We have a patient here in the ICU whose been admitted to the hospital for two months. That is a long time to be anywhere that’s not home, especially when you’re sick. She has been in the ICU for more than a month.
During the course of her hospitalization, her mother has become her rock—as you would expect. But what the mother has become to the health care providers cannot be described so nicely.
Is she controlling? Yes. Is she demanding? Yes. Is this understandable? Yes.
But has she turned her adult child into a will-less person who can’t speak for herself? Also yes. Does she coddle her and tell the nurses she won’t get out of bed because she’s tired when getting out of bed is literally the only thing that will help her get better at this point?
Does she ask the doctors for opiates and benzodiazepines on behalf of her daughter’s severe pain and anxiety? Does the daughter as a result always looked totally out of it and unable to participate in her own care?
I can actually feel myself getting angry as I write this. Then why am I even doing it, you may wonder? Because today, we were presented with a list of unacceptable and acceptable nurses to care for this patient. And we were gifted with a daily schedule from her mom, in coordination with our supervisor.
So, apparently the mom has caught on that the incentive spirometer is important. But she doesn’t seem to realize how important anything else is, nor does she seem to care that nurses may be off schedule due to their other patient’s medical condition or unavoidable delays in pharmacy or dietary.
Also, giving a critical care nurse a schedule like this insults the years they spent an education and training in order to become skilled enough to take care of patients who are trying to die all day every day. Not to mention that each critical care nurse usually has their own internal clock, rhythm and way of doing things. It follows the same trajectory as all the other nurses but also has individuality.
In the end, do you know what’s really happening here? This mother, who can’t come and be with her daughter right now, and who feels very lost because she cannot control the diabolical illness affecting her child, has chosen to lash out at the only thing she feels she can control. The nurses.
But we are not her employees, nor her slaves. We do our best to accommodate the families of our patients but in the end, WE DO WHAT’S BEST FOR OUR PATIENTS.
And in this case, it might be forcing her to get out of bed, go longer in between doses of Ativan and the big D Dilaudid so she can wipe her own face and FaceTime her own mother. Because, just to remind you, I work in an adult ICU.