"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."
Erma Bombeck
10.18.2006
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3 comments:
there is a definite line no doubt.
i crossed that line when my 2nd born ended up in a trauma unit then the PICU. Then came our youngest, a 24 weeker who happened to spend 132 days in mommy's unit. I really learned a lot about trust and objectivity then. For the record, when it came to my own micropreemie, I had no objectivity. Thank God we all survived and thrived and my former co-workers are still friends.
When my husband went in for his abdominal pain and it was discovered that (1) he was diabetic and (2) his gall bladder was gangrenous, I nearly lost it.
In fact, I started an entire different blog than "Emergiblog" to get my feelings out.
When life gives you lemonade, you blog!
Seriously, I take care of dying people every day and while my husband was nowhere near critical, I could hardly handle him in a hospital gown.
I wonder if we are overloading anyone, at a certain point they stop absorbing what we are saying. Kind of like a protective mechanism. I know I'll tell family much more detail than a patient, but while I knew my aunt was dying - when it takes four drips to maintain your BP, you are in trouble - I had to maintain hope for their sake.
It isn't easy....
The fact that you're asking these questions means that you're a good nurse and a good person.
People come to you because you're a resource of information whether it's patients, families, your family, or even your friends.
I still have a difficult time with "the line" when it comes to family and friends. And, sometimes it's personal and private information.
When that happens to me, I thank them for confiding in me. But, it's more complicated than I think I can handle as their friend or family member, I gently refer them to their physician. Sometimes it's better to play the role of the friend rather than the person giving them medical advice.
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