Saturday
Well, after nearly 14 hr of sleep I'm actually up! Tricky, being the good roommate that she is, woke me up at 10:30 last night worried that I'd be late for work. How lovely to be able to respond 'It's my weekend off!' Finally got out of bed at 5am and went out for coffee and donuts. I think I shall make it a tradition: Coffee and Donuts for Everyone on Saturday mornings!
I was skipping around on google the other day and found this note left by a patient for his nurse somewhere back east. I find if rather validating. I can think of a patient or two I'd like to give it to, but I'll content myself with forcing it on all of you!
What does a nurse really do?
This is a note, reproduced largely verbatim, left recently at a nurse's station at a rehabilitation unit in Detroit by a difficult patient upon his discharge from the unit.
Dear [Nurse],
I wanted to thank you personally for teaching this old dog new tricks. I always thought that nurses were basically the doctor's handmaidens. I thought that the sexy little stereotype portrayed on television with the nurse doing sex in the linen closet with whoever was correct. I looked upon your profession badly, and I sincerely apologize.
What I have found during my stay in your care, is a completely different story (and I won't say [you're] not sexy, [because] you are, but you made it clear you don't date patients, but just in case I am leaving my number at the end here). Anyway this is what I want to say, and I think each patient should be given a copy of this part on admission to any nursing facility and hospitals should be known as nursing care providers, because a patient enters the hospital for nursing care. I found this out during my stay. I had nurses 24 hours a day every day I was hospitalized, I had maybe 10 minutes a day with the doctor. So here goes my opinion of what every patient needs to know.
1. You have been placed in the hospital for nursing care.
2. The provider of that care is an educated individual who unselfishly dedicates themselves to your health and well-being. And even though you may not like being told what things are good for you and what are not, the nurse telling you does so to give you a chance to redeem your health and well-being.
3. That provider is proud to be a nurse.
4. That nurse does more than you know. She plans your care around your medical condition, emotional state, abilities to do for yourself (sorry, [nurse], I think you said "self care" in your rant), that nurse provides support to you and your family, she/he is the link between you and the doctor, [and] the everything in the facility.
5. That nurse does your bedside care, she knows what medicine you need when, and how to give it. She knows what all the tubes and stuff are and what they are used for and what to look at them for.
6. That nurse can hang an IV or hold your hand and reassure you.
7. That nurse watches over you and reads monitors and knows when [you're] sleeping and when [you're] awake and pulls strings to get you that cup of tea at 3 a.m.
8. That nurse is your lifeline, she can call a whole team of professionals together with her calm voice and make them work their [butts] off for your life with the flash of her/his eyes.
9. That nurse will wish you luck and give you all the instructions you need when you leave her competent care even if you were the biggest pain in the ass she ever met.
10. The nurse is why you are in the hospital and why you will go onward, be it home, perpetual care, or the morgue, she will insure that you do so with your dignity and rights intact. Why? Because it is what a nurse does.
/signed/ ……………..
This weekend I want to work on getting my room painted. I think I've narrowed down my color choices to 3. Next step is getting poster board and paint samples and living with that for a bit. I'm sure it's going to be blue of some shade. Most of the people who've given me their opinion aren't fans of blue but I find it soothing. Oh well, as per usual I'm zigging while others are zagging.
Painting is all well and good, but I'll probably just end up Sim-ing all day instead!
I was skipping around on google the other day and found this note left by a patient for his nurse somewhere back east. I find if rather validating. I can think of a patient or two I'd like to give it to, but I'll content myself with forcing it on all of you!
What does a nurse really do?
This is a note, reproduced largely verbatim, left recently at a nurse's station at a rehabilitation unit in Detroit by a difficult patient upon his discharge from the unit.
Dear [Nurse],
I wanted to thank you personally for teaching this old dog new tricks. I always thought that nurses were basically the doctor's handmaidens. I thought that the sexy little stereotype portrayed on television with the nurse doing sex in the linen closet with whoever was correct. I looked upon your profession badly, and I sincerely apologize.
What I have found during my stay in your care, is a completely different story (and I won't say [you're] not sexy, [because] you are, but you made it clear you don't date patients, but just in case I am leaving my number at the end here). Anyway this is what I want to say, and I think each patient should be given a copy of this part on admission to any nursing facility and hospitals should be known as nursing care providers, because a patient enters the hospital for nursing care. I found this out during my stay. I had nurses 24 hours a day every day I was hospitalized, I had maybe 10 minutes a day with the doctor. So here goes my opinion of what every patient needs to know.
1. You have been placed in the hospital for nursing care.
2. The provider of that care is an educated individual who unselfishly dedicates themselves to your health and well-being. And even though you may not like being told what things are good for you and what are not, the nurse telling you does so to give you a chance to redeem your health and well-being.
3. That provider is proud to be a nurse.
4. That nurse does more than you know. She plans your care around your medical condition, emotional state, abilities to do for yourself (sorry, [nurse], I think you said "self care" in your rant), that nurse provides support to you and your family, she/he is the link between you and the doctor, [and] the everything in the facility.
5. That nurse does your bedside care, she knows what medicine you need when, and how to give it. She knows what all the tubes and stuff are and what they are used for and what to look at them for.
6. That nurse can hang an IV or hold your hand and reassure you.
7. That nurse watches over you and reads monitors and knows when [you're] sleeping and when [you're] awake and pulls strings to get you that cup of tea at 3 a.m.
8. That nurse is your lifeline, she can call a whole team of professionals together with her calm voice and make them work their [butts] off for your life with the flash of her/his eyes.
9. That nurse will wish you luck and give you all the instructions you need when you leave her competent care even if you were the biggest pain in the ass she ever met.
10. The nurse is why you are in the hospital and why you will go onward, be it home, perpetual care, or the morgue, she will insure that you do so with your dignity and rights intact. Why? Because it is what a nurse does.
/signed/ ……………..
This weekend I want to work on getting my room painted. I think I've narrowed down my color choices to 3. Next step is getting poster board and paint samples and living with that for a bit. I'm sure it's going to be blue of some shade. Most of the people who've given me their opinion aren't fans of blue but I find it soothing. Oh well, as per usual I'm zigging while others are zagging.
Painting is all well and good, but I'll probably just end up Sim-ing all day instead!