Sad Stories Are Everywhere

The unit had it tough today, four nurses were tripled up, a busy day all about. In one of my last blogs I mentioned patients sucking the life out of me, I had no clue what today would hold.

Yesterday I got involved in someone else's pt family, reassuring them that she was making some good decisions, trying to make a connection. Today we were going to do a procedure and needed her consent. She didn't want to do it, as strange as it sounds, we had to do an EGD to get an NG tube down - there had been some nasty aspiration and no one could place it, including doing it under fluro. I sat down with the pt's daughter to try listen to her, see what I could say that would help her. She began to talk about she just couldn't lose her mother, she still wasn't over when her son died. Soon it was all out - seven years ago her son had been murdered in the commission of a robbery. The man robbing him at a business, an inside job, wanted to know what it would feel like to kill someone. Her son had willingly given the money but it just wasn't enough. He died alone on the floor. She also saw on the news him being removed from the scene in a body bad. He was married and had a baby.

It's tempting to ask whether you have other children, but no other child takes the place of one lost. You might ask if you are in therapy, but I'm sure she has been. They have told her she has Post Traumatic Stress and I believe it. All I could do was cry. So I listened and cried and thought of my children and those of my friends. I truely can't imagine. I silently prayed for her, for there is none on earth that can heal those wounds. And we called Chaplain the Kid to come and be with her. I was spent in only a few minutes.

So the day began, that was the first thing after charge report. I stayed behind and was an hour late leaving tonight. My nurses were stressed, I was stressed. At least tomorrow I won't be charge, but I suspect that I will have to be tripled with new pt's. I can't fuss, I'm one of the strong ones. But I'm so thankful that I've not walked the road many of those around me have been placed on. So now to refresh my soul for a few moments until I pass out from exhaustion.

FD - how can you do 19 days??? I stuggle for more than three at a time.