overdose, not the drug variety

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I write these medicinal posts to remind myself that perception is the majority of my reality. If I can see something as funny, then it's clearly not overwhelming

There's an approach to patient care that is all about treating the whole patient. Sometimes the 'whole patient' also means the family--because if the family is stressed, the odds are good that the patient will get stressed (and then the odds are really good that the nurse will get stressed). Rarely, the stress jumps straight from the family to the nurse, skipping the patient entirely. That happened today. My patient, a cancer survivor, was smiling and chatty. His mom was also chatty, but she'd leave some sentences hanging, or switch topics, or talk really fast. I really didn't know what she was talking about a lot of the time, but I listened in hopes that it would absorb some of her stress. It worked. I got stressed. Fleetingly, thankfully.

Truthfully, I like when family is involved in the patient care. They can be REALLY helpful. I was trying to ask a bunch of admission questions to one of my patients:
"How many fruits and vegetables do you normally have?"
 'I try to have a lot. I love pineapple juice'
 "Okay, so do you have 1-2 servings with each meal?"
'I don't eat as many fruits/vegetables as I should'
"Okay, so how many do you eat?"
'You have good teeth'
Then the family came and we were able to work out what she normally has, and move on to other questions.


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