Nursing Stress

My take on nursing one day at a time

Monday, October 23, 2006

~rough times~

I haven't written in quite a while now. I have had some things to work through personally and actually I haven't been able to write about it until now. For almost two months I have had a very close relative in my hospital. For about 3 weeks he was on my unit. This person was in with no life threatening problem it was just a simple infection which led to amputation of one leg. It was a comfort having this person on my unit and even in the hospital I felt so close to them although when they were on my unit I did not visit as often as I should have. Part of me did not want to always associate this room with them after they left IF something bad should have ever happened during that stay. Needless to say everyone I worked with became close to this relative and treated them as if it was their own family which I am ever so grateful for. This relative went home and stayed home for about a month and did exceptionally well. He was the healthiest I have seen him in years. Then one day he woke up a little unresponsive. After being in the ER all day he was finally admitted to my unit. He was even talking at this point and was perfically normal you couldn't even tell anything had happened. Throughout the night he took a turn for the worse. He coded a record number of times and eventually did not make it. He passed away on my floor something that I am having a hard time dealing with. Hearing a Code blue which is something that usually never makes me think twice I just work it and don't have anything emotional attached to it, but that night knowing it was MY relative they were working on oh it made my heart ache. This all happened two weeks ago and the past three days were my first days back. I have to say it was very hard. I think of him often and when I do get him out of my mind at work someone will come up to me to tell me how hard they worked on him trying to save him or to just tell me they were sorry for my loss. I have to say the first two nights back I had two very busy patients and it kept my mind off of it. I know he would want me to continue my job and continue helping people he was very proud of me and what I do. I don't want to let him down but right now it is so hard. Having to revisit that very spot where I had the worst night of my life is hard it is hard to not associate it with him. The very thing I did not want to happen happened. I tried to stay away when he was on my floor so I would not have those memories and now when Im not busy I get a flash of a memory and it kills me.
My question is has anyone ever dealt with this before and if so how did you work through it???