I haven't written much for a while but I learned early on if you don't have anything to say keep your mouth shut...OK, so I don't always listen but something happened recently that seem important enough to share.
I read something about people being lazy, naturally lazy....I'm not. Really, I'm not. I just have things I'd rather be doing. I am also a little bit of a fighter, the stubborn two year old who just says "No" because she likes the sound of it (Those attitudes turned me into a procrastinator waiting to do things at the last minute). Anyway.....we have a program at work called Progressive Mobility...a fancy name for "get the patients out of bed and moving...no excuse unless they are paralyzed or have guts showing." Ugh....I have things to do...don't we all....I do it anyway...slowly walking a patient around the unit when I want to run, taking 20 minutes to get him or her ready to walk two steps to the commode only to find the patient is too tired to walk back...Sound familiar? OK, picture painted.
Well, the other day I had the pleasure of seeing someone I hadn't seen in years. We used to be sort of close, close enough to go fishing together with the family close. We were just chatting nonsense...how's the kids, blah blah....when she confided in me how she couldn't remember much anymore. It took me by surprise. She never was much of a drinker and didn't do "recreational drugs" so I was more than a little bit surprised. Then she went on to say "Ever since I was sick I can't remember. I was in the hospital back in 2010 with pneumonia and was on a machine for a month. I don't remember much of it. I couldn't walk when I got out. My balance was off real bad. It took a long time before I was well again."
I didn't know what to say. I felt bad that we had been out of touch for so long that I didn't know about it....then I felt even worse for all those times I didn't want to walk my patients or put things off until the last minute. Often we don't have the time to do the rehab part of a patient's getting well but rehab shouldn't start late. We (as in the medical and nursing community) have learned to use less sedation on ventilator patients ( a good thing) and to get our patients up and moving faster and earlier (also a good thing). Getting them up and going with as little medications as possible makes for a stronger, healthier patient who returns to their life because they have things to do, too.
Bottom line is I was humbled. Humbled by the thought of the things I do for people make a big impact on their lives. Sometimes it takes a friend to help you see the important things in life. Mine did. I hope I just did, too.
