The first time I cried, it was during clinicals. Ironic really, considering it was perceived a non threatening environment. Except I was completely threatened. The instructor was evaluating sterile wound care at the patient bedside, and after about three sterile fields that were ripped from the bedside table with a curt, “do it again,” I felt tears flooding my eyes. The patient, alert, looked at me with pity, fellow students surrounded the bed, silently writing notes - likely what they will do differently to avoid this catastrophic fail. Tears fell, as I finally met expectation, but there was no victory. “You shouldn’t cry in front of patients,” commented the Instructor. I vowed I would never show emotion again.
The second time I cried, it was during orientation in Med Surg, the fear of making a mistake, the pressure to take more patients, the demands of the preceptor, patients, and forgetfulness began to build up. The struggle to keep up with charts, meds, assessments, and the overwhelming impossibility of it all. Tears threatened at the nurse’s station, and before I knew it, I was whisked away by a nurse educator into a patient’s bathroom.. “Never let them see you cry.” She said, and left the room. I looked around, through the tears. At least she had the good sense to ensure it was a confused patient’s room. I wiped the tears that betrayed me again, and carried on.
The next time I cried, it was my first code. The patient was a DNR, but the family wasn’t sure. When he stopped breathing, they panicked. And so did I. But still, we coded him, and he survived. I held it together, as we tended to him, post cardiac arrest. I held it together while I thought about his broken ribs, hypoxia, and quality of life. I held it together while the family held hands in a prayer circle and reinstated the DNR. I lost it when I watched the heart rate on the monitor slowly go down, and I slipped out of the room silently to cry in the supply room.
I trembled, the first trauma patient I received in Pacu, a 90 y/o female, broken pelvis, s/p ped struck, after being dragged by a bus for five blocks. I trembled, as I fought to keep up with her rapidly depleting blood volume. I trembled each time she coded on that shift. I fought back the tears when she gave up the fight.
“Don’t let anyone see you weak.” Said the charge nurse. And I cried the tears silently.
I felt a void the day I took care of a 17 y/o female who overdosed on energy drinks. I felt a void as we ran a marathon attempting to save her young life. I didn’t feel anything while we maxed out on pressors, pumped her with fluids, and she continued to decline. I felt detached while we invaded her body with a catheter to drain the toxins from her blood in emergent dialysis. I felt removed from the scene when she died, her family destroyed, and my fellow nurses wept at the climax of a heart wrenching day that resulted in defeat. I was her nurse, and I had failed her, but my eyes remained dry. Every so often there’s a patient that affects the unit, one that unifies the team, I looked around as though I was viewing it all from the gallery of an OR, and understood there was no shame in crying, and there was no shame in feeling empty - I remained silent, realizing a nurse didn’t have to justify being one or the other. Sometimes you needed to grieve to move on, and others you need to detach to survive it all.
It was late night in Pacu, when we received word we would need to accept a patient from the OR status post complication of a VATS. (Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery). A simple procedure had been complicated by an error that a 1st year surgical resident made - a catastrophic nick of an artery they couldn’t seem to repair immediately. The family was insistent that she suffer no more procedures or extraordinary measures. The patient was to come to a secluded room in Pacu, so the family could say their goodbyes. There is perhaps a million ways that a nurse and doctor may disagree, but it only takes a moment of commonality to bridge the gap, or remind us of our humanity. I stood with the surgical resident as the family surrounded the patient, crying and comforting one another and telling their loved one it was ok to let go. We stood together in the shadows of the corner, and the resident began to cry. I squeezed her hand gently, and felt my own tears fall in shared understanding. She wasn’t alone.
amandla
pixelskylines
prguitarman
