I don’t think it’s any secret that nursing is a difficult field. There’s a lot of knowledge the nurse must possess, and the nurse to patient ratio doesn’t always make it easy to deliver care in the best way possible. We know this. We deal with patients and families during the most physically and emotionally stressful times of their life, so although my human side wants to bristle my quills at the harsh words of an angry patient, I’m typically able to remember that being sick is no fun for anyone. I’m even transversing “okay” through the new computer documentation upgrade this year.
Sure the uncertainty of the hospital environment, especially critical care, can be quite intense, but I think I roll with it pretty well. Like anyone I get frustrated, exhausted, and pushed to my limit, but another trend in healthcare is lately getting me down. I feel very helpless to help this ever-growing population that I’m starting to see every single time I come to the bedside.
If I didn’t know it before, as a nurse I’m even more aware of the state of the world around me. This world is full of broken people and they’re trickling in more and more frequently to the hospital setting. Actually trickle isn’t probably the best descriptive. It’s more like pour. They’re pouring in by the ambulance load.
Each year that goes by, and lately each week, brings more brokenness to my hospital beds. It’s no respecter of persons either. Twenty-something’s, women my age, and every gender, age, and ethnicity. I see more overdoses than I care to admit, and the vacant look of defeat in their eyes always chills me to the bone. I try to reach past the barrier they’ve built around themselves, or through the sheen of drug toxicity between us, but I rarely even scrape the surface.
Opiate dependency, benzo dependency, alcohol dependency. It’s no longer few and far between, but instead it’s a rarity if a patient doesn’t suffer from some sort of addiction or vice to help them cope with life’s demands and the cruelty of a past they can’t forget. I’ve discovered every patient has a story, and it seems like the tales of hurt and heartache outweigh the ones of happiness and joy.
And it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge to care for this growing population. Not only does my heart break for the broken, but my resources seem so thin when faced with them day after day. My worst fear is always that my sympathy will slip, that in my frustration over multiple cries for help I’ll stop listening to their deep-seated pain, and instead I will become annoyed at the “drug seekers” and suicidal ideation patients who flow through my unit like it has a revolving door. As I rush to try and control pain for the chronic pain patient whose threshold for medication is far different than my own, I worry I’ll stop caring if they hurt.
I have had patients blatantly lie to me, or simply tell me what I want to hear. I have been cussed and cursed up one side and down the other. I’ve been punched, kicked, pinched, and spit on more times than I can count. I’ve been accused on being cruel when I’ve refused to medicate a patient for pain when it is not safe to do so, and I’ve been told “I just don’t understand” more than I care to say. It’s tough to try and help someone, but be seen as the bad guy time and time again. This is making nursing harder by the day.
In all honesty, even in my frustration I just want to fix it, but this seems to be an epidemic I cannot control. I want to take every broken girl and place her in my pocket for safe keeping. Every tormented woman I want to heal, and every empty young man I wish to make well. If I could even give them a portion of the joy and zeal I hold for life surely it could help, but beyond my prayers and compassionate care I don’t know what I can do.
It seems like the sadness just keeps multiplying, and the wrecking ball of abuse and addiction tears lives apart one by one, by one. It used to be occasionally I saw broken minds laying in my hospital bed, but now it seems to be every room I enter. It makes me want to cry out, “why Lord? Why does hurt beget hurt?”
How can I be the change?
As of now I do the only thing I know I can do. I do my job. I center myself, I push off my frustration (which isn’t always easy), and I try to see the person in my care as the person they were meant to be before chemical dependency or clinical depression reduced them to a shell of their former self. I focus on not making my heart hard. I look at the patient and try to see my mother, my father, my husband, or my child. After all everyone is someone’s something.
I try to believe that nothing is impossible, that change may be just around the corner. If I can foster that, well, that’s a good thing. I once was told by a local minister that a woman who had come to his treatment center had mentioned me by name. She said she had never been treated like she was anything worthwhile until she entered my care. She stated I made her feel like the most important person in the hospital, and thoughts of that still brings tears to my eyes. So that’s my goal.
I want every person who encounters me to see light in darkness. I want the broken to feel like they can be mended. I want the “worthless” to see that they are worthy, precious, and capable of being helped. I fall short of this quite often, and it is not something I enjoy, but the fact is this world is broken. If I can help fix a small part of it then I guess I’ve done okay.
anniebooker says
It’s interesting, isn’t it? And sad. I started nursing way back in 1973, was registered in 1977 and worked for some years after that in various hospitals. I can honestly say that I rarely encountered patients with drug addictions or overdoses. There were a lot of people needing hospital care for alcohol related disease but very few for drugs. I suppose that’s because, for whatever reason, narcotic and street drugs seem to be easier to obtain now. I know that ice addiction is rampant in many country towns here in South Australia nowadays. I guess all the nursing profession as a whole can do is to continue to minister to all our patients with kindness, respect and acknowledgment of their individual needs. Great post, Brie.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you.
Patricia Stevens says
Brie, I am so happy to see your post. There are days when I feel like I can’t do right in my patients eyes, but then the one that tells you how much you have done for them make you realize you are really doing good. I hope you’ll keep up on the nursing blog, even if only occasionally, I really enjoy it and get blessed every time.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you for being a faithful reader. I appreciate your comments.
Betsy L RN says
Yay! Your sharing your nursing experience again…so happy to see this and read it! It helps me to recenter and it’s a reminder of each patient and family do have a story of their own that they are struggling to write. The patient that you made feel worthy and she remember that and she spoke of the way you made her feel speaks volumes of the person you are and your gift of nursing!
Thank you for your inspiration!
God’s Peace!
Betsy
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you. When I feel especially pressed to share like I did with this, I will.
Jen says
Ahhhhh!!! Yes! You took the words right out of my mouth! As usual. But this one was so so good!! The hands and feet of Jesus…. I want to be.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you!
Candace says
Brie – I just found your blog, recommended by a good friend. I read you last month of posts. I spend my days working in patient care, asking a lot of the same questions. How can I impact someone when all I can see is their addiction? I have become so numb to it all. My empathy seems to empty out a little too soon. These are tender souls that deserve a few extra moments of my time. Thank you for your words of wisdom and opening up your struggles as well. Can’t wait to read on.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much.