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.
Have you had those instances that if you weren’t there the outcome would be really different?
In our lives we often don’t see the impact we make on our family, friends, or colleagues. We don’t really understand our worth because we are often too busy to think about it. No one is going to run around yelling “I’m the best!” but it’s important to take a minute sometimes to realize the impact you make every day.
You chose to become a nurse for a reason.
Whether your mom was a nurse or you simply wanted to help people, you wanted to make an impact. Nursing is a profession that conveys the most unselfish, holistic view of human beings. Nursing embodies the very nature of Jesus Christ because it is caring for people without judgment but simply because they need help.
I’m sure there are moments and patients that you will never forget.
Some patients just burn in your memory, no matter how wonderful or difficult their story. Memorable moments with patients can also be something so ridiculous or unheard of that you just can’t forget … and probably laugh out loud when you think about it.
Whether you think so or not, you make a difference. You made it through the crazy pressure of nursing school, which is no easy feat. For those of you still in school … may the odds be ever in your favor!
You are never “just” a nurse (or a student nurse).
You spent how many hours away from your family, and the rest of the world, just to make it through school. Then you work so hard to take care of people in a way that cannot ever be reciprocated. No matter what type of nurse you are … you matter and you make a difference.
Here are a few stories that if the nurse wasn’t there … well … let’s just say THANK GOD THE NURSE WAS THERE! All of these are based on true events
A patient called for an appointment at his local doctor’s office. Symptoms were random and simple .. pain, fatigue etc. There wasn’t anything standing out to make anyone say “yep that’s a bowel obstruction” or “blood clot!” The nurse told the patient to go to the emergency room. The patient didn’t want to go to the emergency room so insisted on coming to the office.
Something just wasn’t right.
The nurse knew the symptoms didn’t sound serious, but something just wasn’t right. It wasn’t fitting together. “I think you should go to the emergency room; I feel it’s the best thing for you right now and it’s better to be safe than sorry” The patient finally listened.
The patient was rushed to the operating room for emergency surgery once the ER team was involved. “Good thing you came to the emergency room because you most likely would’ve died overnight without that surgery” The doctor told the patient. The nurse listened to the gut feeling inside and had to advocate for the patient … to the patient!!
A patient was unresponsive and blue, literally. “Call the code!” The team rushed to the scene and was able to get an airway for the patient and manually ventilate. Even though there was an open airway getting sufficient breaths, the patient’s oxygen level was still low.
The nurse noticed something odd about the patient’s chest.
It was lopsided every time the patient was ventilated. The nurse spoke up about it and the doctor listened. When a chest tube was placed in the patient the oxygen saturation immediately improved. “Way to go!” the doctor said. Once the tube was draining the patient turned to a warm pink color because the patient was actually getting oxygen to his body through his bloodstream.
Good catch by the nurse … and the doctor for listening.
An epidural was placed in a patient while in labor. “I can’t breathe!” the patient yelled but no one was able to understand. The patient spoke another language and at that moment it was a matter of life and death.
The team was petrified along with the patient because they couldn’t act on anything without having a translator, and it was time to act fast!
The communication breakdown led to even more intensity than not breathing. A page came across the system that led a specific nurse to attend to the room. That nurse was able to understand the patient and the gravity of the situation. She was the bridge of understanding and implementation. She provided comfort and understanding to the patient as well as conveyed vital assessments to the team.
If they had waited for a translator that patient’s health would’ve deteriorated much more, along with the child in her womb. Mom and baby were just fine afterward. A translator service was provided to manage her needs afterward, but if it wasn’t for that nurse in that moment it could’ve gotten much worse.
Get report on a patient that is a “walky talky.”
The assessment of the patient was much different than the report provided by the previous nurse, which doesn’t usually happen (insert sarcasm). The patient is young and just had a baby. She’s generally healthy but was agitated, confused, and wasn’t breathing great even though her saturation was in the 90’s.
The nurse had a feeling that wasn’t her normal behavior, which was confirmed when she asked the patient’s family. Blood tests looked terrible and stat CT scan showed pulmonary edema. Relief came in the form of a Foley and IV Lasix.
After 3500ml of urine output, the patient started feeling better. During labor, she had received about 6 liters of fluid that no one thought was an issue. When the patient and family had repeated concerns, no one listened. Except one nurse …
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