Most people think that it is a wife's responsibility to take care her husband when he is ill or dying. However, they forget that a wife is also human who has her own needs. Caring for a dying husband most probably perceived as a punishment for the wife because obviously she has to witness the her beloved husband's journey to death.To care for a dying person, we need an extraordinary strength and family support to keep ourselves survive after we join the battle with those who are dying.
How about the care for a people who has brain death but his body still alive? He probably can listen to what you say to him and can see what you do to him but he just can't give any respond to you. Maybe he want to tell you that he is tired lying on the bed or he want to walk around and see the beautiful flowers in the garden instead of facing the same ceiling all the times. He may need you to bath, feed, change clothes, brush teeth etc for him. In some people's perception, he is a burden to the family but if you are a nurse, do you see him as a responsibility or anything else?
There was another fine day
before the wife had to leave him alone at hospital.
"Can you please
help me take care of my husband?" She approached me and explained that she had to leave her husband for few days due to some personal issues. The
moment I nodded my head, I could see how relieved she was. She told me
everything what his husband required during hospitalisation such as feeding via
nasogastric tube every three hour and position him every four hours.
The next day, I was in
my morning shift. I saw he was alone, blinking his eyes towards the ceiling. Nobody talked
to him as his wife did and nobody cares what he may need except for some
nursing interventions. It was a busy day for me that we needed to in-charged more than
thirty patients in that ward. So, I can't spend long time with him as his
wife did.
When I was busy with my
works, suddenly one of the caregivers approached me to tell me that the she needed help from me for the stroke patient. This was because the gauze that inserted into his mouth was wet which aims to prevent him from
clenching teeth or bite his own tongue. To insert back the
gauze into his mouth, it needed two people as one will insert the gauze while the other will
insert suctioning tube into his tracheostomy to stimulate his gag reflex and
open his mouth. He was suffering during
the insertion of suctioning tube as he gag and tears rolled from his eyes. He couldn't tell me that he didn't like it but I knew it was really uncomfortable. I tried to insert the gauze into his mouth and it was successfully done.
After that, I saw he was fulled with sweat and drooling of saliva. So, I used his face towel and wet it to wipe his face
and body in order make him felt comfortable. When I wiped his face, his
eyes looked directly contact into my eyes. Through his eyes, somehow I can
feel his feeling of grateful and he seemed like wanted to thank me for helped him out. I'm pretty
sure that if he was able to speak, he definitely will say "thank you,
nurse." I talked to him during positioning and
suddenly there was a piece of mind that played in my mind.
I remembered that how touching it was to see his wife pouring her love to care him. During that
moment, it was now my turn to feel the experience of to caring a completely paralyzed patient. When
I did the same thing as her wife asked for, I felt the love from my heart to this
patient. "A sincere love from a nurse to a patient." Perhaps it is exactly as what I may feel if I have
family member fall into his condition. So, did I care him just because I am a nurse?
My answer is "no". Nurses should not only take the value of caring as a responsibility but it should be taken as the nature of nursing. I care for him not because it is my responsibility as a nurse but it is because I have compassion heart that blessed with God's love.
That is what I will do exactly the same to all my patients. Caring for them..
No comments:
Post a Comment