<p>Wow, sounds like a doctor with an empathy problem. No matter what the issue, it is always hard to deal with some of the procedures involved. She must have never had any health problems in her entire life!</p>
<p>re humor and physicians:</p>
<p>My DH is a doc with a good sense of humor. However, he always takes cues from patients. He generally tests the waters very carefully before âgoing there.â But his favorite patients and experiences in medicine have often been with people who go through life ready to see the lighter side, even in the most dire situations. My advice: if you have a sense of humor, and are comfortable with your doc sharing his/her humorous side, open up a little. You might be surprised at the response you get.</p>
<p>Anecdote: Patients who take things to the next level make his day:
A little old (85 plus) lady patient of his needed abdominal surgery. In the pre-op visit, he jokingly told her that he would be doing a nice low incision so that she would still be able to wear her bikini. Guess what she wore to the post op check, under her dress?</p>
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<p>That is funny. In a frightening kind of way but⊠still really funny.</p>
<p>Did he give her a tummy tuck too? ;)</p>
<p>Riverrunner - thanks for posting that! I was signing on specifically to post something similar. I think I have a good sense of humor, and I have been on both sides - as patient and as nurse - but I do feel that humor must be patient-guided somewhat. Regardless of the severity of illness or procedure, the most negative memories I have are those where I felt laughed at, not with â that left me feeling belittled.</p>
<p>Pain is, by nature, subjective. For one person to decide what is painful to another is the height of arrogance. Iâve had nurses reading my labor monitors tell me that my contractions didnât hurt. (A futile argument at the best of times. When I delived my baby 2 hours later, with contractions that still âdidnât hurtâ according to the monitor, people quit debating their strength.)</p>
<p>Iâve had the vision test that Cur describes, and did not find it in the least painful. Perhaps a bit irritating - start to see flashes of light when none exist! But thatâs just me. I would certainly not insist that someone else feel what I felt. And, for clarification - I donât think Cur or his D did, either. I am sure she was trying to lighten the moment and not ridicule the patient. There is a difference between laughter being a âgood medicineâ and laughter being the cause of more pain.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my last mamogram left me feeling bruised for 3 months. How dare anyone insist that it was inconsequential. Iâve never been a fan of the âit could be worseâ method of pain control. Pain is a warning sign to the body that something is wrong. It is a bad message to give to a patient that reporting pain is wrong.</p>
<p>My favorite docs, though, have great senses of humor. My current internist and PA are both quick and personable - Makes the bad news much easier to bear, because I feel like a person with them, not a disease. </p>
<p>I am glad that the person LTS had helping her was someone who had not lost sight of her as a person with worth and dignity. Since she was new on the job, this may have been a new thing for her - but believe me, it is not as uncommon as you might think.</p>
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Truly. I guess we could say humor is sort of like a scalpel. It can heal or hurt. Itâs all in the motivation and skill of the user.</p>
<p>Amazing intern and great story, LTS but geez, hasnât the hospital heard of the <em>gentle</em> laxative? ;)</p>
<p>May the road be downhill and the wind be at your back from here on!</p>
<p>LTS, I am surprised your hospital has no mechanism for praising staff. Our local major hospital, and in fact even the smaller hospitals in the outlying area, all have a mechanism in place to accept praise (as well as complaints) about hospital employees. For the major institution I work at, the posotove comments are shared with the staff member, and usually with coworkers in a public way. The name of the commenting individual is left off, but the comments are typed up on a flashy âsomeone had something nice to sayâ type of form. A copy is given to the employee, (the original is placed in their file), and a copy is posted on a floor bulletin board put up just for that reason. Patients often see the board on each floor/wing while ambulating. The comments are easy to come by. All patients receive something to fill out, ranking their experience with nursing staff, imaging staff, their attending physician, etc. At then end of the form, there is an open space asking if there was any one person or incident they would like to comment about. The form can contain both negative and positive feedback. To be honest, I am not sure how the negative feedback is handled, but the positive feedback gets back to the individual, as well as their supervisors and coworkers. It really fosters a positive community. In our area, there is often a shortage of good nurses and other health care workers. The hospital has found that recognizing good deeds and special employees helps moral, and helps keep those employees in place for the long term. </p>
<p>I am not surprised that you had pneumonia. It sounded like you were hypoxic, and without enough oxygen to the brain you would not remember the inicdents of the first few days. And you would not remember that you did not remember!!! I am glad that you are breathing easier and that your pipes are clearing. Sometimes, when you got to go, you have got to go.</p>
<p>I could tell you were having a tough time in the hospital when I saw my first ever LTS typo! I was very happy to see your more recent posts perfectly typed. :)</p>
<p>Curm, your daughter would run circles around me. It would take me three weeks to think up a comment like that - and I would not be able to deliver it with such poise. LOL. I read somewhere once that humor is the highest form of communication, and those persons like your daughter who can pull off a spontaneous one liner with such grace are very rare. </p>
<p>No resume from the young woman yet, but, I am hopeful that perhaps she is just polishing it, and I will see it in a few days. </p>
<p>Today we saw my primary oncologist. He is shocked that I am discharged from the hospital. He said I am dehydrated; he delivered fluids via IV, and we have some instructions to follow regarding getting food into me.</p>
<p>Can your onc get you readmitted? Do you want to be back in the hospital? Not that anyone really does, but do you feel like it would be the best place for you to continue to stabilize? Was your pulse ox still over 95%? (Iâm assuming the onc checked it.)</p>
<p>CountingDown, thereâd be no point in it now. The day I was discharged I asked myself, did the hospital solve my problem, did I accomplish what I went there to do? I guess the answer is sort of âyesâ, in that the shortness of breath issue is resolved. But they left me with some new problems it seemsâŠ</p>
<p>Oxygen level was reporting out between 94-98, is that what you mean? I am not on any oxygen therapyâŠ</p>
<p>OK, so I worry. LTS, are you living in the same apartment that was flooded?</p>
<p>âOxygen level was reporting out between 94-98, is that what you mean? I am not on any oxygen therapyâŠâ</p>
<p>Well, thatâs MUCH better than the 88% that bought you that hospital admission!!</p>
<p>I hope you are staying home in that new air conditioning this week; if you must got to the office, promise youâll take and air conditioned taxi and not walk to the Metro in this gross, humid air.</p>
<p>I was just blown away by what you recounted yesterday. Enduring the physical difficulties, yet displaying mental strength, humour, and matter of factness about it, and the concern for this exceptional nurse/tech intern, are amazing. Recovering from pneumonia alone would knock anyone else out.
Seems to me the powers that be are aligning you with all the right people. I keep thinking back to your first onc, the one who wanted to put you on palliative care. He had no idea about who he was dealing with.
Hope you get the resume soon, that you have the opportunity to have her on your terrific team.
Wishing you continued stabilization and a re****l night.</p>
<p>My sister is a surgery nurse and one day a teenaged girl came in for deviated septum (nose) surgery. She had her childhood Pooh bear with her, and her mom was trying to get her to give it to mom since it was filthy and shouldnât go into surgery. My sister said to let the girl take it and my sister would take care of it.</p>
<p>Well, the Pooh bearâs nose was gone. So while the girl was still out, my sister took the black rubber end off a syringe and stitched it onto Pooh for a nose. Then she bandaged it up just like the girlâs nose. The girl was so delighted when she woke up.</p>
<p>She wrote a poem about the nurse who fixed her nose and sent it to the hospital along with a picture of her and Pooh with their bandaged noses. The hospital loved it, and my sister got a big nursing award in front of everyone.</p>
<p>I thought that was wonderful that the girl took the time to do that and really express her appreciation. My sister was tickled with all the attention. :)</p>
<p>Timely: What a wonderful story! Bravo to both your sister and to the girl!</p>
<p>If youâre up to it, a letter to the president/director of the hospital with a cc to the chair of the board should at least get some notice, if there are no other vehicles for reporting positive service from an employee.</p>
<p>A well meaning poster recently asked that the wind be at your backâŠwhich I know is a wish for âeasy sailingâ butâŠgiven some of your recent stories of not being able to get to the facilities on timeâŠyou might prefer the wind occasionally be blowing the other way!</p>
<p>(My first post on this thread, but another lurker through the life of this threadâŠwishing you all the best.)</p>
<p>Yes, if it can be managed, LTS would probably prefer to be upwind of her own wind!</p>
<p>(Tactless, but couldnât resist)</p>
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<p>âLao Tzu</p>