Friday, May 2, 2014

Emotions with nursing. There are just so many.

I've written before about my fears surrounding death within my role as a nurse, and now I'm dealing with something that may be harder: emotional people! It seems so silly.

A brief explanation of how the nursing program works: we have classes in person, online classes, and clinicals. Clinicals are the days we go to a facility (hospital, nursing home, etc) to do hands on nursing. At the beginning of each semester we are taught various skills in a lab, and clinical is our chance to 'practice' on real people. This semester our clinicals have been at a long term care facility, which is basically a nursing home, but the area that we are in mostly has older people there for rehab after some type of surgery.

I've done clinicals for my Certified Nursing Assistant class at a different nursing home here in town, and there is such a difference between those clinicals and the nursing programs. I am now in a nursing student position instead of CNA, so I do more meds, injections, and wound care as opposed to the CNA, who takes care of things like brief changes, feeding, bed changes, etc.

So for most of this semester I've been performing a lot of the nursing duties, which doesn't give a lot of time for patient interaction. We interact when we give them meds, check glucose levels, and administer insulin, but it's for such a short time because there are 20+ other people to give meds to within a certain time frame. A couple weeks ago the state inspectors were at the facility so everyone was on high alert, and the nurses were hesitant to let us students do anything. That led me to doing a lot of CNA work, which also meant a lot more time could be spent with the residents. I fed people, got them up to use the restroom, and changed a lot of briefs (A LOT).

Despite doing the 'dirty work', I loved it because I was able to interact more with the residents. This was also extremely saddening. A partner and I were changing a ladies brief and she was completely unable to talk or move herself and was just wanting to hold my hand. I crouched down next to her bed and held her hand and she instantly made eye contact and wouldn't look away. It was one of those moments where I felt like I could see into her soul and I felt so much fear and confusion coming from her. There wasn't much I could do in that situation except assure her that we were just cleaning her up and we'd be done soon, but of course didn't feel like that was enough. It's such a hard thing to look at someone who is scared or hurting and know there is nothing you can do to get rid of it.

Recently I was assisting with a resident who had been in WWII, and in the middle of our conversation about something unrelated, he casually mentioned that he had killed 87 people, and said, "I bet you didn't think this morning that you would be taking care of a murderer," and my heart just broke in two. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a war and to kill someone else to save yourself and your countrymen, and all at once I just felt all the sadness, guilt, and pain that this resident has been living with for most of his life. All I said, in a tone of understanding, was, 'You had to do what you had to do," and gave a weak smile. Obviously that probably didn't do anything to help him, but again, there isn't anything I could have said to make him feel better.

The hard thing about treating patient's like this is that I am so sensitive to how people are feeling. I am a cancer sign through and through and a complete people pleaser who loves to help in any way possible, so it's really hard to not be able to help. I totally get it now when nurses say they take their work home or when a nurse gets burned out so quickly - it's hard to get rid of an emotion.

So that is one really important thing I'm learning about nursing, how to deal with my patients emotions as well as my own, and to find a way to separate the two to a certain extent. I know my ability to cope with it will evolve over nursing school and into my career, but I wish there was a quick fix. SO MANY EMOTIONS!

8 comments:

  1. It might be helpful to develop a routine that transitions you from work time to home/school time. Maybe having a work journal that you write a quick entry in at the end of a shift, or a specific workout that lets you work process the emotions of the day before you "move on". I think that routines are powerful in helping us focus our minds on specific tasks and areas of our lives.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Merry, I think the idea of writing everything down is a great idea! Or even something like taking 10 minutes to meditate and sit with my thoughts. Routines are definitely good!

      Delete
  2. May sound cruel but you can't save them all or the disappointment will get you into burnout so fast that you will quit nursing or even the medical field. Give what you can at the moment but don't bring the problem home with you, just like your can't take your problems to work. I in nursing and the strange part is the moments I remember where those, not the super busy can't get anything done, it was those little caring crossing of souls ones. I still remember the little diabetic lady who only had her body left. Her arms and legs had been amputated from gangrene, her hearing was gone along with most of her vision. She would scream with any contact but we had that eye contact and I had to hug her. I'll always remember her smile. She never screamed after that and she got a hug every day I worked.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not cruel at all! There is definitely no way I could carry the weight of all my patients for very long. I just didn't realize it would be so hard to separate everything. I'm sure it's so hard to carry a memory like that, but also reminds you of why you/we do nursing.

      Delete
  3. When I worked for a senior volunteer program, one of my jobs was to scan the obituaries for five counties every morning to see if any past volunteers (or sometimes, current) passed away. It was easily the worst part of my job. You can't help but get attached to the volunteers and to know they are all going to pass and pass not long after I meet them. Probably the best part of that job as a young 20something is that I really understood the value of funerals and memorials. But I also learned how to interact with seniors and that right there is why I think every teen and young adult should work with seniors at some point.

    But anywho.

    You will develop the skills to handle conversations like that. The best thing you can always say is something like, "I appreciate your service. Your service lets me do what I love to do, and your sacrifice is appreciated." War does terrible things to people and some never recover. The fact he can tell you the exact number of people he has killed and classifies himself as a murderer? That breaks my heart.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think young adults should definitely have to volunteer in a nursing home! It gives you such a different perspective. Gosh, that part of the job sounds like it would be terrible. Even if you didn't find someone who was a volunteer, it would be so hard reading about people who died! Although I guess you wouldn't have to actually read the obituary.

      Thanking him for his surface is such a 'Duh' answer and I didn't even think about it! haha Silly me. I think I was just so taken aback by the murder comment, it definitely breaks my heart as well.

      Delete
  4. Jeez, I cried reading this post so I guess maybe I’m not cut out for the medical field at all! I kind of already knew that though. I have no advice. I know this would be really hard for me to so I wish you luck!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Let's talk about this soon. I might have some insight for you, for once. Feel like it might be too hippy-dippy for your comment section ;)

    ReplyDelete