Hi, my name is AngelfireRN, I'll be your nurse tonight.
I am not a waitress, nor am I your slave.
Yelling and hurling obscenities at me will not get you your pain meds any sooner than they are ordered. Nor will having your family member or entourage do the same.
Threatening lawsuits and having umpteen family members camp out in the halls or hold up the nurse's station will not get you preferential treatment.
Physically grabbing me as I go down the hall is NOT a good idea.
I do not give the orders, but I do have to follow/enforce them. This is something that you should take up with your doctor.
No, I will not call him again to ask him for more pain medicine. He has been called twice and has said no both times.
No, I will not give you his number so you can "straighten him out".
No, you are not my only patient, and I highly doubt that you are single-handedly paying my salary. On the off chance that you are, let's talk about a raise.
NO, NO, NO, I most empahatically will NOT come get you when it is time for your next pain shot while you are having a smoke break. I also will not bring it to you in the smoking room. (Have actually said that, I am allergic to cigarettes. I did it once, had an asthma attack, desatted to 83, and turned blue, according to the patient and my charge nurse, after the patient had to help me back to the floor).
No, I don't really care if your family has not eaten all day, they drove here by themselves, they are not sick, and no, I will not call for 6 guest trays. (This of course, is if the patient in question does not need all 6 family members present, and is not at death's door).
No, you may not have 3 six-packs of soda from the kitchen, there are other people that would like a snack, too.
No, they will not open up the kitchen up just for you, at 1 in the morning, because you don't like the snacks we have on the floor.
I could think of hundreds, but those will do for a start. I know it sounds mean, but this is why I got out of bedside nursing. When a hospital becomes the Hilton, I'm gone!
Wow, is this the things you say under your breath when you walk out of a patients room? Well is just like to say if it was your child or family member you would not be saying those nasty things, well maybe you would. I hope you are not at any of the hospitals i would take my family to. What happened to compassion? If you loose that being a nurse then maybe ive choosen the wrong field.
Actually if this was my family member, I would not hold back. I would say it to their faces.
Specializes in alzeheimers, skilled, assis. living.
My personal opinion on this thread is that you people would rather attack people on the thread than your patients. This is not good, everyone has their own opinion and thats ok. I say, Deal with it.
I have this pt with GillianBarre' (probably just spelled that wrong but im too lazy to google, lol)
he is the most horrid pt!! one minute he's telling you what a good christian he is, the next he is telling you how bad the care is and complaining about every single thing.
when you go in his room you get stuck in there for FOREVER! because he makes you lissn to all these stories before he tells you what the real issue is.
sunday he demanded to see "the RN". he got mad at the nurse that had him because he said that she put his meds in icecream and "shoved" them all in his mouth at the same time. it was like a lasix, potassium and an aspirin. he was telling me how HUGE the pills were. she also took a cup of arginaid in with her. he upset her so bad by telling her how awful she was and how shed tried to kill him that she just sat down the drink and left.
so when i went in his room i got stuck in there for one hour and 35minits! he kept trying to tell me what a good christian he is and telling me stories of examples that prove what a good man he is and how he doesnt lie and how he is the most perfect patient we could ever have.
i wanted to say "yeah right, and monkeys fly outta my butt on tuesdays!"
so then he starts saying "call the nurses on the 4th floor at the hospital. they will tell you what a good man and patient i am"
i wanted to say "riggggggght, the only thing they would do is crack up laffing because now *i* have you and they dont have to put up with your butt!"
eventually he got around to the "new" physical complaints he is experiencing. he says he is now getting headaches when he talks.
yep...inside my head the angel on my left shoulder was saying "dont say it wendy! dont go there! you'll get fired!"
the devil on my right shoulder was screaming "say it, say it!"
i wanted to say "well, if you'd shut the **** up your head wouldnt hurt!"
but i didnt, arent yall prout?
This is the type of patient we all need to set limits with. I will politely as possible, interrupt the pt. and say...I need to check on my other patients. I can come back later and listen to you, or you can tell me know what the problem is now and we can try to improve it. Then give pt. time for response and then GO! Yes, it is difficult, but this type pt. is manipulative and exhausting and you aren't helping him/her by enabling.
You can exit by saying something like "I will give you a few minutes to get your thoughts together on what the main problem is...I'll be back in about 10 min. and you can tell me what is bothering you now." Then I leave the room, go to the med room for a primal scream moment, kick a few cans, and then go on with my work, lol!! It's a mini-vent at work!
Yes, this is a vent and I feel your pain! I have a family member like the above. Glad you held it in. Hugs!
Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.
toocaring------please do not take this thread at face value...we work day in and day out with no one to vent to...I can't talk to family, can't talk to friends not in the medical field, so here we come to explode, vent, laugh, cry...all of it we need to continue to be caring and compassionate. We see a lot of horrendous things that others not in this field do not...we have to "cut loose" once in a while for our own sanity....If this offends you, then please do not read the thread...
My personal opinion on this thread is that you people would rather attack people on the thread than your patients. This is not good, everyone has their own opinion and thats ok. I say, Deal with it.
You're NOT a nurse and have no understanding whatsoever what we endure. You seem determined to kill or, at least, ruin a perfectly great vent. If you can't play nicely, take your ball and go home. We don't need mood killers here. Why not start your own thread and leave ours alone. You are precariously close to becoming a troll.:angryfire
I seroiusly hope you don't want us to trach and peg your mom and then withdraw care in a few weeks. Seriously you need to do it soon or don't do it at all! ( I did want to say this to a family member last week.)
I was much nicer and told him instead that "You either need to decide to withdraw care soon , or decide to continue full care and proceed with trach and peg. We can't wait 2 weeks for you to make a decision."
There is a technician to whom we would all love to say that, but we dare not because when people have, they lived to regret it. For reasons I won't go into here, she is exempt from disciplinary action.
:angryfire
She's so bad today, if I wasn't scheduled to go to another building in an hour or so, I would have gone home "sick".
Turns out I was not the only person who was thinking this.
That is really sad that you have a tech that makes so many people feel that way. Why wont management do anything? There are always some people that get away with anything.
I seroiusly hope you don't want us to trach and peg your mom and then withdraw care in a few weeks. Seriously you need to do it soon or don't do it at all! ( I did want to say this to a family member last week.)
I was much nicer and told him instead that "You either need to decide to withdraw care soon , or decide to continue full care and proceed with trach and peg. We can't wait 2 weeks for you to make a decision."
Had a pt not too long ago that I felt the same way about. She was young, considering, and still had the extensions in her hair. She had a massive brainstem stroke and was permanently brain damaged. The family wanted to keep her alive using a vent via ETT , NOT a trach (because she was going to wake up at any moment and start talking and be normal and "healed") They wanted to keep her in the LTAC ICU.. FORRR EVERRR, or until she was "healed". Like I said, was going to happen at any minute.
I wanted to tell the husband and daughter "Please, understand me when I say, the chances of her coming out of this are very very very slim, the doctor told you himself that he's never, in his 20 yr career, seen anyone come out of a stroke like this, , , that should be enough for you to understand that she will not live a normal life ever again. She will be drooling like this forever. She is not making ANY purposeful movements and she has no corneal reflexes. Please don't let her live like a vegitable for years and years, , it will be more painful than you can imagine"
It is so gut wrenching to see families like this, the ones that just know if they pray hard enough, their family member will miraculously wake up and be okay again. And when it doesn't happen they are even more heart broken. ANd I really hate it when the doctors give them false hope.
Had a pt not too long ago that I felt the same way about. She was young, considering, and still had the extensions in her hair. She had a massive brainstem stroke and was permanently brain damaged. The family wanted to keep her alive using a vent via ETT , NOT a trach (because she was going to wake up at any moment and start talking and be normal and "healed") They wanted to keep her in the LTAC ICU.. FORRR EVERRR, or until she was "healed". Like I said, was going to happen at any minute.
I wanted to tell the husband and daughter "Please, understand me when I say, the chances of her coming out of this are very very very slim, the doctor told you himself that he's never, in his 20 yr career, seen anyone come out of a stroke like this, , , that should be enough for you to understand that she will not live a normal life ever again. She will be drooling like this forever. She is not making ANY purposeful movements and she has no corneal reflexes. Please don't let her live like a vegitable for years and years, , it will be more painful than you can imagine"
It is so gut wrenching to see families like this, the ones that just know if they pray hard enough, their family member will miraculously wake up and be okay again. And when it doesn't happen they are even more heart broken. ANd I really hate it when the doctors give them false hope.
Amen to that. I feel the same way. I kept telling this family of a stroke pt who had a bone flap removed for cereberal edema that she will NEVER get better. The son that had seen her for the first time (since he just got out of jail that day), she wouldn't want me to pull the plug. He asked me if I thought she was suffering and I told him she will die eventually, of the stroke or something else the longer we keep her on the vent and keep her alive. It could be sepsis from bedsores or pneumonia. I HATE when the docs give false hope. I am waiting to hear what happened when I go back tomorrow. The left side of her brain was totally shot. She had a left ACA and MCA stroke.
My personal opinion on this thread is that you people would rather attack people on the thread than your patients. This is not good, everyone has their own opinion and thats ok. I say, Deal with it.
Well, I'm not that interested in attacking my patients, which I think most of us consider to be a good thing.If venting here helps me to that end, all to the good.
chicookie, BSN, RN
985 Posts
Actually if this was my family member, I would not hold back. I would say it to their faces.
Being sick is no excuse for being a big baby.