Onewinglet

I am looking to anyone who can help answer the one question that has been nagging at me since I made the decision to change careers and pursue nursing... before I can ask, I need to relate a bit of information: I moved to Kentucky as my father began to get ill in Toledo. My trips back every few weekends saw him slowly deteriorating from cirrhosis of the liver. My sisters and mother bore the brunt of his battle. I had just relocated, started a new full time job and was attending 3 classes at the University of Louisville. I only had the weekends - and a 5 hour drive each way. I lost my father-in-law in October. I lost my dad exactly 4 weeks later. He was 70. I went to see him in the hospital - one week after joking with him and making him laugh. He was in so much pain, moaning, crying and was trying to communicate but could really only mouth words and shake his head no. He looked wildly scared out of his mind and unsure who everyone was. This was my first experience with the process of dying and I will never forget it. I was in Kentucky when my father-in-law passed away and telephone conversations with my husband could not relay what he was going through until I experienced it first hand. The day they were to transfer him from the hospital to a Hospice facility I witnessed the most uncaring, unprofessional nursing care. While the two nurses (one male, one female) slowly and painfully ripped the large adhesive patch off my father's skin while raising his arm at an odd and high angle, they discussed lunch plans and work schedules as my father cried out and flinched and pleaded. They had absolutely no regard for him as a person and I was so offended by that. Hospice was the total opposite of the spectrum. The love and care he received there was incredible. I am so glad they were there for him at the end. Those nurses inspired me to make the decision I had wanted to make for so long - I am 42 years old and I have changed my major to nursing. I know I can be a better than the those who were cruel when my father need them most and I can only hope to be 1/2 as good as the Hospice nurses. As I said, I have never been with anyone who was in the last moments of life. He had seizures - his gasping for breath at the end - seeing his heart beat and finally stop - his eyes half open and glazed over - his severe weight loss made him almost unrecognizable. He looked so contorted and awkward and not restfull or at peace. That is what I remember and I flash to it often. Very often. My question is: Is it possible to work through a personal memory that brings such sadness like that and not flash to it when you are working with a patient in a similar circumstance? I am so excited at the prospect of becoming a nurse but am so afraid that experience will haunt me and impair when I am needed most. I just need reassurance from anyone who may have had a similar experience. How did you get through it? Micki