I'm mad and sad(about pt's family)

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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.

Specializes in med-surg, step-down, ICU/CCU, ED.
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.

Thank you VivaRN!! Very well put:)

I have to agree with several here that stated maybe the father did not have a good relationship with his kids. I worked long term care for 5 years and the person we saw on our unit was not always the person they were to their kids.

One lady looked like a doll, smiled and laughed. Even the residents loved her. When I looked at here chart, social work has stated that she" tolerated" her children (all 10 of them) and that only 1 would come to visit.

It is also possible relatives live far away. My Grandmother was in a nursing home, but lived 12 hours away. With three young kids, a full time job and husband out of work for a time, I couldn't get there very often. I suppose someone probably thought I was a bad Granddaughter, but I loved her so much. She had many mini strokes and she was not a nice lady. But before that she was the nicest lady you could ever meet.

Again as others have mentioned, maybe they did visit and he forgot. It does happen quite a lot. Some will state no one has visited because they are mad at being placed in a home.

I think its great the OP felt for this resident. But I'm glad we can give some perspective on the issue. :)

Specializes in Critical Care/Coronary Care Unit,.

there are different perspectives for this situation. i agree with the previous poster that it's great that the op empathized with the patient. as nurses, we should never lose our ability to empathize. however, we also have to try to not make assumptions about a situation. we had a situation in the icu where at first glance one would think that this man's family was awful. no one ever really visited and when they did visit, they seemed cold...not to mention the daughter wanted everything possible done to keep him alive. she didn't want this b/c she cared, but b/c she wanted him to suffer as long as possible. if one learned a little more about the situation, one would have learned that this man gave his wife hiv knowingly and also raped and infected the daughter who hated him so much. and that happened in real life. my point is we never really know 100% about a situation.

Specializes in Orthopaedics, Med/Surg Acute Care.

The old quote of "Walking a mile in their shoes" comes to mind with this situation. Don't judge. Instead enjoy your time with this resident. Get to know your patients from your stand point and let that be enough.

Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.
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!!!!!

Oh YES! My father is the most charming, most personable man you would ever hope to meet. Will do anything for anyone....except his kids.

He has never seen me graduate from any of my schools, has never seen his grandkids (my brothers collectively have 4 kids), and moved a woman that he had JUST met at the hardware store into our house only 2 weeks after my mother passed away. He said he needed someone to cook and clean for him. Our feelings were not considered.

About 8 years ago, I was in the hospital for an illness that kept me there for a month. He neither visited, called or emailed. He knew I was there. I wonder if the nurses that took care of me were mad at him for not checking on his only daughter?

My point is that you never know. He may have been a great father, and produced very selfish kids, or he may have been a horrid father and his kids don't want to visit. Who knows-family dynamics are often very intricate and it can be easy to judge from the outside. Example: a father was on the subway with his two small kids. They were running rampant, getting into everything and annoying everyone on the subway. He didn't seem to care. He was staring off into space and not really watching them. Finally a passenger walked up to him, angry as heck, and told him that his kids were totally out of control and that he needed to do something about it. He looked up at the passenger and replied, "Well, I guess they would be out of control. We are going back home after being at the hospital all night. They just lost their mother." This is sort of what I am trying to get across-easy to see things from the outside, but if we don't really know, we shouldn't judge.

Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.
there are different perspectives for this situation. i agree with the previous poster that it's great that the op empathized with the patient. as nurses, we should never lose our ability to empathize. however, we also have to try to not make assumptions about a situation. we had a situation in the icu where at first glance one would think that this man's family was awful. no one ever really visited and when they did visit, they seemed cold...not to mention the daughter wanted everything possible done to keep him alive. she didn't want this b/c she cared, but b/c she wanted him to suffer as long as possible. if one learned a little more about the situation, one would have learned that this man gave his wife hiv knowingly and also raped and infected the daughter who hated him so much. and that happened in real life. my point is we never really know 100% about a situation.

i really like your thoughts and ideas, but the font you chose is extremely hard to read.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
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.

i had a "knee jerk" reaction to your post -- it made me so angry i had to wait a day to answer it. hopefully i'll be able to address my concerns about your post constructively now, but you've pushed what is obviously one of my "hot buttons." i'm sure you're too inexperienced to have intended it this way, but you sounded very judgemental.

even though the man is able to tell you wonderful stories from his past, his short term memory may be failing. his daughters may visit every night or every sunday or once a month or however often they are able, but he doesn't remember it. even if he does remember it, he may not think it's often enough for him. my mother has been in assisted living for nearly two years. i visit as often as i can, but she lives in the midwest and it costs me approximately $1000 and 36 hours of vacation time every time i visit her. there's a limit to how often i can manage that. it was my mother's choice to remain in the midwest where she was born and spent her entire life rather than move to the west coast to be closer to my sister or the east coast to be closer to me. she made that choice before the onset of her dementia. even though i've run through my savings and run up my credit cards to visit, she doesn't remember that i've ever been there.

and then there's the possibility that the man was a miserable parent and never had time for his daughters when they were young. or he was abusive. or he told his daughters he wanted nothing more to do with them if they married that person/had a child out of wedlock/moved out of town/went to school for something other than his choice/went to school at all or didn't go to school. he may have disowned them because they stopped going to church/started going to a different church or changed faiths completely. he may have (as a friend of mine experienced) used their social security numbers to open multiple credit cards in their names, charged up to the limit and stuck them with the bills. he may have raped or impregnated his daughters or molested their daughters (or sons.) he may be nasty or verbally abusive to his children when they do visit, so they've stopped visiting.

some of us have cut our parents out of our lives for very valid reasons, and it would threaten our healing to let them back in. it's very sad that those abusive parents are sick, old and lonely but sometimes you reap what you sow. unfortunately, some of those chronic abusers are very charming to everyone except their own families.

in short, you don't know the whole story, so you're in no position to judge.

Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.
there are different perspectives for this situation. i agree with the previous poster that it's great that the op empathized with the patient. as nurses, we should never lose our ability to empathize. however, we also have to try to not make assumptions about a situation. we had a situation in the icu where at first glance one would think that this man's family was awful. no one ever really visited and when they did visit, they seemed cold...not to mention the daughter wanted everything possible done to keep him alive. she didn't want this b/c she cared, but b/c she wanted him to suffer as long as possible. if one learned a little more about the situation, one would have learned that this man gave his wife hiv knowingly and also raped and infected the daughter who hated him so much. and that happened in real life. my point is we never really know 100% about a situation.

i have no words.

i have an estranged grandmother and mother and my stepbrother has nothing to do with his drug addict father. his father is terminally ill and my brother refuses to see him. i wouldn't see my mother or grandmother even if they were dying. you reap what you sow.

Specializes in PICU now, Peds and med-surg in the past.

While I completely understand that someone may jump right away to feeling sad for this man, who knows the story. I hope of course that he doesn't have a heartless family. I look at my personal situation dealing with my grandmother. She does have a mild level of dementia that has become more apparent in the last year or so but is still pretty sharp with her memory most days. She is also a flat out mean and nasty person. She is demanding of the staff, feels that she is the only priority in the whole nursing home and is verbally abusive to anyone in ear shot. She wishes pain and infirmity on myself, my mom, the staff caring for her, the person down the hall who just might be having a good day, probably the cook and who knows what else. I continue to visit her about 3 times a week because in my heart it makes me feel better and I'm there to support my mom. My brothers on the other hand have written visits off after months of being told why they are unacceptable as grandchildren for doing things such as marrying a divorcee or telling her that it's not a good idea to call the nurse a b*tch over and over. Can I blame them? Heck no! God bless you LTC nurses, you see all types!

Specializes in LTC, home health, critical care, pulmonary nursing.

As a veteran of LTC, I can tell you there may be more to the story than meets the eye. Maybe his family did just dump him. But maybe the "sweet old man" was a terrible father, or a mean old drunk, or abused them. Maybe he remembers these things and the tears are tears of sorrow.

They may live far away and are unable to visit.

Also, just because a pt seems "completely with it," they may not be. Lots of them put on a really good show, but also believe that it's 1964 and their parents are still alive and coming to pick them up later. His kids may have been there 20 minutes before you and he forgot.

Some families, particularly those of dementia pts, simply can't handle seeing their loved one that way. I hear all the time through tears, "This just isn't my dad."

My mother was very abusive, very mean spirited, and very hateful to me as a child, and most of my adulthood. I will have a hard time coming to visit her when she's in a nursing home. (and she will be. She is NOT living with me.)

All this to say, I have learned to have grace with families. You never know the family dynamics.

And to the poster who mentioned the staff member who said "I didn't think she had kids, kids visit their parents," I would strangle one of my staff who ever said something like that to a visitor. How cruel.

some of us have cut our parents out of our lives for very valid reasons, and it would threaten our healing to let them back in. it's very sad that those abusive parents are sick, old and lonely but sometimes you reap what you sow. unfortunately, some of those chronic abusers are very charming to everyone except their own families.

yes. i totally agree with this. i for one have cut off my biological father for quite a few different reasons. i do not plan to ever see him again.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
yes. i totally agree with this. i for one have cut off my biological father for quite a few different reasons. i do not plan to ever see him again.

many have had to cut one or both parents out of their lives in order to live a healthy life. that's both very difficult and very sad. but then to have someone in a "helping profession" comment on their "lack of concern", "lack of caring", failure to visit or whatever is not only very hurtful, it's very ignorant.

it's like the immigrant respiratory therapist who said to me, years ago after i'd finally left the abusive husband who tried to kill me, "you're nothing without a husband. you ought to be on your knees begging him to take you back." i understand that his culture was different, but damn! i was already in pain and doubting myself; it took me years to get over that comment and i never did forgive that rt.

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