What prompted me to respond to this post is hearing a recent experience of one of my cousins who is currently in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove the lower lobe of his left lung due to a congenital abnormality that had worsened. As he was telling me about his experience I though of this post and I subsequently remembered an experience my mother had after I was born.

I have to thank you on behalf of all your patients for being patient and gentle with them. I will say again–having been well trained by nurse friends and relatives, as well as knowing the reality on my own– that without nurses the world medical or otherwise would collapse very quickly and that on the whole nurses are wonderfully, kind patient people who get an unbelievable amount of aggravation with minimal thanks, but I do have two tales of what happens when nurses aren’t quite as willing to be patient or listen to their patients as they ought to be.

Shortly after I was born, in 1975, a nurse came into my mother’s room and told her it was time to get up to use the bathroom. Having not been back in the room for more than an hour and not feeling especially like she was up to walking into the bathroom my mom asked the nurse if she was surethat she was supposed to get up. The nurse said she was sure and my mom being the easy to get along with person that she is figured that the nurse must know what she was talking about and proceded to let the nurse help her up. She had barely taken one step when the next thing she knew she was on the floor looking up at the concerned face of her nurse along with a few others. It turned out that it was indeed not time for her to get out of bed yet. Apparently the nurse had the wrong patient. This story was not ideal, but at least I can see how it could happen since everyone, even nurses, is human and makes a mistake once in awhile. My cousin’s story is the one that really surprises me.

My cousin had been sitting up in the chair next to his bed. He decided he was tired and ready to get back in bed. He was just going to have his wife, also a layperson, help him, but she said she’d feel more comfortable if the nurse did it as she was afraid that she might hurt him or dislodge something important so she called the nurse to come in. I guess this may well have been the best nurse on the floor, but she was apparently having a really bad night because she came rushing into the room, grabbed my cousin, yanked him out of the chair, practically threw him onto the bed, then reached down to also drop his legs rather forcefully on the bed. In the process she nearly stepped on the catheter from his chest tube a few times. My cousin’s wife reached down to lift the catheter off the floor to get it out of the nurse’s way and the nurse slapped her on the hand. The whole time my cousin and his wife were both asking the nurse if she could take it a little easier as she was really hurting him. She didn’t seem to hear them. Then when my cousin was back in bed the nurse stormed out of the room slamming the door on her way.

I can understand that perhaps she didn’t want anyone else touching the chest tube, but I don’t know that hand slapping is appropriate in any but the most dire situation, especially when she had nearly stepped on it twice herself.

And, like I said, I know this nurse is in no way typical of the average nurse. I am in no way complaining about nurses, but like I said, this is what can happen when someone takes the forceful approach.

Oh, yes you will be pleased to know that my cousin was using his incentive spirometer when we came into the room to visit him. And your son is adorable.