Reality vs Narcotics

There once was a sweet lady, who due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, ended up in the hospital.  She had gone through the ringer.  She was near the end of her rope, and her husband was at the end of his.  She’d had a lousy nurse (yep, they exist) the night before and her day nurse had promised she would have a better night.  Enter into this story: me.

I babied her.  I convinced the doctor to increase her pain medication, I brought her special hot cocoa made with milk, I made sure her favorite TV show was on, and I spent extra time with her. She had great service.  I could tell she was much happier with her care then previously. I worked my butt off to earn that and wanted her to have a better experience than before.  She deserved it.

She hadn’t been sleeping much, even after I gave her a sleep aid.  Around 4am she started getting confused.  I went into chat with her and she said, “This call bell has legs.” Oh dear, Here we go.  She’s going crazy on me.  She reoriented easily, but felt that something was wrong.  She made a few calls, to which I spoke to her family members trying to reassure them I was taking good care of her.  I stopped giving her pain medications and checked her blood sugar, thinking the crankiness was from hypoglycemia.  No such luck.

She refused most care, except from me.  The lab tech was frustrated because she couldn’t draw her blood.  Instead I drew them from her IV site so she didn’t need to be stuck.  As I sat there drawing her labs, she started to cry.  I tried to reassure her.  She looked up at me with tears in her eyes, “I thought you were my friend”.

AND MY HEART BROKE. I started to tear up with her.  

“I AM your friend.  I’ve been trying to do everything I can tonight to help you, comfort you, be with you.” Yet when the brain starts playing tricks on you, anything can happen. I did everything I could to bring her back to the situation, to me, to her surgery.  Anything. I got a little bit back, but not all the way.  She needed time to process all the pain meds she had received in the OR and tonight.  I did all that I could, but still left that morning feeling as if I let her down.  I WAS her friend.  It was a fight between reality and narcotics, and reality usually loses.