Just possibly the most frightening event I've ever seen
None of you may have noticed, but I've been involved in RL for the past month. Three hospitalizations and I'm not out of the woods yet (infected, blocking kidney stones).
While in the most recent hospitalization, the wards were pretty full so they put me (67 years old) in a semi-private room with a 98-year old woman. I doubt anyone knew what the evening would bring. She was cantankerous most of the day, but not out of control. At some point, she got around to asking the nurse who was on the other side of the curtain (curtain was between the beds). She was told it was another patient. All hell broke loose!!! She started screaming (and for such a little thing, she had a powerful yell) that it wasn't a patient but a reporter collecting stories about her to spread around the hospital. So far, I was shocked but not alarmed. The nurse left the room for a very brief time, but in that time, the lady used her TV remote as a tool to try to open the curtain between the beds, muttering that she could hear me whispering stories about her and was going to get out of her bed. I became alarmed because she was leaning over the side of her bed and I feared she was going to fall out and seriously hurt herself. The more unsuccessful she was in moving the curtain, the more agitated she became and continued to scream AT ME!! I realized that my very presence in the room was making things worse for her. By this time, my blood pressure was very elevated and they put something in my IV to bring it down. I was crying.
Although nurses reassured me that she would have had the same melt-down whether or not I was in the room, I still felt awful that somehow I was a trigger for the outburst.
It's hard to describe the feelings I had afterwards. Horror that I was somehow involved, saddened that she was experiencing full-blown "sundown" dementia (at one point she demanded to know if she was in jail), and realization that she was not the only person in the world suffering the horrors of dementia/Alzheimers. I still tear-up with sympathy for anyone dealing with this fearful situation. I can't imagine how stressful and challenging it would be to witness this, sometimes for years.
Now a word about the nurses (saints, all of them). They were the absolute soul of patience and kindness with the woman. She was talking gibberish and they continued to speak respectfully with her. She demanded to see a nurse -- one of them said, I'm a nurse, what can I do for you? The woman said she needed to go to emergency. The nurse told her that she had already been to emergency and was sent to this floor where they would take care of her. These conversations were circular but the nurses remained professional and caring. I was also impressed that they quickly saw that I needed to be moved to a different room and reassured me that they would move me as soon as possible.
Once I was moved, my BP came down and with a bit of pain med for the surgical procedure I had, I was able to sleep.
Real Life was just too real that night.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'm really sorry you had to experience that awful episode.
I know it terrified you.
I was a nurse when I was working and I used to see patients who were like this. They were always a challenge.
May you soon be well!
It was never easy...
