Personal Narrative: Death Of A Nurse

‘I don’t want to lose her,’ I kept repeating in my head trying to look strong for her. I was trying to not show how scared I was, trying to stop bursting into tears the second I saw her in the state she was. She was so weak and there was nothing I could do to help, except stay out of the doctor’s way. There were nurses and doctors rushing around and giving me a strange look until realization dawned on them. I was at the hospital with my mom around 10 at night, in my pajamas, wondering what was going to happen to her and if she was going to be okay.

Today I shadowed a registered nurse. I saw a variety of appointments. The first pt was in for a well child check up. The nurse recorded her vital signs and asked several safety concern questions about her lifestyle and home life. The pt also received a portion of the HPV vaccine. The HPV vaccine can cause fainting spells or an allergic reaction, so the pt had to wait 15 minutes after receiving the vaccine for observance purposes(S). Between each pt, the rooms were cleaned and a new sheet of paper was stretched out over the bed(IC). The next pt was a 6-week-old baby who had been hospitalized for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV(D) is a common and very contagious virus that affects the respiratory tract. RSV in babies can lead to serious problems like breathing rapidly and cause the lips and fingernails to become cyanotic(MT1). The last pt has a history of repeated ear infections. The doctor suggested a

It was the winter of 2013; I could hear the beat of my heart get louder and louder as I was anxiously waiting to hear back from the doctor. Not a second went by that I was not praying for my dad’s life. Finally, a kindhearted nurse practitioners walk in the door to give us the latest update on my dad’s condition. Her optimistic words and positive attitude gave me every ounce of hope I needed to cling onto. My dad was fighting for his life in the operating room. This was his second open heart surgery caused by a rupture mitral valve. The urgency of the situation was intensified by the backflow of blood to his lungs. My family and I had no other choice but to consent to the risky operation that had only a fifty percent survival possibility. Prior to the heart attack that left him in critical state he had given up on doctor prescribed medication and instead turned to herbal therapy. He was consuming some unusual looking liquid contained in big amber bottle that he had brought back from Pakistan. Upon asking he expressed his frustration in complying with his doctor prescribed heart regimen. He said he found ease in taking the liquid herbs and also felt much better without all the side effects. At the time I tried my best to convince him of the danger of discontinuing his heart medication but all in vain. After the nightmare we all went through, he has promised to comply with his medication. He nonetheless still constantly complains about the side effects he experiences and

The Josie King story is truly unimaginable. I wish I could review her chart to better understand how she fell through the cracks. It seems hard to believe that the signs of increasing dehydration went unnoticed or even worse, were viewed as ‘normal’. Even more difficult to believe is that the nurses were unable to create a partnership with the mother. In the story, it seems as if the mom was dismissed as a partner in the process and felt as if no one was listening to her. Although a family member may not have the medical knowledge a nurse has, they have knowledge of their child and that is lost without their help. What would have happened if the nurse spent a moment to understand where Josie’s mother was coming from or called the doctor to communicate her symptoms? Did she truly believe her symptoms were normal or was she too busy with something else? It shouldn’t be possible to have a child be NPO without IV fluids running. While it takes children a long time to stop compensating, I’m sure there were signs of dehydration. During a bath, the mom notes how furiously Josie was sucking on a wet washcloth. If it was known that she was not drinking, how could these signs have been missed? It seems as though a total breakdown in obvious behavior and team communication is evident. The care delivery model failed to keep Josie safe. The nurse or team assigned seemed to lack knowledge of symptoms and the skill sets present did not work to make up for another team members deficits.

It was very challenging to do much of anything because my body was so weak from the hit and from being on medication. I was not put on a catheter, so anytime I needed to use the restroom I had to wait for a nurse to come to my room and put a bedpan under me. It was a very uncomfortable situation because I don’t even change or use the restroom in front of my dog and now these people, who are complete strangers, are watching me while I use the restroom. My last day at the hospital was very hard. I had to go to physical therapy, where I had to hop up several steps only using my left leg and railing to help me. It may not seem like it was hard but when your body is so weak it is. When the nurses brought in the crutches for me to use I was so weak

I always thought that there was a secret, a truth privy only to those who had experienced it, about coping with death. Having never encountered it in my fifteen years of life, death seemed a mystery, and those left in its wake even more so. Rationality being my forte, I determined that they must know something that I didn't, because in my mind every question had an answer and every problem, a solution. I concluded that there must be a secret, some way to bear the toll that death takes and move on. Eventually my mind was filled with other things, more questions needing answers, more problems needing solutions, so I pushed my existential one to the back of my mind. Little did I know, the real answer would find its way to me, as answers always seem to do when you stop looking for them.

Slightly pushing you out of the way I run to our mother who’s laying on the kitchen floor with a needle in her arm. She told me that it was her medicine, that if she didn’t have it she would die. How ironic. I never told you because I didn’t want you to pick up on the lie. You were always smarter than me even at a young age.

We all suffer loss of loved ones through death. Loss is inevitable. We never truly get over our losses but we get through it overtime. This is the molding and shaping of the adult we are supposed to become. The day my grandfather passed away I felt I had lost everything in a blink of an eye. He was the only grandparent I had left. Nothing could bring him back. He was gone. I never thought he would have passed away so quickly The Melanoma had won the war. His life was over and so was mine. Overtime I became a man of faith and this only strengthened me as a christian. This was a test of my faith.

The train station wasn't to far from my apartment. It was only a short walk away. I took it to see my mother every other weekend because she lived alone and needed the company. I stepped out of my building with an over night bag in hand and began walking through the cold air. The branches over the sidewalk had no leaves in them. Everything was bare and dead because of the brutal winter cold.

After four months of unglamorous international travel followed by four more months of endless, demoralizing doctor’s visits and hospital stays I returned to Miami worse for wear. Eight months without seeing my friends and barely keeping in touch through infrequent phone calls and texts meant that the vague, untested friendships I had made before my semester off had almost completely fizzled. Facing my mortality had subtly affected the way I acted and completely changed my perspective on life; making it difficult to reconnect with old acquaintances and to relate to the few friends I kept throughout my treatment.

Due to a miscommunication, my first day at the hospital was in the ER to work with a nurse. I was extremely disappointed. Turns out, Grey's Anatomy isn’t the reality. Stuck analyzing the codes of a screen I began to wish I had not shown up.

First I was sitting on the big couch and my Mother’s phone rang. So I got up off the couch and quickly ran to the phone. I looked at the phone number and it reads a name, not a phone number. Who was calling, it was my Nana. I said “Hello,” “Madison, can you put your Mom or your Dad on the phone,” Nana said. “Dad is not here, but here is mom, she is in the laundry room and here she is, bye.”

On September 25, 2016, I found out that my mother collapsed in her apartment and went to the hospital and was in a coma. All I could do was pray that she’d wake up and that the doctors do everything in their power to take care of her. After 3 months she finally woke up from her coma and the very first thing I did was thank the doctors that helped her wake up from the coma. When I grow up I want to be thanked for saving lives and taking care of people just like the people that saved my mother. I’ve always had a passion for becoming a doctor especially doctors that take care of kids and babies ever since I was young. Whenever there was a chance for me to babysit, I was always ready.

Filing a grievance against another person would be a complaint over something that was wrong or not fair. In this case filing a grievance because of harassment is ethical because harassment is never a good thing. Before filing a grievance the nurse could go and talk to the coworker along with their manager to see if there is a solution to the harassment. If this does not occur then a grievance should follow. The nurse who has committed the harassment should not be acting in this way because this is affecting the other nurse’s working environment. “The most fundamental universal principle is respect for people.” The nurse being harassed is not being respected by the coworker, which means that the conduct of the coworker is wrong. You can also

During my college career, I had the privilege of working at Express Healthcare in Harriman, TN, under the supervision of many doctors, primarily Dr. Robert Taylor MD. To begin with, I was responsible for organizing and bringing patient charts to a physician when they were needed. After working at the clinic for several months, I was allowed to triage new patients, so that the attending physician would be better prepared to treat the patient efficiently. Triaging patients was a new experience that I enjoyed immensely. I learned from the patients that many of them were commuting from rural areas to get access to healthcare professionals. The majority of the patients I dealt with were recovering addicts. The most touching moment that caused me to want to push myself further and