Catherine and I spent our morning together at hospice again. We met up with another nurse who was cooking when we knocked on the iron doors. She ushered us in and had us clean up our first patient. We spent a good hour and fifteen minutes with him. It was nice to see him after a week but it was hard seeing how his health had decreased. After finishing up all of our tasks, we were brought into another patient's room. Although I've only worked with her twice, she's already become my favorite patient in Peru. She's only been in hospice for about a month and a half but from what we've heard, when she came in, she was in rough shape. She wouldn't eat or move and she wasn't very compliant with the nursing tasks that needed to be completed on a daily basis.
When Catherine and I walked in to the room, her face immediately brightened and she greeted us with warm hellos. I played some music for her and sang while we changed her clothes and washed her up. Since hospice is unbelievably short-staffed, it is difficult to spend the time needed with patients to get them better, both physically and psychosocially. The nurse didn't move us to a new room after we finished cleaning her up so I continued to work with her by doing range of motion and stretching. She complained a bit at first but after singing to her a bit more and letting her know that it would be painful now but make her more comfortable later, she began to become more enthusiastic about it. Towards the end of my time in her room today, she was stretched out and comfortable. She said she'd work on the goals I gave her and said she wanted to see me tomorrow to help her get better.
My time with her today made me realize why I chose to stick with nursing. There have been times when I've thought about if it was the right track for me, if my heart was completely in it, and if I had the heart to care for patients who wouldn't remember my name or who I was. While stretching my patient's legs, I looked up at her and saw her gritting her teeth through the pain but when we made eye contact, she smiled and that's when I knew I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I'm meant to be doing. The sheer amount of determination she had to become healthier gave me the courage to move forward with what I know I'm capable of and let the rest of my worries work themselves out. There aren't many moments in my life where I'm not thinking about what else I have to accomplish, the emails I have to send, the homework I have to complete, or the people I need to talk to, but after doing some reflection, I've realized that when I'm with my patients, that's all there is. It's just me and my patient. It's moments like that which make me realize how precious life is. The people we know, the memories we make, and the lives we touch, whether we know it or not, are what make life important. My dad's been telling me this for years, but it wasn't until know that I truly understood what he's been trying to get through my thick skull. When I'm thinking back about my life when I'm older, I'll be thinking about the moments that caused me to tear up, that made my chest tighten, made me rethink all that I thought I had known, not the days I spent watching TV, reading a mindless book, or wasting time. Spending time doing things that draw up pure emotion is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life, and nursing is the perfect avenue for that to happen.
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