The 1st Time You Cried on the Job

Tweety, BSN, RN · May 6, 2006

As human beings we are going to have times in our life when life happens and we are having our own private grief, pain, etc. (is this what you're talking about?) and then we have to go to work. For me I just have to acknowledge that I'm personally going through something and may not be 100% that day. It actually helps me to get out of my head and take care of others needs. Although I admit to being slightly impatient with some patients and sometimes whant to scream "I'm sorry your meal didn't meat Your Majesty's standards, but I just went to a funeral yesterday, so consider yourself more lucky that my friend and deal with it and shut up."

Sometimes it's enough to show up and put one foot in front of the other and do the best that you can do. "Fake it 'till you make it." I think with time an experience in nursing it gets better. It isn't fair to let my personal pain impact the care I give to patients. I try not to let that happen.

If you're talking about job induced grief and anxiety caused by things patients have to go through, well sometimes a good cry is necessary. We just discharged a patient in his 40s with 5 little kids, one a toddler in his lap. He has just months to live. The tears we flowing as we said goodbye. I can usually hold it together though and step outside my feelings enough to take care of the patient. It gets easier with time.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · May 6, 2006

Sometimes you reach this point where you just have to let it out.

The first time i cried at my nursing job, was when i saw a case posted on the board as "perineal and lady partsl repair". This has happened a few times before on someone who'd just had a baby (usually at home), so i didn't think anything different. However, when i saw the pt. i felt my stomach sink. The girl had just turned 8 and had been raped and sodomized a few hours prior. They brought her up from the ER and although she had been given medicine for pain, anxiety, she was still crying and looked shocked. I remember the circulating nurse holding nand and rocking this girl, singing a lullaby, holding a mask on her for oxygen while the MDA pushed meds (everyone had tears). When she was intubated, and the sheets were unwrapped from her, let's just say you couldn't tell what was what. And that it took 4 hours.

I felt like i was going to vomit. The only thing that kept me straight was thinking that this surgery would be the first step for her that the meds would afford her the rest she needs right now. The bleeding would cease, eventually she would heal physically.

And after that case was over, i asked for a break, and went for a visit to the in house counselor. And every once in awhile, i go back, because that wasn't an isolated incident.

So how do i cope personally? I pray, i remind myself that we're giving our best and that we are doing what we can.

MarySunshine · May 6, 2006

Good topic, OP. And good responses so far. Marie, I'm getting emotional from your description so I can only imagine that it would be impossible to be stoic in the face of that tragedy.

The first time I cried at work was when a little confused patient of mine fell out of bed. I hadn't really done anything wrong and she had seemed very lethargic and not like someone who would crawl over the siderails (which she did). She just got ants in her pants suddenly and tried to make a run for it while I was in another patients room. She was totally fine, but had made such a loud thud that it really scared me. She was my first patient to fall (and only so far...knock on wood). I felt like such an awful nurse and my heart was just racing so I cried.

Between the difficulties of personal life, like Tweety pointed out, and the stress of our job AND the suffering we see it's pretty normal to cry.

nicolentony · May 6, 2006

I came on at 11pm and had a patient who was on a ventilator and braindead. He was 19years old and had hung himself. He was living with an older brother and was attending the local community collge. His brother came home and found him hanging. He called 911, and they got a faint pulse and put him on a vent in our unit. My report was that the family was waiting for an uncle to arrive and then he would be terminally extubated. Orders were already written for morphine and to d/c vent when family requested. An hour the uncle got there and I gave an IVP dose of Morphine and d/c'd the vent. About 10 people were in the room, all crying. I was okay at this point, thinking the usual things, "how awful, what a waste, what a handsome young man...etc." It only took about 5 minutes for him to die, and the visitors left. The mother came out and asked if it was possible if she could get into bed with him and hold him one last time. I shook my head yes and grabbed a fellow nurse and we changed his bed, cleaned him up and moved him to the side in bed. I opened the door and the mother came in crying. She got into bed with him and held him and whispered how much she loved him, etc. It was then that a fellow coworker told me that the mother had just lost another son 2 years before in an MVA. The parents were local chapter leaders of the Greiving Parents (something along those lines.) As she climbed into bed with him I started to cry silently and moved out of the room. I went straight into the employee bathroom and cried for 20 minutes. I came out and the mother came up to me and gave me a hug. She thanked me for my "work and understanding. She appreciated the emotion from me and said her son would have liked me." :crying2:

I still cry when I think of it. It was and still remains the most emotional work day of my life.

As a nurse, we see a lot of sad situations. We have to find comfort in knowing that we are helping somehow. I helped his mother have her last moments with her son whom couldn't be saved by medicine or surgery. For this I am grateful to be a nurse.

jenn_rn_nj · May 6, 2006

I worked in Child Life previously. The first time that I cried in that capacity was when an 8 year old was brought up to the unit from the ER. His brother had been playing with a gun and shot him - he was now a parapalegic but his arms had very little strength (sp?). I don't know if there is a different name for that - he ended up with limited use of his upper body / upper extremities.

The family left and he was lying alone in the room with tears running down the sides of his face into his ears making little pools that were dripping onto the sheet. He wanted to tell me something but he couldn't produce sound and I was having trouble reading his lips. The next thing I knew I was trying to see out of blurry eyes due to my tears.

I will never forget that image. He returned to our facility a few times (he ended up being a foster child - he diminished to a very low weight due to neglect from his birth family) and he had such a good outlook and was coping so well. That first day, though, is forever burned in my memory.

I think crying with or in front of patients helps keep us more humane. I also think it helps us bond with our patients. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily.

Hoosiernurse, ADN, RN · May 6, 2006

Sometimes you reach this point where you just have to let it out.
The first time i cried at my nursing job, was when i saw a case posted on the board as "perineal and lady partsl repair". This has happened a few times before on someone who'd just had a baby (usually at home), so i didn't think anything different. However, when i saw the pt. i felt my stomach sink. The girl had just turned 8 and had been raped and sodomized a few hours prior. They brought her up from the ER and although she had been given medicine for pain, anxiety, she was still crying and looked shocked. I remember the circulating nurse holding nand and rocking this girl, singing a lullaby, holding a mask on her for oxygen while the MDA pushed meds (everyone had tears). When she was intubated, and the sheets were unwrapped from her, let's just say you couldn't tell what was what. And that it took 4 hours.
I felt like i was going to vomit. The only thing that kept me straight was thinking that this surgery would be the first step for her that the meds would afford her the rest she needs right now. The bleeding would cease, eventually she would heal physically.
And after that case was over, i asked for a break, and went for a visit to the in house counselor. And every once in awhile, i go back, because that wasn't an isolated incident.
So how do i cope personally? I pray, i remind myself that we're giving our best and that we are doing what we can.

Oh my God, Marie...I'm crying just reading about it. I have an 8 year old, and I think...oh nevermind, I can't stand to think about it anymore.

Cara

burn out · May 6, 2006

I don't remember the first but I remember the last. I had worked night shift the night before and was taking care of a 5 year old little boy that had been hit by a coal truck after getting off the school bus on the first day of school that week. (Ihad a new kindergarter at home). All he had was a small cut on his forehead but he had been declared brain dead and I thought they were going to do his harvesting during the day shift (His family had agreed to donation) When I got off the elevator to go to work that night there was this eerie silence when I opened the door to the ICU there was his father in a heap in the floor crying ..they had just taken the little boy to OR. I went straight in the dirty utility room and bawled my eyes out..then I put in for a transfer.

TazziRN, RN · May 6, 2006

My first time was my first pedi death. An 11-year-old girl ran out from between two parked cars and was hit by a van. She came in with eggshell fractures of her skull, CPR in progress. With each compression blood came out of her nose and ears. Her parents had been out shopping, so when they got home they found a message that they need to get to the hospital. They came in not knowing what it was about. We put her in an empty treatment room and closed the door. I will never forget the scream that we heard when the doc told her that her daughter was dead. I lost it.

Since then I've cried with each pedi death and some adult ones. I cry, my coworkers and I hug each other, and we talk about it, and we go on.

RN and Mommy · May 6, 2006

[color=deepskyblue]these stories are bringing tears to my eyes! i commend all of you pediatric nurses because i could never work with sick or injured children. i feel that i would leave every day in tears! thank you for all that you do to help our children!

lovemyjob · May 6, 2006

I am bawling as I read these posts. I second the above post. PICU and peds nurses are very special people and I also thank you for caring for all of those children and their families. I have known a few nurses who have left PICU for NICU b/c they couldnt handle some of the horrible things they saw. For those of you who are able to give even jut a little bit of your time to those children, you are very special and will be rewarded for what you have done for them.

hhrhrn41, RN · May 6, 2006

This didn't happen to me but to a friend who works at Children's Hospitol. She cares for all of the abused kids and she told me this story one day and I just couldn't stop crying. She was in the playroom with this little girl one day and she handed her a carton of chocolate milk and the little girl accidently dropped it and milk spilled all over and this poor little child said to my friend" please don't beat me.. I'll clean it up" After my friend cleaned it up she said she had to go in the bathroom and cry. So Sad.