Stubborn pt with an (apparent) death wish.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

Mid 40's. 12 hours away from home. Had quite the MI with a troponin of over 100.0

Got 2 stents. In ccu. decides to go smoke. Later tells me he walked from teh hospital down to his car and back to get his cigarettes. Says he won't be able to be off of work for 6 weeks, doubt he'll refrain from sexual activity for 2 weeks, and after smoking today, walked 8 flights of stairs back to our floor, instead of using hte elevator, just to see if he could!

His family was flying in from out of town to pick him up and drive him 12 hours back home, since he's not supposed to drive for 2 weeks.

He calls out, says his family is downstairs waiting. I thought our hospital transport was taking too long, so i decided to wheel him down myself.

He then tells me he wishes i wouldnt have done that, b/c i'd been so nice, he hated lying to me, so he told the truth. his wife was at the airport-he would be driving from the hospital to the airport (7 miles) to get her.

Heck, for all i know, there was no wife and he was planning on driving 12 hours home himself.

As he was leaving, he said to me "really, thank you for taking care of me today, i mean it" i said "really,take care of yourself, i mean it". there was much discussion about lifestyle modification,b ut you can just tell they aren't really truly listening.

makes you think, why bother coming and getting these stents if you aren't going to follow the prescribed aftercare?

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

Frustrating stuff. Sounds like you did the best you could with what you had to work with. It will drive you crazy sometimes if you think about all the what-ifs.

[TazziRN, RN]

I have been known to look pts like that square in the eye and ask them, "If you have no intention of doing what you need to do, why did you bother coming here for help?" It's so frustrating when you do everything you can to save someone's life, only to have them do things like this.

So what happened, did he drive himself away?

[Judee Smudee, ADN, RN]

Strange isn't it. We are permitted to tackle someone trying to jump off a bridge but we are not permitted to pull the cigarette out of a patients mouth. To me the two things are the same thing, SUICIDE, one slow and the other quick.

[JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP]

Is it a death wish or is he deep in denial?

[bollweevil]

I have been known to look pts like that square in the eye and ask them, "If you have no intention of doing what you need to do, why did you bother coming here for help?" It's so frustrating when you do everything you can to save someone's life, only to have them do things like this.

So what happened, did he drive himself away?

They come because they are scared and don't really want to die at that moment, I guess.