Nurse story: nursing contribution in patient accompaniment

I have spent weeks rotating in a ward, doing endless nursing functions, such as administering medication, performing arterial blood gases, cures, analytical... among various techniques. And perhaps the most important of my functions has been to accompany the sick. We are living a new period, a new normality, as the media say, and among all this there are thousands of patients alone in their rooms.

From the nursing control cell phones can be heard ringing and in the corridors you can hear how many of them try to reassure their relatives, affirming that they are fine, regardless of whether it is so or not. Likewise, on the other side of the coin, those patients who do allow a visit are in a minority, for whatever reason they consider, such as being dependent persons. And you can also see in their features the gratitude they feel towards the one who is taking care of them.

There are days that even seem eternal to me, as if the hands of the clock had stopped, and even you surely know that feeling, well, that feeling is what I have discovered that many of the patients have in their admission days.

You walk into their room and what they want most, apart from being taken care of, is a topic of conversation and a person to be with. Any technique that you are going to do seems enough to them to spend a few minutes of those twenty-four hours talking to someone. It is a form of distraction, to escape from those problems that are on their minds, or in the same way, in certain circumstances it helps them to get rid of those same problems.

An example of this was an elderly male patient who was hospitalized for about two weeks because after many tests they did, they could not identify where the symptoms came from. Every day, first thing in the morning, when I went to administer the medication, he would find himself standing looking out the window. I would go over to say good morning and ask him how he was doing and although as a matter of routine he would make a joke to make me laugh, since he was quite a smiling man, as the days went by I noticed a certain sadness or despair on his face.

When I noticed that feeling in that man, I was left with my head down because I didn't know how to help, it was the first time I had faced something like this. I left the hospital wondering what I could do so that he, and any other patient in the future, would not feel like this. After careful thought and some advice from a seasoned nurse, I decided that talking to him more slowly might make him forget I was there or whatever was on his mind for at least that long.

Nursing story: Contribution of nursing in monitoring patients

The next morning when I went to take his blood pressure, I spent more time than other days talking to him about the weather, and from there I started talking about Christmas, anecdotes from when he was young and various other topics . So I noticed that he was gaining more confidence in me and that thanks to this, after a few days he dared to ask me how he could talk to his grandchildren by sending them audios with his mobile, since they spoke to him on "WhatsApp" but he did not know how. to answer. Once he learned, I perceived illusion in his eyes and I felt proud and satisfied to have served him for something more than the purely technical and at the same time to have managed to reach him.

In this way, after having learned to use his cell phone, every day around two in the afternoon when his grandchildren left school, he talked to them for a while about how their day had gone, and his tone of voice he changed instantly, life was perceived in the environment and his face became happier.

Meanwhile, even though she loved talking to her grandchildren and laughed a lot when she heard them, once she put the phone down and her mind wandered back to her hospital room, I sometimes noticed a certain loneliness in it. Well, the need for skin-to-skin contact is something that neither technology can make us forget, nor can they match. It seems that the further away we are from someone, the more we want to be with that person.

He himself told me that he was afraid of being there alone because he was realizing that the time he had left might be short and he wanted to be with his family, that he didn't care what and when he died, but he wanted to feel accompanied .

In the same way, this pattern of loneliness was common in most of the patients who were hospitalized for several days. They affirmed that they felt frustration and boredom from being locked up in those four walls, that every day seemed the same to them and that no matter how much entertainment they sought, such as doing crossword puzzles, sudoku, reading or watching television, it did not help them to stop their heads from spinning. plot.

Consequently, I have been able to observe that each patient has a different way of coping with said nostalgia, often consistent with their character, since there are people who easily show their feelings by crying, through verbal expressions, etc. And on the other hand, in the case of the patient described, having a more intrinsic personality, he initially kept everything to himself.

For this reason, I would like to point out that as health personnel, although we cannot work miracles and provide patients with everything we would like, we can make their stay more enjoyable. A simple caress, a question of interest or giving them a smile can be the drop of the necessary potion to make them feel cared for and loved.

Since we know what it is like to be separated from our own, more than ever we can put ourselves in the shoes of the sick, in other words, we can be assertive. And our profession, nursing, is an extraordinary weapon to combat said isolation or loneliness.

In short, this experience has made me recognize the true work behind nursing in general, and the beautiful bond that can be created between nurse and patient.

In addition, I point out that I am struck by the breadth and relevance of the nursing care function compared to what is studied in the degree. And equally, I agree that any show of love, support and kindness towards the patient can change their state of mind, and this can indirectly influence their illness from both a physical and psychological point of view, thus improving their quality of life. .

Therefore, I invite all nursing to dedicate a little more as much as possible to accompaniment, although many times this duty cannot be fulfilled as much as desired.

Therefore, and to conclude, I want to add that we have a profession that is very dedicated to others and we must pay tribute to it. In order to also show the importance of nursing care, since they are normally not valued as they deserve.

Author:Nerea Rodríguez Retuerto