Personal advice needed!

When you are working, you will start seeing things from another perspective and this will likely help you keep emotionally balanced. Also, as time passes, your emotions will likely become less raw. --Your personal experience and knowledge will likely help you provide some excellent and very caring service to your patients.

I am sorry for your loss. But, I do know from experience you will be a better nurse as a result. You will probably have a soft spot in your heart for people who remind you of you dad. I know anytime someone reminds me of someone I love, I can't help but think of their feelings. It makes you a better nurse.

I think that what will happen is that you will see that patient as someone who has a story that matters, and that you will do everything possible to give him the kind of care that you would want your father, or any loved one to get.

Your emotions will get the best of you at first, but you will learn how to use them in a way that is helpful to the patient and that will make you a wonderful nurse.

You have a long way to go until you get there, and you will learn many things, and you will change as a person, and be better and wiser than you imagined possible. It takes time, and time is your friend. Just have patience, be open to change, be willing to challenge and test everything that you believe about yourself, and you will get there.

I think you will be a good nurse.

Best of luck!

When you are working, you will start seeing things from another perspective and this will likely help you keep emotionally balanced. Also, as time passes, your emotions will likely become less raw. --Your personal experience and knowledge will likely help you provide some excellent and very caring service to your patients.

Thank you as the tears roll down my face. I really appreciate that advice. My fear lessoned a bit already.

I think that what will happen is that you will see that patient as someone who has a story that matters, and that you will do everything possible to give him the kind of care that you would want your father, or any loved one to get.

Your emotions will get the best of you at first, but you will learn how to use them in a way that is helpful to the patient and that will make you a wonderful nurse.

You have a long way to go until you get there, and you will learn many things, and you will change as a person, and be better and wiser than you imagined possible. It takes time, and time is your friend. Just have patience, be open to change, be willing to challenge and test everything that you believe about yourself, and you will get there.

I think you will be a good nurse.

Best of luck!

Thank you all, the tears continue to roll but Im feeling better already!

Your wisdom & experience in caring for ur dad will be a blessing for others. You are stronger than u think. The fact that you are ABSOLUTELY determined to do nursing is a giveaway! You will have $h**ty days, want to cry in the pan room, & will probly cry in front of patients. Hey you're only human. Things you can do to help u with this is start a journal of your experiences. It helps sort out ur emotions & gets your brain around it. You can also do things that relax you - I like pilates/yoga, reading, cooking, etc. Incorporate those things into ur lifestyle or you WILL crack up, believe me; you need to take time for urself.

You must take the viewpoint that every pt u come into conctact with will not survive. That is a fact of life in nursing, but that doesn't mean to say you can't give them a good death, by caring for them in a professional manner, ie: ensuring pain under control, family are with them, they are comfy.

We can't save people sometimes, but we can give them a 'good' send off!

Totally agree with all of the above support and advice. I always tell myself that God lets bad stuff happen to me because it makes me a better nurse. I've had a lot of health setbacks, and it informs my practice. You sound like you will be a fantastic nurse. Hang in there!

Thank you! Thats great advice - I never thought about incorporating "Me time" into my journey. You have all been great and helpful. I was a little afraid to see the responses I would get but now I'm so glad I opened up.:heartbeat

I'm the last person who'd ever tell another that nursing isn't the field for them. I remember being told that several times early on - one of them was a nursing instructor on my admission board before I was ever even formally enrolled and she'd not known anything more than my name (and that was on a paper in front of her).

You have lots of life experience you will bring to your practice - among them how to deal with the end of life and all the baggage that comes with it. I agree with the other poster who said you must learn that a patients survival is out of your hands. We will all die, there is no escaping it.

But you are uniquely positioned to understand what the patient and his loved ones are going through when it happens. There is nothing wrong with being empathetic, it may hurt a lot the first time you identify - but try to distance yourself to a place where you can feel, but still function in your capacity as the professional.

Baby steps. Your empathy makes you human, you need to learn to distance yourself, but don't ever get so jaded you lose it. I think you'll do just fine. Best of luck in nursing school!

I'm the last person who'd ever tell another that nursing isn't the field for them. I remember being told that several times early on - one of them was a nursing instructor on my admission board before I was ever even formally enrolled and she'd not known anything more than my name (and that was on a paper in front of her).

You have lots of life experience you will bring to your practice - among them how to deal with the end of life and all the baggage that comes with it. I agree with the other poster who said you must learn that a patients survival is out of your hands. We will all die, there is no escaping it.

But you are uniquely positioned to understand what the patient and his loved ones are going through when it happens. There is nothing wrong with being empathetic, it may hurt a lot the first time you identify - but try to distance yourself to a place where you can feel, but still function in your capacity as the professional.

Baby steps. Your empathy makes you human, you need to learn to distance yourself, but don't ever get so jaded you lose it. I think you'll do just fine. Best of luck in nursing school!

There is nothing wrong with being empathetic, it may hurt a lot the first time you identify - but try to distance yourself to a place where you can feel, but still function in your capacity as the professional. Thank you! Words of wisdom right there that I will always carry with me!:)

if you think this will be an issue, have a plan b (the one besides an) for support. the thing you want to watch out for, obviously, is being less able to give competent care for someone who reminds you of your father.

but the other thing to worry about is your personal and professional boundaries- it is so tempting for newer nurses especially to want to "share," to demonstrate their empathy with a particular patient or family situation by describing how this happened to them, too. this is wrong on several levels, but it's very seductive when your faculty tells you about therapeutic communication and communicating empathy. in real patient care, though, imho, it can never be about you, even for a minute. so you will need to have a solid place to be coming from before you are in this position.

if you haven't had some grief counseling, think about it. even one or two visits with a hospice social worker or spiritual adviser who's in charge of the grief counseling can be very enlightening, even if your family member was not in hospice care, even if you have no other relationship with hospice. they are a community resource.

good luck, and let us know how it's coming.

My dad died in a nursing home, having been there for a month for a pressure sore, and with dementia. I remember how he looked that last day. I had been a nurse for a few years at that point but within a few weeks of his death, at work, an older man with dementia who reminded me very much of my father died with me in attendance. I completely broke down.

Every so often, someone, some patient, will touch your soul and break your heart all over again. But that's okay. It speaks to your being human, and caring.