I talked to a therapist at the hospital a while back and she said that I should quit. I did quit but came back... in a different setting. I was working so hard, and so stressed out, 12 hour night shifts in the hospital, school, an un planned pregnancy, severe migraines, and my boyfriend leaving me all at the same time, I started taking prescribed muscle relaxants (didnt know I was pregnant) that I actually got into a car accident, on the highway, and nearly killed myself, and 5 other people.
I think working in that healthcare, in the medical profession, is so stressful to me, and also combined with those other factors though, ultimately led me to crash, literally.
Working in homehealth care is easier, but it is still tolling. I had tried a lot of avenues. My last is education. I would have to go back and get more schooling though. Right now I dont want to think about it.
It is to the point of me not being able to take care of myself anymore, or want to get out of bed.
I bet it does help if you have a supportive partner, mine, just wasn't there for me emotionally. A very cold ISTJ, was with him for 5 years...
The irony in all this is now, he is a nurse.
He threw in his engineering cap for a nurse hat. He see's that nursing is practical, stable and makes money such as common wisdom tells us, so now he is an LPN, in a nursing home.
Don't worry we don't work together, we used to though...for a coupple months
I've basically lived in various hospitals during 2009 and these are my observations.
While nearly all of the nurses that we've come into contact with have been quite sympathetic, there is most definitely a detachment there that I think is necessary in order to do that kind of job. This was especially pronounced in the skilled nursing facility my mother was at. From what I could see, there was not adequate support given to nurses for their emotional and mental health, at the facility we went to, each nurse had at least 12 patients and there were never more than 5 or so CNAs on duty. There were overworked, few resources (had to ration out ABD pads and saline solution!) poor structure and administration, and turnover was very high. I saw quite a few nurses start arguing with each other in front of us because of tensions.
When we transitioned my mother to home healthcare, the nurse basically showed up twice a week, slapped a bandage on, stuck a thermometer in my mother's mouth, and asked us to sign that he'd come for the day. There was even more detachment (sometimes he wouldn't even take off his coat!) and complete disrespect for my mother's condition and our situation.
I've found that hospice nurses have been the most caring and have the most critical thinking skills.
I think that when the nurse is the case manager, social worker, and nurse that puts a very heavy load on the nurse in question. What mechanisms does your organization have for caring for their nurses, nurse techs, and CNAs? Do you all have a way to talk about your grievances and feel like they will are recognized, understood, and proactively rectified? Saying just quit your job will alleviate some immediate stress but that doesn't make the compassion fatigue go away. Some people even refer to compassion fatigue as secondary PTSD. I know that nurses have to work 12-hour shifts for continuity of care, but when you have so many patients I'm not sure how they can keep all those people straight!
Compassion Fatigue Syndrome: What is It? Do You Have It? - Nursing Link This is a good lecture on compassion fatigue. I found it very informational.
Personally, I can say that if you as a nurse feel the way I do watching my mother suffer the way she is, I can only imagine what type of mental and emotional buffers and boundaries you and those who do this as an occupation have to erect in order to stay aboveboard. I have nothing but complete and total respect for you all. I mean to wipe the feces, urine, and other bodily fluids from a stranger, feed them, clothe them, deal with their anger, anxiety and pain. It's a lot.
I'm pretty sure I have compassion fatigue and it's difficult to deal with. The people who I've spoken to about this have their loved one die rather quickly and not something dragged out over a year so they don't quite understand, to watch a formerly vibrant person downward spiral into dementia and a bedridden invalid. And what makes it worse is they're not unaware, they understand and know what's happening to them. My mother has apologized for being a burden on us and we have to tell her that she's not a burden, we love her, we'd do anything for her. It's very heartbreaking. I'm just stuffing until we emerge.
I am curious why you aimed this at NFs though. I must say, I think most of the people who do this are SFs...are you looking for a uniquely NF perspective on this? What do you think would differ in getting an NF perspective? I hope I'm not going to drag something in this that has nothing to do with the discussion (well I am and but I'm doing it
) I find more nobility of purpose in the people who are the so-called boots on the ground, who actually come into contact with the patients instead of abstractly feeling their pain from afar. I hear a lot of talk about empathy on this section of the forum, but I don't see very much of it. I think there's something to be said of tangibly immersing yourself in such experiences, there's a knowledge and perspective that you obtain that just looking at it and theoretically thinking about it pales in comparison.
I think you're going through it now and you see how hard it is to touch it and be in it rather than just looking at it. It's tough not to crack, I've seen people crack and it's not easy or pretty and you feel like you're the weakest link when everyone is trying hard and honestly moving towards the same goal and breaking is the difference between life and death.
Since people don't really talk to each other about this, no one really knows how anyone else is feeling and miss out on the comfort and peace the comes with not going through something like this alone. I know that I've gotten so angry and frustrated with myself and members of my family. We yell and argue then apologize to each other after it's over because there needs to be a release valve.
No one, has told us or given us methods for successfully navigating though this time, nobody gets into the nitty gritty of this. I know because I've looked and looked. I mean if you don't want to dope your loved one up on lorazepam, clonazepam or other anti-psychotics or anti-anxiety meds how are you to deal? My mother takes swings at us, bit us, cursed us out, kicked and scratched. Is the only alternative to artificially sedate them into placid acceptance? And like I said, many patients oftentimes know and understand what's going on and they resist and are not passive. I just don't view that quality of life. It's like being comatose until you die, there's no dealing with anything. Your learn a lot of patience and keep in mind this is someone you love and basically we have to ride it out, with the sad realization this is not permanent. It's a hard balance, caring for yourself so you can still be functional and still caring for your loved one or patients.
I think this was just as much of a rant for me, but I do feel what you're saying. Believe me I do.
