The 1st Time You Cried on the Job

beautifulb · May 6, 2006

I had always wanted to be a pedi nurse since I was a young girl. I finally got my wish and I had just started orientation at a children's rehab. It was really hard because the children that were there were victims of MVAs, one was an attempted suicide where he was actually dead for 20 mins. What finally did it for me was taking care of this 13 y/o boy who had got hit riding his bike by a 18 wheeler while visiting his grandparents out of state. I was just standing there looking at him in his comatose state and noticed his still trendy spiked haircut wearing diapers. I just couldn't take it anymore and ended up putting my notice in.

leslie :-D · May 6, 2006

i had a hospice pt who was a 5yo little boy.

this little boy had a twin brother.

the day my pt died, his brother tried to wake him up.

when he wouldn't wake up, his brother's screams became desperate, begging him to "wake up". mom and dad tried to pull him away.

i gently held him, while trying to lift him.

then i told him to give his brother a great big hug.

he laid on top of his brother, holding him, crying, still begging him to wake up.

i've had sev'l pedi pts.

and ea time i cry.

my pt and his twin still feel as if it were yesterday.

Eilana · May 7, 2006

Thank you all for sharing your stories. After my crying episode, I felt so silly for breaking down in the first place for no apparent reason! Upon retrospect, it felt good to just cry (you know what I mean). Then I just started to write down my feelings and thoughts. Little of bit of music helps too and then I just slept ....

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. ....
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.

I mean both - the grief from our personal life and that from our patients. I mean how you can you tell an 18-year old that she can't go to prom because she is dying of cancer? Then how can you cope with the loss? Or, if you have just recently lost your father and then having to be supportive of your patients. I'm interested in knowing how you cope with our own sadness while still providing therapeutic care.

Cpt. · May 7, 2006

Thank you for your story. I am a new nurse of a few months and my confused patient did the same thing to me last night. He was fine. This is the first time I had to deal with that kind of situation. I asked my charge nurse what procedures were and she told me it wrong. Now I just got a phone call at home from an angry nurse and family members with questions. I am so overwhelmed and miserable at work. Now matter how hard I bust my butt it seems like it is never good enough. At one time I thought I was born for nursing and now the thought of going into work makes me cry and want to puke. Hearing your story helped. Thank you.

ladytraviler · May 7, 2006

Wasn't the first but one of many. Had a couple, tried to have a baby for 8 years. She was in labor and coping well. Family in room. Started having decels, recovered nicely so no big worry just kept eye on her closely. Started having variables with prolonged recovery, then they lost the shoulders. Dr in room and stat c/s called. Before could get baby out, lost the heart beat. tried res for 1 hour and dr called. Bathed that beutiful baby girl then took her to meet her family. held the dad while he cried, cried with him to be honest. then had to listen to the mom wail her grief. the infant had strangled on her cord.

I cry each time i get a demise. I have learned a few tricks to make them presentable so mom doesnt see the peeling skin. they smell like babies when i finish so that is what mom sees and smells. And I cry with the family. I could not do the job if i did not have tears for them. I am usually asked to handle the infant cause my coworkers know that i do it with respect and honor.

Dont lose that ability to cry.

Kelly

tattooednursie, LVN · May 7, 2006

It was only my second day on the floor as an aide. One of my partners was giving a bath so I decided to be nice and strip the bed (as you are supposed to do on bathy days) The thanks I got was, "Don't touch my rooms! You don't know anything, that bed was stripped yesterday." So I was nice (once again and made the stupid bed, but I forgot the plastic draw sheet, and this time I had 2 other aides in my face screaming at me. . . .so I went into an empty patient room and bawled my eyes out.

At my new job . . . The first time was today! Of course my 4 year anniversery in this field . . .You'll see my post about THAT floating around. I have also broken down @ nursing school . . .

Its okay to break down, it shows your only human.

firstaiddave907 · May 7, 2006

I am just crying reading all of these i commend all of you pediatric nurses . :bluecry1:

loquacity · May 7, 2006

A bit dif theme...

i just finished 1st year nursing student

I dont "do" crying...its not my thing

unless you count onion cutting i just don't do it...

although onion reallyu get me going...

But i had been in my first clinical about only about a month or two,

i had dealt with death already, and later on one of my 3 patietns would die....

but....my dog...who i'm compeltely obsessed with and more after this incdient started to become incontinent (she's 15, but hadn't been b4)

anyways...just after clinical shift...my mom picked me up, already ahd the dog in the car and we went ot the vet.

The Vte found a golf ball sized tumor in her bladder...theres nothin we can do for her

She told us "you'll be the luckist family...if she lives 6 months

I bawled.....in the office....in the lobby..in the car...then i stopped a little then in the shower....then i stopped...then in bed...then the next day even a little.

I havn't cryed like that since i was a kid.

I would have cried plenty im sure even if i wasn't in nursing...but all the stuff i'd seen all the pain all the suffering all the death...it made me cry like i nevber have had

and one thing my aunt says (who's an RN), my mom told me that day is

The day i stop crying , is the day i stop nursing

I will always remember that saying...

all your stories are hard to read...but so important to tell...

Thanks 4 them still though

~Loquacity

chaosRN, ASN, RN · May 7, 2006

I am just crying reading all of these i commend all of you pediatric nurses .

Me too! :bluecry1:

The first and only time I've cried at work was the first time I really got attached to a family. We had this man on our floor for about 3 months s/p severe MI and had a CABG. Was never off the vent. When he passed, I went into the breakroom and cried with another nurse who was crying too. I was more sad for the family, wife, daughter, son and grandson than anything. I don't know why this family and situation affected me more than others.

Hoozdo, ADN · May 7, 2006

Or, if you have just recently lost your father and then having to be supportive of your patients. I'm interested in knowing how you cope with our own sadness while still providing therapeutic care.

I was actually in this situation just last week. I lost my mother unexpectedly with a massive stroke and had her extubated. She died within 10 minutes and all immediate family was in the room. I took a week off.

I work in the ICU and when I went back one of my patients was pretty bad off..ventilated, max dose of levophed to keep BP up. He had a loving family that decided to extubate him and let him die. The experience with my mother was actually helpful to me in being therapeutic with this family. I understood completely their grief and emotions. I did cry with them.

I don't think crying is a bad thing as a nurse. It shows compassion. It shows you care.

ShayRN · May 7, 2006

The day i stop crying , is the day i stop nursing
~Loquacity

I say that all the time! Every time I have a patient die, I cry. I am still human and I truely love my patients. It isn't like I am sobbing as hard as the family, but heck yeah, I hurt too! Their loved ones have touched my life in a very real way, why shouldn't I mourn with them.

I couldn't do peds! The story about the child thinking she was going to be beat for spilling milk hurts as bad as the child who was raped. I would never be able to forget the images.

Jo Dirt · May 7, 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...that is almost too unbearable to even fathom.

What I wouldn't do to the ^%$*&^%# who would hurt a child like that.