Today, I was giving a lunch break to one of our nurses. While he was gone, his patient who had just undergone repeat femoral endarterectomy and stent placement woke up. She was thirsty, hypertensive and bore a passing resemblance to Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren from the HBO series Orange Is the New Black. She had an infectious laugh and easily showed appreciation as I took her through some standard post-op tasks…
One of the things we needed to do was get her blood pressure under control. We were targeting a systolic less than 160mmHg in order to prevent bleeding from any of her surgical sites. She did not believe that any blood pressure meds would work for her, however. She explained that even though she knew she should, she just didn’t take her meds.
So as I gave her some intravenous anti hypertensive, I turned the monitor towards her. & instructed her on how to watch her blood pressure, changing second by second via arterial line. She was amazed when 10mg of hydralazine successfully lowered her BP from the 180s systolic to the 140s. As she watched the numbers changed, she expressed her amazement and newfound commitment to taking her blood pressure medication— now that someone had finally shown her that it worked!
I spent a few more minutes chatting with her about how high blood pressure can damage blood vessels leading to the type of clotting and clogging that required the type of surgery she just had. I could see little light bulbs coming on in her eyes
As I was preparing to leave her room, she expressed her gratitude for showing her that medication can work. I thanked her for her openness to learning about her health. The truth is that when I can make a difference for patients like her, I am more grateful to be a nurse.