Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Days/weeks like these are what really makes me think about nursing.
I looked after a guy that is about my dads age. He originally came in months ago and was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He had it removed and had a colostomy formed. He was then told he needed to have radiotherapy to completely clear everything up. Unfortunately what he didn't find out was that the radiotherapy would damage his bladder. He came back in to our ward about a month ago, lovely fella, I had looked after him before so we had a reasonable relationship. He had to have a catheter inserted cause he wasn't able to urinate well after the radiotherapy.
I looked after him a couple of weeks ago on the day that there started to be faecal matter(yup thats poop) coming out of his catheter. he went straight down for a CT and was taken to theatres that night for a laparotomy and exploration or his abdomen. They found that the radiotherapy had damaged his bladder and bowels a lot, they tried to repair what was happening but his bowel was falling apart in his hands so he ended up making a high up ileostomy (brought the bowel out through the skin) high up in the bowel, and bringing up three fistulas in the bowel through his big abdominal wound, and putting in a drain and a catheter. It did not go very well to put it lightly, and it looked worse when urine started to come out through the drain site and the the big abdominal wound.
So while this has all been happening this guy has had to deal with the extra surgery, the IV's, TPN, the drains, being in hospital for a month, missing his family and friends. He refers to me as his angel, but i am probably anything but. Anyways, I was looking after him today and he looked up at me when I came in this morning and burst into tears. It is his wifes birthday on Friday and he can't even go out with her. All he would like to do is go out for a nice meal, but he can't treat her at all cause he is stuck in hospital and he wont be getting out for another couple of months I would say. So he was in tears, I felt so inadequate to give him any emotional support, I feel so terribly bad for him, but we can't do anything else for him either. Its so frustrating :\ My policy is if I can make my patients laugh once a day I have done a good job! So I managed to make him laugh at least twice today, if nothing else, it made me feel better. I dunno if it is all about me or all about them, but once in a while (in my case a VERY long while) the reason why I am nursing seems to be pretty clear and things are not so bad for a while.
Okay enough philosophising for one night, bed time for this sleepy nurse.
Laters
I looked after a guy that is about my dads age. He originally came in months ago and was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He had it removed and had a colostomy formed. He was then told he needed to have radiotherapy to completely clear everything up. Unfortunately what he didn't find out was that the radiotherapy would damage his bladder. He came back in to our ward about a month ago, lovely fella, I had looked after him before so we had a reasonable relationship. He had to have a catheter inserted cause he wasn't able to urinate well after the radiotherapy.
I looked after him a couple of weeks ago on the day that there started to be faecal matter(yup thats poop) coming out of his catheter. he went straight down for a CT and was taken to theatres that night for a laparotomy and exploration or his abdomen. They found that the radiotherapy had damaged his bladder and bowels a lot, they tried to repair what was happening but his bowel was falling apart in his hands so he ended up making a high up ileostomy (brought the bowel out through the skin) high up in the bowel, and bringing up three fistulas in the bowel through his big abdominal wound, and putting in a drain and a catheter. It did not go very well to put it lightly, and it looked worse when urine started to come out through the drain site and the the big abdominal wound.
So while this has all been happening this guy has had to deal with the extra surgery, the IV's, TPN, the drains, being in hospital for a month, missing his family and friends. He refers to me as his angel, but i am probably anything but. Anyways, I was looking after him today and he looked up at me when I came in this morning and burst into tears. It is his wifes birthday on Friday and he can't even go out with her. All he would like to do is go out for a nice meal, but he can't treat her at all cause he is stuck in hospital and he wont be getting out for another couple of months I would say. So he was in tears, I felt so inadequate to give him any emotional support, I feel so terribly bad for him, but we can't do anything else for him either. Its so frustrating :\ My policy is if I can make my patients laugh once a day I have done a good job! So I managed to make him laugh at least twice today, if nothing else, it made me feel better. I dunno if it is all about me or all about them, but once in a while (in my case a VERY long while) the reason why I am nursing seems to be pretty clear and things are not so bad for a while.
Okay enough philosophising for one night, bed time for this sleepy nurse.
Laters
4:53 AM
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Writing since January 2003!
web-counter? Maybe one day
BJ T now was S
Born in April on the 21st!
Australian but living in the USA.
Allison
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