Scared heartless

I’m not usually easily scared (at least not anymore…when I was a child I was terrified of the dark), however the other night, one of my patients managed to scare me pretty badly.  She was in the hospital for a broken hip and was going to have surgery to repair the break; however the surgeons were having trouble fitting her in due to the high flow of fracture patients being admitted to the hospital. 

Finally, they told the patient they would be able to do the surgery in the morning, so she needed to stay overnight.  The patient was very elderly and a little confused but understood what the doctors were telling her.  As nighttime dropped upon us, the patient began to become even more confused…this is called “sundowners”.  She was so confused she could not remember she was in the hospital, instead she kept thinking she was at her daughter’s house.  I finally helped the patient calm down enough to go to sleep.  As I walked out of the room, I left the door open a crack, so I could keep an eye on her throughout the night. I went about my other jobs of the night. 

At about 2:00 I heard the patient talking in her room, she sounded a little upset.  I knocked gently on the door and walked into the room.  As I got both feet in the room, I heard the patient give a blood curling scream.  The scream was so unexpected in the dark room that it scared me.  I jumped about 2 feet off of the floor before I went running to the bed to check on the patient.  My heart was racing and beating out of my chest and throat where it had ended up after the scream.  The patient was fine except very confused and thought I was a burglar breaking into the room who was going to kill her.  I reassured her and calmed her enough to go back to sleep.

There is definitely never a dull moment when I am working.  J