Can't stop being troubled by what I heard (woman, husband, feelings)
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It's not like me to write something like this, I just need to get it off my heart, and maybe just sharing with you all will be curative in itself, and any kind response would also be very much appreciated.
On television about a week ago I heard something that hurt my heart so deeply, I'm don't seem to be getting over it, and it keeps coming back into my mind...I can hear the guys voice and word for word what he said. If you are a sensitive soul as I am, read no further, truly, because I don't want it to get lodged in your soul as well.
He was a nurse and said he saw a young woman dying. He used these exact words "Usually I don't have the patience to stay with a person while they die, but I liked her pajamas so I went over there to maybe get to know her a little."
Maybe it was an extremely poor choice of words, but there are so many of them on so many different levels. It sounded like he was saying that people don't die fast enough (he does not have the patience for it). His call to "empathy" so as to not just leave her there dying alone was driven by the fact that he said he liked her pajamas! and he said essentially based on this, she became worthy of his time so he talked to her for a little while.
I don't know how to process this in my soul. That was one of the most heartless things I've ever heard, and the fact that he thought it was okay made it worse. He was not troubled in the least.
I'm a practical person. I watched my husband die quietly at home. There is no neat time frame for how long it takes. I do remember that there were about 3 hours between when I saw signs that he was dying (eyes half-open and glazed, shallow breathing and mottled skin) and when his soul left his body.
Nurses are stressed to the max right now trying to keep OTHERS from dying, trying to keep themselves safe and worrying about their friends and families. They've never had the luxury of sitting near the bedside of a patient as they die.
His language may have been a little harsh but I'd give him a break.
I think you are wrong about him "not being troubled in the least".
My immediate reaction was that his outward callousness is masking feelings he simply can't allow to surface to if he wants to continue doing his job.
Something about that woman touched him deeply, and that was the best way for him to express it. If you're around death every day and you let yourself feel sorrow for every person that dies, you aren't going to last long in your profession and you're not going to be able to function much outside of work, either.
Think back to some years ago of the reporter who photographed the little starving girl as she tried to inch her way to the food line in a famine while a vulture followed her. There were lots of people who called him callous for photographing the girl instead of helping her, but he was surrounded by people in her condition. And he committed suicide not long after.
I think you are wrong about him "not being troubled in the least".
My immediate reaction was that his outward callousness is masking feelings he simply can't allow to surface to if he wants to continue doing his job.
I agree with this. Detachment is a protective mechanism. The pajamas thing was a sort of deflection from cruel reality. A desperate attempt to find something even slightly positive about the whole situation.
An important thing to consider is the difference between what you actually saw aired and what actually happened. You got this off a news broadcast. You didn't hear him say this in person. To start off with, most people who end up having a tv camera shoved in their face during a crisis don't express themselves very well. They don't get to erase and record another take. Stories get manipulated and so do interviewees. They may have edited the whole exchange. What you actually heard could have been taken out of context. I'll bet he was upset if/when he saw that cringeworthy interview segment later. Who knows...some tv programmer might be gloating over the whole sad event.
Last edited by Parnassia; 04-07-2020 at 02:05 PM..
My wife is a nurse. People don't die on a schedule. The nurses are too busy to sit with someone dying. They might die in two minutes, they might die on the next shift, but they might get better and leave the hospital. Its hard to know. If families are so concerned, then I suggest they sit with their loved ones, and not expect the staff to do it.
Sadly though, I see this frequently, people who want others to do the work of looking after their loved ones.
My wife is a nurse. People don't die on a schedule. The nurses are too busy to sit with someone dying. They might die in two minutes, they might die on the next shift, but they might get better and leave the hospital. Its hard to know. If families are so concerned, then I suggest they sit with their loved ones, and not expect the staff to do it.
Sadly though, I see this frequently, people who want others to do the work of looking after their loved ones.
No need to be nasty - at least during this pandemic they aren't letting families in - if you're lucky they'll help you FaceTime.
My wife is a nurse. People don't die on a schedule. The nurses are too busy to sit with someone dying. They might die in two minutes, they might die on the next shift, but they might get better and leave the hospital. Its hard to know. If families are so concerned, then I suggest they sit with their loved ones, and not expect the staff to do it.
Sadly though, I see this frequently, people who want others to do the work of looking after their loved ones.
Please thank your wife for doing what she is doing and chill a bit. Families are generally not allowed into hospitals right now.
I’m a nurse. I don’t excuse what the nurse on television said. It was heartless. I use humor to deflect what I see and hear. It reads to me like a defensive remark to shield the nurse from the pain and depression all around.
I think you are wrong about him "not being troubled in the least".
My immediate reaction was that his outward callousness is masking feelings he simply can't allow to surface to if he wants to continue doing his job.
.
Absolutely true. They have to protect themselves.
surgeons engage in black humor to insulate themselves from the crushing guilt they can fall into.
I heard Dr Ben Carson speak at a conference, he said "the experimental surgical procedure wasn't the first,
the previous 17 patients have no complaints, they all died."
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