Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Long Haul
I had the great pleasure of a long-awaited cuddle with one of my primary patients today.I know, not traditionally a nursing outcome, certainly nothing mentioned about it in the NANDA diagnoses, but after an extended PICU admission, with other patients not so lucky along the way, you love to see that one make it to the ward. The reassurance of an angry, coughing, hungry, tired baby wriggling in your arms for a few seconds is a reward born of many hours of worry and concentration.
Maybe I over-dramatise, I don't know. I do know I didn't want to put her down. Good way to end the day.
Posted by PaedsRN at 2:44 AM
That's the best way to end the day when you're working in the units!
Oh I hear you on this one!!
There's an indelible image in my brain, from my training days very long ago: it was a nurse sitting in a rocking chair next to a baby's bed, rocking the little thing lovingly, with tears streaming down her cheeks. I don't remember what the illness was -- cancer maybe -- but I remember the nurse exactly, and her empathy for her patients.