I know that usually I write about negative things or just rant and rave about things…but this post I want to write about a patient who was possibly the best, most perfect patient ever.
She had broken her femur and had a rod placed to fix it. When I got report I was told she was elderly…I automatically thought…”Oh no…she’s going to be confused and a difficult patient”. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
As I entered the room, I saw this elderly little lady laying in the bed. She was so small; the bed seemed to swallow her. As I introduced myself, and asked her to tell me her name and birthday…she responded. “Young lady, I have told my name and birthday so many times today…if I don’t remember it by now I never will…maybe you should tell me yours so I can use yours.” I just looked at her not sure how to take her because her face was as straight as a line…but she quickly smiled. She then proceeded to tell me her name and birth year. “My name is Betty Boop and my birthdate is 09/18/1929”. Now I have gotten into the bad habit of not really paying attention to either the name tag or the patient when they say their name…but this one I caught right away…I just laughed and realized that I was going to like this patient very much.
In the three nights I had her as a patient, I got a glimpse of what the perfect patient would be. They would be funny and pretty much do what they were supposed to do. Now this patient did just that…not only did she give me as much jokes back as I gave her…she did everything she was supposed to do. She was up ambulating less then 24 hours after her surgery (which is no small feat…especially for an older person), she used her flutter valve and incentive spirometer every hour on the hour…she was so on top of this one that she would even stop me in my usual care giving and say “You can just hold on there Blondie…I have to do this before I forget and you get to yell at me.” I just laughed because it was nice to know someone else cared about their health then the healthcare professionals. Another thing that impressed me was that she did not take pain medications. The only time I saw her take a pain medication was the first time she ambulated after the surgery and she did that just because the nurses kept bugging her about taking a pain med before attempting to get up. It was nice to not have a patient that was all about the pain meds.
I so much enjoyed caring for this patient this week. In fact I pretty much told her she was not allowed to leave since she made my job so much easier…she proceeded to tell me that I could go home with her so that I could see her have a bad day then I would go running back to the hospital. She made me laugh and was a dream to care for…if only more patients could be like this…my job would be so much easier.
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