Patients can make or break your day. Even on the best day, when everything is running smoothly, you’re on top of your workload and you’ve been able to handover to the transfer team before the nurse in charge even has to ask; if you have a patient constantly demanding the world and more, or someone screaming abuse at you it’ll feel like the longest shift in the world.
Alternatively, if you’re caring for someone who appears to be genuinely grateful for what you’re doing, who sees you as an actual human being and not just a robot created to carry out their every whim, the shift becomes a lot more enjoyable, despite what other factors may be in play.
The latter is certainly the case in this instant.
It was a manic shift. I had an elderly patient with dementia who would yell out if you didn’t go over to talk to him and required regular turns with the help of three staff to make sure he wasn’t wet or developing any pressure sores.
The ambulance came to transfer two of my patients to another hospital with no warning from the nurse in charge that they were even leaving, meaning I had to sort their transfer out within the space of five minutes each.
The doctors didn’t tell me a patient was able to go home and stole his paperwork, so when the family arrived to pick him up they thought I had half a brain for not knowing this information.
Another patient had severe delirium and would shout at everyone to leave, try to steal the man with dementia’s food and was on the brink of becoming incredibly violent with each passing minute..
I hadn’t even been qualified for three weeks by this point and just come off super-nummary status. I also hadn’t (and still haven’t) had the newbie nurse break-down, but I was sure this shift was going to be the one to break me.
But then enter Jon. Jon was a 64 year old gentleman who had come in with chest pain. Cardio had reviewed him and said it wasn’t heart related, so he was being given regular analgesia and waiting for a CT scan. Jon was also one of the most lovely humans I have ever had the pleasure to meet.
When I went to administer his morphine he confided in me that he was terrified of needles, admitting that if he knew it was an injection (and not administered IV like his anti-sickness was) then he may not have asked for it. He laughed in disbelief when I told him I was very good at injections and that he wouldn’t feel a thing (not that he was wrong to, I had given two injections into the arm before this point so was very much embellishing). And then he told me he felt stupid for his fear, due to his sex and his age. I told him then about my friend from my course who was also a guy. Like Jon, he has a fear of needles so bad I had to go into the doctor’s room with him for his blood tests after just knowing him for two weeks. I told him that if another nurse could have the same fear, it obviously wasn’t as stupid as he thought, and even if it was, phobias aren’t always logical. I didn’t tell Jon that I had to sit on said friend just two days before whilst he drunkenly had his ear pierced with a stolen cannulation kit. Even after half a bottle of whiskey his fear was still very much real, he was shaking so much that I thought I would be catapulted through the ceiling.
“I barely felt it,” Jon exclaimed when I was done seconds later, his fists still screwed so tightly he’d have fingernail marks in his palms and eyes wide in relief. Apparently, my bullshitting was more genuine than I’d realised.
Later that day, when I was trying to shepherd the delirious patient away from the man with dementia, Jon stood by closely in case things turned ugly. He even distracted this man when he started getting aggravated, moving to be inches away from me and towering above (not that difficult when I was a good foot shorter and less than half his weight). I thanked Jon for his bravery but asked him not to step in the way again. ‘If he punches you, you’ll just be given more morphine injections and I won’t be so gentle next time’ I told him before excusing myself to settle my frazzled nerves.
When I was administering Jon’s anti-sickness IV later that day he talked about his grandson and how they had taken a trip to New Orleans. The love for this little boy was so clear to see as he told me about taking him to his first ever basketball match. In turn, I shared stories about my Grandad and how he had introduced me to my favourite book series, Harry Potter, and how all these years later it still means the world to me. It was a calm five minutes in a very manic hour of trying to catch up on paperwork but I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
Just before I left to go home that evening Jon pulled me over to the side, passing over a small red book. It was about how the Nottingham Forest football club had formed that he had wrote eight years ago. ‘I know you won’t be very interested in it, but I just wanted to show you me appreciation for everything you’ve done today’ he told me, explaining how he had conducted his research in local libraries.
It’s probably one of the nicest presents I’ve ever received, even though, as Jon had correctly guessed, I had no interest in football whatsoever. Because it wasn’t the gift, it was the meaning behind the gesture and the kind words that Jon said. How he had seen what I had done and even more, the realisation that I had done well that day. I had alleviated Jon’s fears and made him feel less alone in a very lonely place.
I may not have had the newbie nurse cry that day, but there were definitely tears.
