- I recently was confronted with a situation most nurses never like to see. As I went about my work, discharging patients and receiving new ones in their place, I was given a slip of paper with a patient name written on it. It was the name of a new admission, and sometimes it seems like the names tend to run together. I hate to admit that. I would like every patient to feel special, and like they are valued. They are, but when flu season and the holidays arrive, the emergency room resembles an assembly line, and people with a multitude of problems are admitted to the hospital in mass numbers. As you arrive and process one out within 15 minutes of clocking in, and start getting new ones in return, the names honestly run together. When do they not? I can usually remember a name if something about their strength of character sticks with me, but I am terrible with names as a general rule, and will typically just remember a face. A lot of nurses can see a name on that slip of paper and will say, “Oh, I remember them!” I sometimes see a familiar name, but have trouble putting it together with a face. Sometimes the ambiguity is better. It’s easier to care for a stranger for me personally.
- Small towns make that impossible sometimes. I have taken care of a lot of people I lived down the road from, or who went to school with someone in my family, or ran a local restaurant I frequented. As I reach a certain age I am seeing a lot of my school mate’s parents as patients. Knowing the person or someone in their family doesn’t make the patient’s symptomatology change per se, it may just make you feel like more is expected of you, like your skills suddenly become top-notch when caring for your Sunday School teacher’s neighbor. When does it really become difficult? It reaches a new level when you look at the piece of paper and it’s not just a friend of a friend, but it’s your friend, or your family member. It happens, and when it does, your heart sinks. As a nurse, when you see the patient name is your own, whether related by blood or marriage, you usually step down, admitting that to care for that person would be too personal and difficult for you. This doesn’t absolve you from being involved though. Usually by that time you’re already inside the situation.
- It’s hard when the patient is no longer just a patient, but your mom, or your dad, an aunt or uncle, or worse, your child. I remember when my mom was sick growing up, and as I became involved in the medical field as a professional. It was hard working with people who cared for her, trying to separate my professional and personal life. I still remember, even after her death, the coroner sharing her autopsy results with me, handing them to me like two colleagues reviewing a case. I went over the lab results professionally and analytically, but I also remember afterwards walking calmly to the bathroom, shutting the door, collapsing to the floor, and bawling like a baby. Everyone in the family had questions for me, and I felt like I needed to give the best answer possible. It was like a final exam you wanted to ace. They didn’t make me feel that way. I did it on my own. Whenever I care for someone close to me I feel this way, and this time was no different. I could hear the distress in my family’s voice as they asked questions I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t want to give the right answer, but rather the one that would make it all better. They weren’t asking this of me. It’s simply what I wanted to be able to give them. I wanted to make it better. I didn’t want anyone to feel hurt. It brought back bad memories, and I wanted that for no one. Weighed down, heavy with my emotional exhaustion, I prayed as I left the hospital, finally realizing my only choice was to hand it over, from the nurse’s wringing hands into The Physician’s lap. Being the nurse in the family isn’t easy, but it’s what I am.
That is all