Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Sad Story

Working in the ICU has really been an expirience. The stories that come through there are more bizarre than the story lines in Grey's Anatomy and ER; which leads me to my sad story.
We had an mid-elderly lady be admitted to the ICU from the ER on Friday while I was working. She was a "no report" patient, which means we are not allowed to tell anyone, including family how she is doing or even confirm that she is there. This is the patients decision or power of attorneys decision. Before she came to the ICU we had a young man come and ask if she was there, all I could say is that we do not have a patient by that name. When she arrived to ICU I got her chart to do orders and noticed she was an intentional overdose of morphine. Come to find out her husband had been in the ICU the folowing week and had passed away. Today was his funeral. After the funeral the family informed her she would be going to a nursing home. The young man that had come by earlier was one of her grandchildren. The grandchildren were now cleaning out their grandparent's house of things they thought she no longer needed. I guess he had come by to see how much time he had. She had five daughters and not one of them offered to house her or take care of her instead of moving her into a nursing home. I do understand many time there are underlying issues, but this just broke my heart. I hope I am never put in a situation where I am forced to put my parents or grandparents or any family member in a nursing home. Hopefully by becoming a nurse I will always be abe to take care of the ones I love.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sometimes, like you say, you have to put them in a home. Just find me a nice one and don't forget me!