December, 2005 Archive

i will hire people to go to the hospital.

they will be with every patient who needs or wants somebody to just be there.

they will sit on the chair next to the patient’s bed, and hold the patient’s hand.

they will only leave when the patient asks them to.

they will be there.

someone who has time to truly care if they have pain, and not only want to know what their pain scale is.

someone who has time to rub their back, and not only say that the pain med is not due yet.

someone who has time to always pull the curtains if they are using the commode, and not reason out it is dark anyway.

someone who has time to suction their secretions everytime they request it, and not act irritated because they’ve been suctioning every hour.

someone who has time to calm them down when they are unfamiliar with things and people, and not only rush the enema to catch up with all the other meds.

someone who has time to take their fears seriously, and not only think they are just being demanding and difficult.

someone who has time. to listen. to empathize. to care.

because honestly, i am a nurse, and i have no time to do all that.

i am so busy doing other important stuff.

i have no time.

no time to listen, to understand, to care.

it is sad, but it is the truth.

i beg you…

if you put those ECG electrodes on a patient’s chest, let them know it is there to connect the heart monitor leads on, and that when the leads are disconnected, it can be taken off. let them know it is not medicine, and definitely not a device used to attract some sort of energy from outerspace to heal them.

better yet…

make sure you take them off before the patient goes home.

i’m not being bossy, i just don’t want to hear another version of what i heard from a friend this morning: “he is okay, they sent him home with a medicine. a little round thing with some steel looking thing that was stuck on his chest. i told him to keep it on. i know it’s uncomfortable, but hey, if it helps him, he should keep it stuck there.”

other than that…let us be grateful to God, and enjoy all the people and things we have this holiday season.

just to see what i’ve been missing these past three decembers, i finally went to our unit’s christmas party. not that i want to disprove the rumor going around that i am anti-social, i just got curious.

so…

i found out it is quite difficult to recognize people you have seen in scrubs for almost three years, wearing different kinds of clothes. especially with the matching leather boots. it’s weird how your mind gets used to the idea that all there is in everyone’s closet are funky, or boring looking scrubs. it makes you squint and take a second or third look at everyone’s faces, mentally trying to picture their faces in their common scrubs to match it with the unfamiliar faces you see in fancy winter outfits. interesting.

i also found out that it actually pays to be thick-faced by telling your patients, or your coworker to fill out the CARD if they liked you, or your services. let me explain what the CARD is all about. it is a piece of paper that patients or staff fill out to acknowledge somebody’s good deeds. it is called by an acronym that stands for some virtues, which i will not spell out here, since there is a .000001% chance that a coworker will read this blog later. that will be the end of my anonimity, and i certainly do not want this free therapy to end just like that. anyway, it feels good to get the CARD sometimes, but for me, nothing can beat the verbal or nonverbal expression of gratitude from patients. that’s why the CARD does not really tickle my ego. anyway, at the end of the year, the ones with the most CARD gets a reward. no wonder i heard somebody said this to a patient one night: “you really want to thank me? okay, let me get you a pen; fill out the CARD; this is how you spell my last name.” no, i didn’t get a reward, because our nurse manager did not do the reward thing. but what if she decides to do the same thing next christmas? a 30 minute massage gift certificate does not sound bad at all. you think i should get some pointers on how to loose my face by telling my patients to put their gratitude in writing? not.

i found out that food is cheap and it is impossible not to waste it. four tables of desserts, four tables of all sorts of food that directly go to your arteries with the main purpose of clogging them. it seemed to me that the more people go for second or third helping, the food just kept multipying. like the typical boring party goer that i was, half of the people left after an hour or so. we were urged to take home whatever we felt like taking home, but still, there were entrees untouched, and cakes unsliced. what happened to the leftovers? i guess that’s when a garbage can becomes indispensible.

i also found out that no matter what our nurse manager do to make her staff feel appreciated, there will always be people who are cynical and critical. yeah, they think she bought the gifts from some cheap place, and that it’s not really special, and she just made it look otherwise. these people are the reason why i have no desire whatsoever to be a nurse manager. heh.

don’t ask me why i’m not going to the christmas party in 2006.

her left eye is artificial. i don’t know why.

she has been on isolation for a couple of weeks, as the docs were entertaining bacterial meningitis, on top of something terminal. when i took care of her last weekend, they cleared her. they completely ruled out meningitis.

she was in high spirits, and was eager to do things on her own, now that she felt she had the little strength. no matter how i convince her that i had a pretty good record in shampooing patients’ hair in bed, she wouldn’t have any of it and was determined to go to the restroom to have a full shower. i wasn’t very comfortable about it, since at 4 liters of oxygen, she still occasionally looks like she is short of breath, but i know exactly how she feels. no bed bath can beat the sound of water running to your hair.

so, that was the highlight of my encounter with her. the fact that she can’t thank me enough for letting her go to the restroom and have her full shower with the help of her friend.

last night, i see her being wheeled to be transferred to oncology. cervical cancer. on her final days.

it is amazing what a few days can do. her nurse told me she has been almost nonverbal since she found out. like she has given up talking, because really, what’s the point?

anyway, i can’t look at her. i don’t know why.

i always have this idealistic thought that people come to the hospital to be “fixed”, not to be told “we can’t fix it”.

“if the doctors can’t fix it, who can?” most patients have that unnerving, questioning look on their faces.

it is arrogant of me to think that i could have changed her diagnosis by being nicer, but i do have that moronic thought.

maybe, that’s why i can’t look at her.

she gave me a little nod on her way out, but all i can do was look through her, and look away.

i was too afraid to really see.

afraid that even her artificial eye will haunt me with that questioning look.