Kindness

Funny, I just read what I wrote about the ER, how nervous I was. It went fine by the way. But it has brought to mind how much culture difference between ER and the unit I work in. I hope that it's more the whole rest of the hospital, but anyway, you'll see what I mean.

Monday was a very rainy day.... accidents happen. A family was traveling through our town from out of state, no family here. They were involved in an accident, I don't know who's fault, I heard hydroplaning, but it's not important to the story. There were four people in the car: dad, mom, two kids. Dad was seriously injured, difficult extracation, head injury, at some point was intubated. Mom and kids were brought out my hospital, dad to another. For those that don't work in ER, the decision was based this way: dad needed serious care, we could provide that but we could only take so many victims at once. Mom and kids needed to be seen, there was great potential for serious injury. Normally kids would have gone to the local childrens hospital, but mom couldn't be treated there and they didn't want to split mom and kids up. The place dad was taken would have probably sent kids to children's, so mom and kids to us, we can do care for all.

Now, mom and kids turned out fine. Picture yourself in mom's place. One kid, the youngest was placed in the same bay as mom, the older taken to a different room. She knew spouse was hurt, but not with us. She couldn't see older kid. She was stressed. It was difficult. We were able to work them through at a decent time (even with me being slow).

I called the other hospital to see how dad was, it wasn't good: that was when I got the story about head injiury, nonresponsive, on vent with chest tubes, broken bones, etc. I went to mom, told her that he was in good hands, but very serious. I called the chaplain and had him come. We arranged for cabfare to the other hospital and chaplain called over to their chaplain for follow up. So far, not bad. Here's the rub.

Mom had glass all over her, mom had all the luggage. She asked if there was a place where she could shower. There was in the main part of the hospital. The ER charge nurse had a fit about me wanting to let her do it, even though I could "free" up the room she was in and it would require nothing of staff. We allow families to use these facilities for people that have to stay in the critical care waiting areas. I was horrified by the reaction I got. I had no idea if mom could do that at the other place, I don't know what they offer. I have no clue what kind of finances they had.

Maybe it's the thought, "what if it were me?" This is beginning to be a real source of action for me. Today I was trying to catch up on stuff, people needed me here and there. A call light was going off and the pt kept saying, "nurse, nurse, something is wrong here." I wanted to blow it off so bad, find HER nurse and let them deal with it. Finally I went in, and her IV had horribly infiltrated and the meds were burning her skin. I felt maybe an inch tall, I know that hurt her. What if I was the one needing the pain medicine or the drink or whatever..... I fail so often, yet when I want something I want others to do it NOW.

So I listen to others (and myself too often) joke and carry on, or make fun of things, or say: they really don't need that. Then I wonder, what if it were me in there.... I hope I don't get paid back for all the stuff I've done. I really hope that I become the person that responds rightly to others. But then too often I'm more like today when I suggested if only we could get the guy in the room with a fly (yes, a fly) to think he was hallucinating the fly, then he would shut up.......