Irritating spouses/family that don't understand?

allnurses Guide · Dec 10, 2015

Yes, I have a husband that...in spite of the fact he tells everyone and anyone that if he gets sick, he wants to have his wife take care of him because he knows what a good nurse she is....does not take my advice, or humors me by saying he will do what I suggest "in a minute". And, of course, that minute never arrives.
He doesn't believe icing will help, or warm packs, or using our TENS unit. Those solutions, I guess, seem to him to be too simple to actually contribute to feeling better, and it doesn't heal anything to do those things. And they take time and patience, which he has little of when it comes to the point of needing to LISTEN, and DO what he should do. Blocks out my explanation about treating symptoms before they get too far out of hand.
Essentially he follows his own ideas, which is mostly NOT doing anything and 'bulling' his way through events like he did when he was young, because that should still work for him, even though he is now 65. The 'bulling through' he did in his youth is responsible for a lot of the things he is having to deal with now because he didn't deal with it then.
He believes that the required follow-up appointments are just a way to get more of your money, and anybody medical is generally just a crook in a white jacket.
His mother went to a new-age charlatan chiropractor who convinced her (and it didn't take much convincing) that she was 'allergic' to so many things, and she was filled with years of built up TOXINS, the treatment for which all seemed to require many dietary restrictions and boy did he ever prescribe many, MANY supplements, which he conveniently sold from his office...
All that happened 10-12 years ago and she is still talking about allergies, toxins, and reactions, etc. until everybody around her wishes she would either just shut up, or actually have a REAL allergic reaction so she would know the difference between them and what SHE refers to as her 'reactions'.
So, that one bad apple means that they ALL are 'that way'. He says empty things like, "If I ever find out that they are taking advantage of you...", which is patently absurd because 1.) I am not his mom, and 2.) I know how to say 'no', and 3.) I'm stubborn person and yeah, a retired nurse.
I might understand and appreciate his 'help' if I was a young and insecure bubbleheaded dope who needed a Knight In Shining Armor to save me from the medical villains. I have enough grit and substance to me that I have few troubles with being hoo-doo'd anymore. I have been known to engage my docs in debate or argument , and require clarification before I agree to something about which I felt dubious.
But with hubby's long-held prejudices and beliefs, and the way they are deeply entrenched, I no longer try to 'defend' my docs or our decisions (many of which are dictated to them by governing agencies, insurances, etc) about my health care and concerns.
The only way he knows how to 're-visit' the subject is repeating the same old stories about his mom and her so-called allergies and the devious doc who ruined his daddy's retirement and 'stole' his money. But I was present through it all from the very beginning, so why he feels the need to 'explain' it to me, I just don't understand.
If I thought it would be understood, I would do my best imitation of Ronny Ray-gun's famous declaration: "Mr. Gorbachov, Take. Down. This. Wall!"

You MIL and Husband sound an awful lot like mine who has Asperger's and is considered to be on the Very High functioning end of the Autism scale. Only we have these discussions about medical care and space flight operations :)

NurseSpeedy, ADN, LPN, RN · Dec 10, 2015

I'm sure they can say "nurse on site" because the manager is an LPN, but she's only there 8-10 hours a day.

I remember the sales team giving a tour of the facility. This is (my name), she's one of our nurses. One of the great things we offer is there's always a nurse available 24/7"...yeah, half the time it was by phone, with the LPN DON who lived over an hour away (if they answered the phone).

Ours weren't allowed to touch anything besides pills, eye drops, and inhalers. anything else required a nurse and hopefully they were there to give it when it was necessary. Nursing school was hectic for our instructors in the lab when we were first learning how to play with needles on an orange. The idea of an unlicensed person drawing up and administering insulin (or worse yet, interpreting a sliding scale) scares the crap out of me.

My CNA course was about the same as yours and we didn't touch meds either. Even in nursing school, our instructor was with us from pulling to administering the med pass supervised.

Farawyn · Dec 10, 2015

My father had angina and needed to go to the ER. He and Mom lived on a farm, 9 miles from the nearest town. He called me (two time zones to the west) at midnight.
"I'm having chest pain. What do I do?"
We had discussed this many, many times. "Are you nauseated or short of breath? Does the pain radiate? What does it feel like -- sharp or dull?" We established that he had dull, left sided chest pressure radiating to his left arm and jaw. He was also nauseated, short of breath and felt as though his heart was skipping beats. "Call 9-1-1," I tell him, knowing that the neighbor who are volunteer fire fighters will get the shout and get there a few minutes before the ambulance can get there from nine miles away.
"No," he says. "Your mother will drive me. She knows CPR." And he hangs up before we can discuss the logistics of Mom doing CPR while driving.
I'm wide awake now. Fifteen minutes later, Mom calls me. "He's in the ER, they took him right back. Is that good?"
No, Mom. That's a very bad sign. But of course, I can't tell her that. It's midnight, my husband (who has to work at 6AM) is sleeping and my suitcase is in the closet. I start packing it with off-season clothes from the spare closet so I don't wake him.
At 1:05am, I get a phone call from Dad. "My heart keeps skipping beats, and they want to do an EKG. What should I do?"
"Let them do the EKG, Dad."
At 1:30, he calls back. "I've got one big, fat beat and a couple of little skinny beats and then one big, fat beat . . . They want to give me a medication, what should I do?"
"Do what they say, Dad. And let me talk to the doctor."
I talk to the doctor. Dad's having unstable angina, trigeminy and his oxygen saturations are low. We discuss the plan, and I agree with it. I'm a CCU nurse, I know a little about unstable angina and ventricular arrhythmias.
I get Dad back on the phone, tell him I agree with the plan and he should do what the doctor says.
"Oh, no," he says. "I've got to see what your sister says before I do anything."
My sister is a Gucci nurse who hasn't been near a patient since 1982. You need a plan for nursing management, for eliminating RNs in favor of unlicensed personnel, she's all over it.
Why even call me and keep me up all night if you're not going to follow my advice?

Because you are The Daughter and The Nurse.

ErinRN2012 · Jul 11, 2016

I am an ortho/neuro nurse. I have dealt with more back surgery patients than I care to remember. My father-in-law had back surgery in January. Of course he was noncompliant with his care after discharge, and had to have a 2nd surgery. The entire time all this is going on he, or his wife, will not listen to anything I have to say on the subject. Their go to person for advice and information is my sister-in-law. She's a pharmacy tech at Wal-Mart :banghead:

AutumnApple · Jul 11, 2016

I understand that those who don't have medical experience dont understand some things. You don't know what you dont know....I get that. But sometimes I get so irritated by the converstions i have with my husband. He was seen in our clinic and was prescribed antibiotics. He reads his bottle and takes his pills and goes on and on about how his dose is "500 mg" and that's alot and he must have a really bad case and yada yada. I simply say "thats a pretty standard dose". And he's like "but its 500mg"! I try to explain by saying "you took 1000mg of tylenol the other day and it didn't touch your headache, but if you took 10mg of morphine you'd be flat on your @ss. " I get blank stares most of the time.....

:roflmao:

I don't know why, but that made me laugh.

Probably because it's the same blank stare I got when I explained to my dad that you can't organize your meds by the prescribing doctor. "Dr. Smith always does daily so it goes in this pile, Dr. Anderson always does twice a day so in another pile.............." Ugh.

Or maybe it was the same blank stare I got from a neighbor years ago who had a terrible case of poison Ivy when I told her she had to be seen and would perhaps get a shot (of steroids, that part not verbalized). Her stare didn't last as long though, and she did respond eventually. "But it's not flu season." :down:

No, it was definitely recalling the blank stare I once got from my uncle when I explained to him that Buffalo Wings were not part of a low sodium diet. His explanation: "I had them cooked well done, most of the salt gets cooked out."

cemisciagna1 · Jul 11, 2016

Sinus...

Nightshade1972 · Nov 12, 2017

True story: In-laws were Texas snow birds during the brutal Indiana winters back in the days before EMRs and home computers. FIL was prescribed Lasix by his Indiana cardiologist post-MI (along with a butt ton of other stuff). Makes annual trek to Texas. Comes home the following Spring looking like crap. "Too weak to do anything". Turns out the TX cardiologist prescribed him furosemide- which he faithfully took in addition to his Lasix.
"Keith", says I "You're being double dosed with Lasix- no wonder you feel terrible!"
"No I'm not- one is Lasix and the other is furosemide. They're different drugs!"
"Didn't you tell the Texas doctor what meds you were on?"
"No, I wanted to see if the meds he gave me were any better than what the Indiana doctor gave me."
Stubborn. Old. Man. Gack!
Then there was the revolting issue of her six year old pessary. I will spare you the details in the interest of good taste and on account of it's lunch time somewhere in the world right now.

My MIL was overmedicated for many years, because neither she nor my FIL understood that (for example) Warfarin and coumadin are the same drug--and that wasn't the only drug that happened with. When she finally had a medical emergency and the hospital closest to them was full, the ambulance took her to the hospital closest to us. The hospital near us took a good, hard, look at *all* of her records (more than the hospital closest to them ever bothered to do) and were horrified. They immediately eliminated half her drugs (duplication) and severely cut the dosage on all the rest. When she was released from the hospital, with discharge instructions including the new drug regimen and their dosages, she looked my husband in the eye and honestly asked him, "Should I really keep taking these drugs, or should I go back to all the drugs I was on before? I don't want (my cardiologist) to be mad at me!" My husband and I hastened to reassure her it was more important for her to be healthy, and less important whether or not her cardiologist was "mad" at her.