I live for moments like the one I just got to experience. My patient finally "got it!" She decided to take hold of the last remaining days and quit taking the ativan and wake up and live! She is thinking about Christmas, even New Years. She could finally say, "so this is it, I am going to die. Really die. There is no cure." It's gotta be hard to be able to say, and she did it and I am so proud of her for not letting this disease drag her down slowly.
I almost did a happy dance when she told me she did not want any more ativan. You could almost see a cloud lifted off her family, who were obviously having a hard time watching her barely able to keep her eyes open. You knew they wanted to have every minute with her awake and able to share the time together, not be alone in it. They know the alone time will come.
My patients surprise me sometimes, and I love it when they do. I feel like I changed someone's life, made it better. It's good to be me. I love my job!
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Smile has been reapplied
Every once in a while my patients make me smile. Today started out like that, and I have to get this down on paper, pardon the expression. I plan to write more later, but this was just too cute. Usually, when we come into a patients room in the morning, we update the dry erase board with the current date, our name and other pertinant facts. This is how it usually looks:
Saturday, December 16th 2006
RN: Laura
CCP: Medina
Charge RN: Martha
Today, my dear patient added to the bottom:
Sick guy: Marc
Saturday, December 16th 2006
RN: Laura
CCP: Medina
Charge RN: Martha
Today, my dear patient added to the bottom:
Sick guy: Marc
Friday, December 15, 2006
Fishy looking
What a depressing day! Not that being in oncology is the most delightful, upbeat area to be working in, but most days, it is good. Patients are fighting their disease, we make their pain go away albeit temporarily, they get to go home until their next round of chemo. Things are on average good. Today is not so much the case.
One of our dear patients passed away yesterday. His family was one of the ones we were adopting. I am always a little leary of designating a family to shower with gifts because inevitably the patient does not make it to the holiday. On a good year, they get better and get to go home, but not this year.
I have a 37 year old whose sarcoma has spread to his eye and has grown so quickly that his eye is bulging out of his head, thankfully covered still in also swollen eyelid. Imagine those goldfish with the google eyes. He has a hard time talking, since they had to take a chunk of his tongue and palate out. My other patient does not get to go home either because those headaches, well, they are from a raging infection in his sinuses. No Mexico surf trip like he was planning. I guess San Diego is still better than being stuck in Idaho.
My heartbreaker for the day is the 32 year old who finally got the news that her fears are confirmed, and she will be living, hopefully for the next 4-6 weeks at best. For me, what makes it worse is that she just wants to sleep. She is trying to take enough ativan, benadryl, anything to let her sleep and "get away from it all" for as long as possible. How can you want to sleep the last few days of your life away? Ativan does not make the cancer go away. I wish she could just realize that this is her chance to do anything she had always wanted to do, rather than trying to hide and make it go away. I can't imagine having a death sentence hanging over my head, though, and we never know how we will react until we are in a particular situation ourselves. I like to think that I would be strong enough to say enough is enough with the chemo and just find as many ways as possible to live to the fullest any day I have left. This is why I am not going to wait until it is too late to do the things I have always wanted to do. I don't want to have to have a death sentence over my head to take the time to go see the things that are only in pictures, or tell the people I love how much I love them. I don't want to die with unfinished business. It is good to be me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to live like I mean it. It is so easy to get lulled into "just get through life" and postpone the things that don't seem important. But I think those things, the dreams and hopes, those are the things to live for. Some day, when I am staring at the wall while drooling on my pillow in the old folk home, I don't want to wish I had. I want to let the mental movies roll, and relive my glory days. And by the way, every day you live is a glory day.
One of our dear patients passed away yesterday. His family was one of the ones we were adopting. I am always a little leary of designating a family to shower with gifts because inevitably the patient does not make it to the holiday. On a good year, they get better and get to go home, but not this year.
I have a 37 year old whose sarcoma has spread to his eye and has grown so quickly that his eye is bulging out of his head, thankfully covered still in also swollen eyelid. Imagine those goldfish with the google eyes. He has a hard time talking, since they had to take a chunk of his tongue and palate out. My other patient does not get to go home either because those headaches, well, they are from a raging infection in his sinuses. No Mexico surf trip like he was planning. I guess San Diego is still better than being stuck in Idaho.
My heartbreaker for the day is the 32 year old who finally got the news that her fears are confirmed, and she will be living, hopefully for the next 4-6 weeks at best. For me, what makes it worse is that she just wants to sleep. She is trying to take enough ativan, benadryl, anything to let her sleep and "get away from it all" for as long as possible. How can you want to sleep the last few days of your life away? Ativan does not make the cancer go away. I wish she could just realize that this is her chance to do anything she had always wanted to do, rather than trying to hide and make it go away. I can't imagine having a death sentence hanging over my head, though, and we never know how we will react until we are in a particular situation ourselves. I like to think that I would be strong enough to say enough is enough with the chemo and just find as many ways as possible to live to the fullest any day I have left. This is why I am not going to wait until it is too late to do the things I have always wanted to do. I don't want to have to have a death sentence over my head to take the time to go see the things that are only in pictures, or tell the people I love how much I love them. I don't want to die with unfinished business. It is good to be me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to live like I mean it. It is so easy to get lulled into "just get through life" and postpone the things that don't seem important. But I think those things, the dreams and hopes, those are the things to live for. Some day, when I am staring at the wall while drooling on my pillow in the old folk home, I don't want to wish I had. I want to let the mental movies roll, and relive my glory days. And by the way, every day you live is a glory day.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Room mates
Patients crack me up sometimes! I can't blame either one, but I have only 2 today. I got floated to the Burn unit at the UCSD Hillcrest campus. Well, neither one of my patients likes the other. My Bed "B" has been throwing a fit because his slightly MR neighbor had a very large, smelly bm, the kind we here at the nurses station even made the effort to seek out and find air freshener! We are usually good with smells, but sometimes.....
Bed "A" then started in when B was having his dressing changed, and screamed and yelled at the top of his lungs, despite having had 4 mg of morphine as well as vicodin on board. You would have thought we were trying to kill the man. Vitamin A to the rescue, and "B" finally went to sleep and both parties have been happy for the past 4 hours. Of course, I always feel horrible when patients are in pain, and my idea would have been to keep giving him pain meds, morphine in particular, until the pain was back under control. Doctors have other ideas about things like that, knowing that the pain med will last a good 2-4 hours, and the dressing change will only last for 5 minutes. The doctors feel no pain....
I am embarrased to say that instead of increasing the pain meds, we shut the door. He is comfortable now, not that that makes it any better. I could never work on a burn unit for real. Those nurses are either angels or devils who enjoy inflicting pain on other people, as is done with each dressing change. Neither of my patients were burn patients though. Nonetheless, I suppose it would be pretty traumatic to have a 4 inch long by 2 inch across by 3 inch deep "gaping" hole in your abdomen. We get so acustomed to open body parts, but we forget that things like this are not exactly "normal" for most our patients. I wonder how many of them wonder what is keeping their guts from falling out!
In my own personal roommate saga, there is indeed a christmas tree up, and decorated! My room mate had dictated that the tree must be big and real, and it had to go in one particular space, and I could not buy it cause he was going to and yadda yadda, as I think I already outlined. So, to be a little spiteful after the 2nd time of him not following through with a promised date, went out and bought myself and TINY FAKE TREE! He came up the steps, knocked on my door, and demanded "Where's my tree? You said you were going to get me a tree! Where is it?" 11:30 Saturday night was neither the time, nor the place. I did have the fleeting thought that if he wanted to argue, I could take him on, and most of you who know me, know that choosing to argue with me is setting up for a major drama. Instead I chose the high road and remarked, "I am not going to discuss this." I did not see or speak to him again until Wednesday morning! Sunday I put "my tree" up in a different place on the other side of the room! If he wants a tree to his own specifications, he is welcome to get his own tree! Then, Wednesday morning, we bumped into each other, and I said a cheery "good morning" and got back a wonderfully cold silence. At least he keeps his door closed now so I don't have to listen to that stupid computer game he plays ALL THE TIME!
Anyone wanna take bets on when that will happen? I'm thinking IF it goes up, and that is a big IF, it probably won't be until the night before Christmas or something. Oh well! At least I am happy! Fa la la la la!
I also put round pink and blue ornament balls All Over the house, on the table, next to the TV, hanging from the matchstick blinds, and I am sure he hates it! I even got grandma in on the "just to piss him off" christmas decorating! I don't know if I had mentioned that the guest bathroom has a working toilet, and the wood cabinet part for the sink, but no sink. Just pipes sticking out of the ground. Mind you, he has all the parts to finish the job, and he said it would be done before I moved in....well, you know how that goes! So grandma is up on all the events, so she got some very cute little christmasy finger towels and some cute little decorative soaps to put in the guest bathroom! Grandma is great!
What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall listening to him talking to his friends about what a pain in the butt I am! I don't know why guys are so opposed to anything with remotely good taste until after they are married. If anyone has ideas for "cute little anoying things I could add for decorations, please do tell! I was thinking, those toilet paper doily angels are kind of what I was thinking. Any suggestions are welcome!
Bed "A" then started in when B was having his dressing changed, and screamed and yelled at the top of his lungs, despite having had 4 mg of morphine as well as vicodin on board. You would have thought we were trying to kill the man. Vitamin A to the rescue, and "B" finally went to sleep and both parties have been happy for the past 4 hours. Of course, I always feel horrible when patients are in pain, and my idea would have been to keep giving him pain meds, morphine in particular, until the pain was back under control. Doctors have other ideas about things like that, knowing that the pain med will last a good 2-4 hours, and the dressing change will only last for 5 minutes. The doctors feel no pain....
I am embarrased to say that instead of increasing the pain meds, we shut the door. He is comfortable now, not that that makes it any better. I could never work on a burn unit for real. Those nurses are either angels or devils who enjoy inflicting pain on other people, as is done with each dressing change. Neither of my patients were burn patients though. Nonetheless, I suppose it would be pretty traumatic to have a 4 inch long by 2 inch across by 3 inch deep "gaping" hole in your abdomen. We get so acustomed to open body parts, but we forget that things like this are not exactly "normal" for most our patients. I wonder how many of them wonder what is keeping their guts from falling out!
In my own personal roommate saga, there is indeed a christmas tree up, and decorated! My room mate had dictated that the tree must be big and real, and it had to go in one particular space, and I could not buy it cause he was going to and yadda yadda, as I think I already outlined. So, to be a little spiteful after the 2nd time of him not following through with a promised date, went out and bought myself and TINY FAKE TREE! He came up the steps, knocked on my door, and demanded "Where's my tree? You said you were going to get me a tree! Where is it?" 11:30 Saturday night was neither the time, nor the place. I did have the fleeting thought that if he wanted to argue, I could take him on, and most of you who know me, know that choosing to argue with me is setting up for a major drama. Instead I chose the high road and remarked, "I am not going to discuss this." I did not see or speak to him again until Wednesday morning! Sunday I put "my tree" up in a different place on the other side of the room! If he wants a tree to his own specifications, he is welcome to get his own tree! Then, Wednesday morning, we bumped into each other, and I said a cheery "good morning" and got back a wonderfully cold silence. At least he keeps his door closed now so I don't have to listen to that stupid computer game he plays ALL THE TIME!
Anyone wanna take bets on when that will happen? I'm thinking IF it goes up, and that is a big IF, it probably won't be until the night before Christmas or something. Oh well! At least I am happy! Fa la la la la!
I also put round pink and blue ornament balls All Over the house, on the table, next to the TV, hanging from the matchstick blinds, and I am sure he hates it! I even got grandma in on the "just to piss him off" christmas decorating! I don't know if I had mentioned that the guest bathroom has a working toilet, and the wood cabinet part for the sink, but no sink. Just pipes sticking out of the ground. Mind you, he has all the parts to finish the job, and he said it would be done before I moved in....well, you know how that goes! So grandma is up on all the events, so she got some very cute little christmasy finger towels and some cute little decorative soaps to put in the guest bathroom! Grandma is great!
What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall listening to him talking to his friends about what a pain in the butt I am! I don't know why guys are so opposed to anything with remotely good taste until after they are married. If anyone has ideas for "cute little anoying things I could add for decorations, please do tell! I was thinking, those toilet paper doily angels are kind of what I was thinking. Any suggestions are welcome!
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