Published
I started clinical at a long term care facility last week, I took care of a 84 year old pt for two days. He requires full ADL. He's still very sharp. he told us about stories of his life and he's so nice to us students.
on his bed table are pics of his three daughters and grandchildren, they are decent looking ppl but none of them have ever visited him. I found an unopened card from his friends in his draw and read it to him. He has tears in his eyes. when i asked whether his daughters visit often, he said no.
I'm sad and mad about his daughters, do they just put their parent in a nursing home and never remeber about him? are they so busy that they can't find any time to visit? This makes me really mad. maybe I'm just too ideal and sentimental.
You have no idea what kind of father this man was!My father is (in the eyes of other people) very nice and personable!
But he was horrible to his children!!!!!
I was dumbstruck when I read this, because it could have been written by me!
My best to you, Tabitha, and know that someone else shares your experience.
My grandmother was a battle ax and a curmudgeon, but we loved her for it. She had a series of strokes and slowly declined with mutliple health problems related to diabetes, CHF, hip fx's, etc. She refused to be placed into LTC and so moved in with her son.
Her care required constant supervision and she needed almost complete assist with adls. Her son (my uncle) still worked a 50+ hour a week job and often would call my mother to come care for grandma's needs.
One instance that stuck out was my grams was I/C of bowel and was left in her soiled clothes sitting in a wheel chair at home because my uncle was running late for work. He called my mother to come help clean her up. My mother lived an hour away.
The thought of my grams sitting there for an hour in her own feces just set my blood to boiling when my mother told me. My mother tried to explain to me how hard it was for my uncle to do care like that, and if it was me could i do that same care for her (my mother)? to which I stated "YES!, in the blink of an eye!" Mom just smiled and said that's because I was starting my education to become a nurse and had the "soul" to provide needed care to anyone and I shouldn't judge my uncle based on standards I hold myself to.
Well a few years later my grams did enter LTC and on a visit I caught up with my uncle. I asked him it he was relieved his mom was getting 24 hour care now (I was still a little miffed about the earlier incident I saw as neglect), and the man broke down in front of me. He related all his doubts and insecurities from taking care of grams, his feelings of doing his best and not being able to provide better care, how he saved up and spent money to get better care for her. At the end of two hours I saw he really wasn't able to provide her the care he wanted but was constrained by finances and the need to work the shifts he did to provide for her. Needless to say I felt like a heel.
Long story short (too late), I no longer judge family members by absence, I only note what I see at the bedside. I have seen some real jewels past two years in school ie family members argueing over DNR status, Families demanding their parent in hospice not receive pain medication because they want them lucid and talkative, and Ive seen more drama in postpartum units then in a Jerry Springer show. Like the above posters stated, until you know the full story you just never know.
Big J
Sepmer Fi
You were there for 2 days and have decided that the family "never visit". Perhaps they visit every Sunday. Perhaps they come in the evening when you aren't there.
Maybe they visit every week but he wants them to visit every day.
Maybe the daughters have sick children that take a lot of work and time too.
don't be so quick to judge. How often do you visit your grandpa?
I had an uncle that was like this....on the surface, he was a sweet, churchgoing man...but the secret that he held was that he had 6 children by several different women before his current wife and never paid a dime of child support or contributed in any way to them.
Now that he is in his 80's, he has tried over the years to contact them and none of them want to have anything to do with him and he is alone, lonely and spends many days in tears...but where was his tears all those years?
He actually had a set of twins that was taken away by social services back in the days where if a woman was poor and had limited child care, she could easily lose her children. I found letters kept by my grandmother where the mother wrote, begging him for help, because she was getting ready to lose them. He never lifted a finger to help her.
Sometimes, it really is too little, too late.
it seems a couple of the replies are almost attacking the op. she posted an observation... and yes maybe she dosen't know all the facts about this particular family, however anyone who has ever worked in ltc knows there are family members who come pretty close to abandoning their loved ones in a nursing home. there are also the family members that visit only on the holidays and the family members that only visit to ease their own guilt for not having visited in a couple of months. yes, you can't judge because not all the circumstances are known, but you also can't be blind to the fact that unfortunately some elderly are just plain forgotten about. maybe this old man's kids do visit when they can, or maybe they don't because he was a horrible father, or maybe... just maybe he's one of the forgotten ones. wen i worked in ltc i would 'visit' with as many residents as i could because i didn't know if they were one of the forgotten ones.
you have to look at the entire situation. you don't know how this man treated his family. do you know if the daughters live out of state, etc.? if you don't know the whole story, don't be so quick to judge the family. i mean there are situations out there where some sweet old person's family just totally ignores them, but you don't know if that's the case here.
No need to talk to the OP about being judgmental. I remember feeling this way myself the first week in LTC in nursing school (and I wasn't the only one). We had an awesome clinical instructor who "educated" us during clinical conference - similar to some of the great replies here.
It's almost a developmental part of nursing to go through the "righteous anger phase." Nothing abnormal, just needing further insight.
i'm not necessarily saying that the op is being judgmental. i'm pretty sure that she's just concerned about her patient. however, as nurses you have to remember not only are you the patient's advocate, you're also the advocate for the family and often their only liason to the bureaucracy of healthcare. and clinical scenarios as a nursing student and actual practice are two very different things. i do agree with the whole "righteous anger" phase. unfortunately, you'll often see that the utopia of nclex isn't how the real world of nursing works. unfortunately, op as you work....you'll see this more and more...that's the sad reality.
steelydanfan
784 Posts
This is what you gotta love about students! They want to do the best they can, but make assumptions at the drop of a hat!
And then they come here and tell us we are unfeeling. As if we have not already identified the problem and made all the correct interventions possible. Poster, you will learn eventually to take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt. NO ONE is always right, everybody is a little wrong. Make sure no one is in harms way, refer to social services and case management when appropriate, and discuss your hypothetical care plan with the primary nurse. You may have a new insight to add, and believe me, we would welcome it.