Nurse, you are not alone.
You have a story just like your patients. You hurt, you feel, you grieve, you break … but you are resilient. You aren’t defined by the situations you’ve experienced, but by the compassion and desire in your heart. God is with you while you heal and support your patients. He is there when you need it too.
Today, one of them is in trouble.
She is young but experienced in hospital years. She wants a normal life, but can’t breathe easy on her own. She has become dependent on the medicine that is supposed to help, not hurt. Her family is tired and doesn’t come around as much as they used to. She is stuck in the gown that never ends.
You stop by her room because her monitor is off and you want to see if she’s ok. She is lying on the bed. You immediately know something is wrong. You hope she’s sleeping because she hasn’t in two days.
You run to the bedside and see she’s lying on her side, barely breathing. She isn’t wearing the oxygen she needs. All of her attachments were ripped off like they were suffocating her.
You put the oxygen on her face and notice her lips are partially blue. You scream for help. You check for a pulse.
Is that a pulse? I barely feel it … wait … is that it?
You roll her on her back. You try to get the monitor and pulse ox attached to her afraid of what it will say. You work quickly but time stands still. You check for a pulse. Is it there? Faintly I feel it. Yes!!! I feel it … barely… but it’s there.
You yell at her … then talk to her … then yell again.
Help shows up … finally! Another person checking for a pulse. Barely convinced. A team starts working together on pieces of her like she’s a puzzle on a timer. IV lines, pads on her chest, lift the bed, prepare for intubation, run the blood pressure cuff, get the medications ready …
It’s time for you to speak to the team about what happened, but it’s still happening.
It was so long ago when you first walked in the room. You look at the clock. It’s been 9 minutes?! You need to be beside her. She knows you. She’ll listen to you. You just talked to her yesterday about things she wanted to do in her life. She just said how she was going “to start writing again and do something” with her life.
Wait, don’t call her that, she won’t respond to that name.
You feel a ball of hurt rise in your chest but you stuff it down and stay calm. You tell the team about her history and what happened when you walked in. Her doctor is there to back you up, but doesn’t know what you know.
What’s happening? You see people huddled around her head trying to do something.
They’re trying to help her sit up. Is she awake? No wait, they’re turning her. The respiratory therapist is at the head of the bed about to assist the doctor with the breathing tube.
She’s sedated … or was she already?
You feel like you should be next to her talking to her, but you’re a bystander. You don’t want to get in the way but you’re the only real support she has. Is she breathing yet? Is she dying? She’s dying … But I thought she would get the antibiotics and get better. She just did so well yesterday. We talked yesterday.
The tube is in.
Ok, now what. What’s the plan? Should I ask? No, I’ll just listen … ICU, but do they know her? Did anyone call her family? Even though they haven’t been here in a month …
“I’ll help you take her over there … Karen can you watch my patients?”
“It’s ok, we got it” The ICU nurse says to you, approvingly but confirming that your work here is done.
Now what? Saying a prayer for her is the best intervention you can offer.
A couple days afterward you still see her name on your patient list in the medical record just in the different location. Her name immediately reminds you of what happened.
You move on.
You have other patients. You can’t think about her because you get so worried it makes you feel sick. You want to know how she is, but can’t bear to look.
Two weeks later you see one of the respiratory therapists in the hall on your way to the cafeteria. You know he knows about her. Should you ask? He beats you to it.
“Hey did you hear about the patient you sent over a couple weeks ago?” He said glumly.
“No, is she ok?”
“Well, she passed away last night. She wasn’t doing well. Every time we tried to wean her off the vent she got worse. She got pneumonia and just couldn’t pull through”
Bam! A freight train right in the chest.
Why!? She was so young! What did I do? What didn’t I do? She was supposed to start writing again.
The tears welled up so fast, the strong nurse mask was unable to hide them. Right there in the hallway to the cafeteria you were crying. You just felt it.
You carry with you the death, pain, and sorrow. Your patients are part of you, no matter how hard you try to separate yourself. Separating yourself from the compassion would remove the part of you that made you want to be a nurse in the first place.
Where there is death, there once was a life you helped.
Where there is pain, you once provided healing and comfort.
Where there is sorrow, there once was hope.
Some patients you keep in your heart because once they got in there they never left.