Tell me a story

"Words are how we think, stories are how we link" -Christina Baldwin

    Once upon a time, in St. Mary's hospital, there was a grouchy old man. He came in for chest pain, just like many other patients. He was told that he had badly clogged arteries in his heart. They would do a catheter procedure and try to place some stents to open up the arteries. He insisted that they not perform surgery. However, after the procedure, he was told that his arteries were even worse than they thought. Placing stents wouldn't do him any good. He was told that if he didn't get surgery soon, he wouldn't live much longer. Begrudgingly, he agreed to prepare for open heart surgery for a triple bypass the next day. Unfortunately, he took out his frustrations on the nurses taking care of him. He wasn't an easy patient either. He required blood sugars to be taken each hour, needed help going to the bathroom about every half hour, and with his chest pain, he needed frequent medications and assessments done. He wasn't very pleasant and he never said thank you. After taking care of the patient for a full two days, the nurse and her nursing student were pretty willing to hand him over to the next nurse and have a good weekend off. At shift change, the nursing student went in to say goodbye and good luck. The patient asked to go to the bathroom again, asked for some cold water, but then said something else. After 16 hours of being in this man's room at least every half hour, he said, "Thank you for being patient with me."

     Once upon another time, there was a woman whose husband was in the hospital with a massive heart attack. He was doing much better, but she was extremely concerned about the lifestyle changes she was going to have to make. She had very little knowledge about what would be a good diet for the heart. We taught her about maintaining a low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-sodium diet. We handed her about 5 different pamphlets about diet suggestions and went over the basics. Throughout the course of the day, she would walk out of the room to the nurse's station and ask us some questions. She wanted to know if it was ok to use frozen food, if she could still make bread, if she would let him have cake, if she could make his favorite steaks, what kind of vegetables she needed to buy, how to read food labels, what to use instead of eggs, how to cook with different seasonings, etc. At one point, she burst into tears because she felt so overwhelmed. She told us that she felt that the heart attack was her fault. She admitted that she didn't know what she was doing and that she still wasn't prepared. We set her up to meet with a dietitian at the hospital and recommended one for her at the local grocery store. As she wheeled her husband out of the door, she looked at us with a smile and said, "I'm still uneasy, but I think I can do it!"

    There once was a woman who had been to the hospital frequently over the years for various heart issues caused by rheumatic fever. If she got you in the room, you would probably end up staying there a lot longer than you meant to. She could talk about anything. She and her husband had obviously been there too much because they had the whole hospital visit thing down to a science. They knew exactly what food to order, which soaps worked best, how to make the bed so that we didn't mess it up when assessing her feet.. Some of her lab results weren't what the doctors wanted them to be so she had to stay an extra few days. Her response was, "I'd rather be safe than sorry". She was completely independent, so she kept herself busy walking up and down the halls, reading the newspaper, and talking to other patients.

     There once was a girl who went to the hospital and fell in love. Not with any of the residents or murses (male nurses), but with the experience that she got. There was the nerdy side of her that loved reading EKG books, going over NCLEX questions, and reading about cool procedures. There was a part of her that loved being familiar with her unit- knowing what to do and gaining the experience of grown-up nursing. There was another part that loved the coworkers that she was with- these people took an interest in her, accepted her, and helped her grow. Finally, a large part of her fell in love with her beautiful patients. They made a difference to her, and she will keep some of them in her heart. Always.

    There are still two weeks left of the program. I am working 9 more shifts. It has gone way too quickly. I'll have more stories by the end of it. But then there's one more year of school and the rest of my life. While there might be a 'happily ever after', there isn't going to be an 'the end' to these stories for a very long time. Thank goodness. I always hate it when good stories end too soon.