This is for all the burn nurses out there. Let me just say I am so thankful people like you guys exist! Because my floor takes burn pts but generally they are step down icu burn pts. We still do dressing changes and everything but rarely have to do the debridement. Phew!! I can't handle debridement. Especially when it's the initial one. Popping the blisters and taking the skin off. Not for me. Honestly, HUGE props to you guys. It takes someone with a really big heart and an even bigger stomach to handle some of the things you nurses see. When I first started caring for burn pts it was so hard. Even to look at them. And then the dressing changes and the pain... It seemed like all the fentanyl and dilaudid jn the world wouldn't be enough. It was so hard to just do my job. To see someone in that much pain...broke and still breaks my heart. But it got easier over time to handle until I got my first 95% burn pt. A 22 yr old girl who was a victim of a fire. My heart and every piece of me went out to her. I was her primary nurse for over 6 months. Man...I think about her until today. I remember her telling me she couldn't wait to wear heels again. I recently had surgery on my knee and couldn't wear heels for 4 months. I couldn't wait to wear them again and I always thought of her. Because I knew and she knew wearing heels was no where near feasible for a long time but a very important goal for her to accomplish eventually. At that point she could barely stand for 30 seconds with sneakers on. We always had "girl talk" and it made me sad because she would never look the same again. She had pictures all over her room of what she looked like before. she would refer to herself has a monster and it would make me so upset when she would! I spent hours building her up as I'm sure all you amazing burn nurses do on a daily basis. She was one of those patients that was very time consuming emotionally and physically but I didn't have the heart to say I didn't want to take care of her when I was on because other nurses neglected her and that made me so upset! So I just didn't care anymore about how much "work" she was. It made me happy to know she was happy the 3 nights I was on to take care of her each week. I just wanted her to not have to worry about her care on top of everything else that had flipped upside down in her life with her injuries.
Burn patients are something else. Nothing compares. The fact that you have to inflict pain for them to get better is crazy. The surgeries....surgery on surgery on surgery. Grafts, donor sites, releases and all the rest. That's just the medical part. That doesn't even include the body image issues, depression, and altered functional status. I have so much respect for all the nurses that choose to be burn nurses. You guys are truly amazing. It's definitely not my top pick in the nursing world. But I know it can be rewarding especially for those patients that really tug at your heart strings. The ones that make u want to turn the sky pink if you could if it meant they got better...keep doing what you do. Hats off to y'all.
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