What is the worst hardship/story you have ever seen/heard in your nursing career?

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As nurses, we get to know our patients intimately. So I'm asking this question: what was the worst hardship you have ever heard about that your patient has gone through? Abuse? Torment? Homelessness? AIDS? Trauma? Personal illness? Children with no parents?

Anything. I would love to hear your stories.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

Such sadness we have to deal with at times. The one that sticks with me many years later is an elderly woman I cared for. She lost her husband one Christmas morning, just woke up to find him dead. A few years later she lost her daughter and her entire family on Christmas Eve in a car accident while they were on their way to visit her for the holidays. The very next year she lost her son on Christmas day. While everybody around her was celebrating the holiday season all she had was heartbreak during Christmas. I still think of her every Christmas season.

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I remember a story that I was not personally involved in as I was either in nursing school or just about to start. I saw this on tv, 20/20 or Dateline perhaps. A late 20/early 30 y.o. sought help for a pimple on his buttock while he was deployed overseas. He was told it was nothing and was basically ignored and not treated.....FOR YEARS. It turns out that it was melanoma. I think he ended up being separated instead of medically retired d/t the illness. Therefore his son could not collect full benefits. This totally SUCKED because had they listened and treated him the outcome may have been drastically different. It's been a few years so the details are a little fuzzy. If any of you remember this story and have more accurate info please feel free to correct anything I have said. The family could not sue for negligence or malpractice because the law prevents litigation by or on behalf of any service member.

Years later the news crew showed up while his family was gathered around. When the crew got there they filmed him and then he died. The family insisted that the crew stay there to do the story. I will never forget the images of him laying there so skeletal with his muscles completely wasted away, agonal breathing and eyes half open already with the fixed look of death in them. :cry:

He was a very handsome guy who once was an extra in a show that Jennifer Love Hewitt starred in. Anyone remember this?

NEW YORK -- On the CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC on Thursday, Jan. 31 (5:30 p.m. on KIRO 7) Correspondent Byron Pitts reports the story of Sgt. Carmelo Rodriquez, a 29-year-old U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and whose misdiagnosis by military doctors led directly to his death, of stage 4 melanoma. On Nov. 16, 2007, as Pitts was waiting outside his room to interview him, Rodriguez died. His family urged the CBS News crew to stay and tell the soldier's story, which was his wish.

Rodriguez enlisted in the Marines in 1997. His initial medical check-up indicated that he had melanoma, but the doctors never told the soldier and no one in the military followed up on that report.

Eight years later, while Rodriguez was serving in Iraq, the heightened and very visible symptoms were checked by a military doctor and diagnosed as a wart. Rodriguez was instructed to have someone look at it when he got back to the U.S. five months later.

The CBS News investigation unearthed a military memo that called Sgt. Rodriguez' case "a major screw-up." That doesn't change a cold, hard fact for the families of soldiers who have died as a result of medical malpractice by the military: a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that bars "active duty" military personnel or their families from suing the federal government for injuries incidental to their service. According a veterans group that track soldiers who are misdiagnosed, there are hundreds of similar cases across the country.

http://www.robthurman.com/weblog/archives/rodriguez.jpg

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Was in a skilled care taking care of a early 30's woman who had gotten into an arugment with her husband, got into her car, sped off only to get into a rollover.

Ended up after a number of feuding relatives (who wanted to "not put her in a home" as to not miss out on the social security payments) in skilled care, trached, feeding tube, completely contracted to almost a fetal position--the family was fighting on who had "rights".

They left her with nothing but old not so gently used clothes to wear, as the siblings were even fighting over her clothes (!) and by the pictures they had all over the room of her former life, appearance was very important to her.

Decision was made as to not let her very young children visit her, as they were told she was dead. However, on her wall at eye level to where she lay was pictures of her children. She would literally lay in her bed in the evening and the tears would roll down her cheeks as she would stare at those pictures.

Come to find out she had been in the facility for some time, and the family long abadoned her, had tied up the court system for years on insuring that they "got what they deserved" and "who got the kids" and other craziness, and there she was, staring at those pictures and crying.

She couldn't communicate, however, it was really clear she knew exactly what was being said--her eyes were so expressive. And my heart broke for her, and almost 10 years later, not a day goes by that I don't think of her. Her babies must be grown by now, and to think that they will never know their mother exists...

Wow, this is just the saddest story.

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Oh my goodness, I didn't expect this number of posts! I haven't been on the site recently so I will read each one of the posts to know your story. Thank you so much for sharing.

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