, they were high so who cares right?

I moved back to town and step in and get on his ass about all of this I basically just took him to rehab he needed conditioning, strengthening and detox. I took him to a very reputable Rehab and had him admitted. He was so ortho-static that he could not even sit up in bed for long without passing out. He needed dressing changes and he needed therapy.

Here is the nurse part.

One of the nurses there was this Lady that had been a nurse for 20 odd years, I know my bro and he was still working it a little but he was going to do what it took to get back to where he could get up in his chair and have some semblance of a normal life. Sure he still wanted codiene and anything else he could get but they were working on that. So anyway he is rehabing and this nurse comes to get him and he tells her I am sick I don't feel well. She says too bad you have to do your therapy. He is like I really don't think I can today. She basically begins moving him to the side of the bed to get up for therapy. He is still arguing and she backs off and tells him You don't have a choice this is rehab and you put yourself in this position and now you have to do your therapy when it is ordered and you can't just choose when you want to cooperate. She had an aide assist her to get him in the wheelchair and they took him to therapy.

Actually he can! As we all know there is a litle thing called the Patients bill of rights.

I spoke to the nurse personally and asked what happened and she told me that they are told to be strict with the patients and to try to strongly encourage them not to miss therapies because the schedule is such that if they miss it screws up the entire schedule. I informed her that strongly encouraging would actually fall short of taking a man that can not move for himself from a bed that he says he doesn't want to leave and putting him in his chair and taking him to therapy where he did indeed vomit and had to be taken back to his room.

I went to management and talk to the Manager and then I got a meeting with the Chief administrator and two days later they asked me to sit in on a meeting in which they introduced a new policy where every patient was given the Patients Bill Of Rights on admission and they apologized for the situation.

So I guess I sort of made a difference for every Patienit that came after by them all recieving and being aware of their rights.

Told you it was a long story.

The other two stories were amazing as well

I was having my first child, turns out she was 10 lbs, 1 oz. Big baby. I am not a large person, no gestational diabetes, but I was a 9 lb baby myself. Anyway, I was in horrid labor for 23 hours (stupid enough to think I could do it w/o epidural for the first 8). The baby was turned wrong. I had a great nurse that knew I wanted to avoid a section. She had me do things with my legs and turn my body and by golly, that baby turned around and I was able to have her lady partslly, with forceps. I am very grateful. That nurse spent a lot of time checking me, having me adjust my legs (often one pulled up to my chin) and I know that she certainly didn't have to do all that. It just took a lot of her time. Hope I can be that kind of a nurse.

I have recently decided to go back to school to get my BSN (a switch from accounting).

I have been doing volunteer work for some time and truly believe that medicine is where I need to be.

But also my desire comes from being a burn patient. I am burned over 60% of my body. I am the only survivor of a house fire (I lost everything and everyone). The nurses were very kind to me and I had wonderful care. I am going into nursing to work critical care burns.

Kara Tyson

Director (and patient)

Lyme Disease Support Group of AL