Hindsight 20/20

The last few weeks have been really rough nights at work.  These are the nights that I tend to take a lot from and grow in my nursing profession and my personal life.  After taking the time to reflect on everything that has happened, I have discovered that there are a few things that stand out to me.

Many times when we’re unhappy what what’s in front of us, we want more, in fact, it becomes an unsurpassed desire.  It’s this selfish, vain attempt to fill that desire that leads us to get more of what we want.  In reality, it becomes our only goal, our only passion.  However once we achieve what we thought we wanted, we realize it actually only got worse and we want to return to what we originally had before.  Then the despair and depression sets in, for how could we have wasted all that time and energy striving for what we really didn’t want.  Thus “hindsight is always twenty-twenty”.

Unfortunately this happens quite frequently in the nursing world.  There are always those patients that enjoy being a bit of a nuisance.  They are the difficult ones all night.  “I need this.  I want that.  I want to go down and smoke.  I don’t want to take those pills! You were 1.7 minutes late with my pain pills!  Why can’t I eat…I’m hungry…who cares if I choke when I swallow…I want to eat”.  (And believe me when I say these are the nicer complaints that nurses hear).

Obviously I have cared for these kinds of patients before.  I wish I could say I’ve become immune to the rudeness, the impatience, the arrogance and the disregard for anyone but themselves, but I wouldn’t like to lie to you.  However, nothing you say or do will change how I care for you.   Nonetheless this does not mean I may not have to get blunt with you.  I do not enjoy when I have to be blunt and mean, but I do it for your protection and for your health.  Then again, there is a benefit to patients believing they are going to have Nurse Ratchett care for them for the next 12 hours.  It quickly brings about a change of heart.  It’s relatively amazing at how a patient can change when a nurse uses bluntness.

One night I was caring for this patient.  He was really sick and looked 20 years older than he actually was.  He was a back-woodsy type of guy (this seems to be the majority of the patients at this hospital).  He was what we call a “frequent flyer, and as such was not inexperienced with the hospital world.  He knew the system, how our schedules worked, how our narcotics come out of a locked machine, and where the cafeteria was.   Even though he knew all this information, he was making many demands.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t appease any of his many requests because of a doctor’s order or some other odd reason. 

I put some oxygen tubing in his nose to help with his breathing and his response was, “(choice word), how am I going to pick my nose?”  Many responses flew through my mind, but I kept my mouth shut.  He pulled out four IVs and then refused to let me put in a new one.  He refused important meds and then complained when his pain meds were a few minutes late.  Finally the long night was drawing to a close and the sun was beginning to come up.  I stayed kind, encouraging, and tried to meet as many of his needs as I could, even though it never seemed like enough (this is a common feeling nurses have during a long 12 hour shift). 

Just as I was preparing to leave for home, this patient decided to panic and his heart rate jumped into the 130’s (which isn’t bad, but much higher than before), he started breathing really hard and to put it bluntly he was freaking out.  I called the doctor; got him some medication to help him relax and then I sent him off for some tests. As they were wheeling him away, he yelled back at me, “Are you back to work tonight?” “No” I said.

“Well who’s going to take care of me?”

It actually broke my heart a little.  Every outward sign would tell you he was not a fan of me and he would prefer a different nurse (cursing at me, lecturing me, demanding pain pills). Yet there he was…asking if I’d come back to take care of him that night.  Aww, I knew he had a soul in there somewhere.