EMPATHY SUPERPOWER: THE NURSING TOOL KIT

I know empathy superpower when I see it.

Why? Because I’ve felt it.

I had a headache when my brother got hit with a bat.

If I could have, I would have donated my knees to Joe Namath for playing football in white shoes and long hair.

I feel things with people and let it go; nurses feel things with people and don’t let it go.

After a broken heart sent me to the best nurses in the business, I got an up close and personal view of empathy superpower.

“This place is busy.”

“This is when we do our best work saving people.”

“I’m feeling it.”

“You’ll be fine. We’ll take care of you.”

“You take care of everyone.”

“One at a time. We took care of the patient who was in your bed before you got here.”

“That’s my question. How did I get a bed with so much shortage with Covid?”

“This isn’t a Covid ward. We’re cardiac.”

“Not ICU?”

Like I was supposed to know where I was?

“Do you have empathy superpower?”

“I don’t know about that, but we can tell when patients are on the same page.”

“I don’t have a death wish.”

“I know.”

“That’s what I told the people in the emergency room, just in case. I sort of choked it out in my cry voice. That’s when I got the pack of Kleenex on the table.”

“Good to know. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

Who Has A Death Wish?

I’ve spent enough time around people in medical waiting rooms, talking and listening to stories.

They were cancer waiting rooms back then.

“Welp, I’m taking cancer more serious this time. I even quit smoking,” was a favorite.

One cancer doctor told me, “I don’t know why you keep postponing treatment. That tumor isn’t about to shrink on it’s own.”

I stopped postponing things.

Midway through treatment another said, “If you don’t try harder we will have to use more drastic measures or take you off the treatment schedule.”

Gee, what did that mean? I didn’t ask. Instead, I tried harder.

Unvaccinated Covid Patients Trying Hard

What’s the biggest difference between walking down the street spouting bad opinions on covid, and laying in a hospital bed in a room with three others in worse shape?

In the first case you have your rights and freedoms to talk all of the stupid shit you want; In the second case you’re clinging to life by your fingernails.

The people leaving the room are not going home. You may not go home, but the nurses use their superpower empathy to give you the best chance of leaving.

Nurses are not your spiritual leader, not running for office, and have a firm grip on the situation one twelve hour shift at a time.

They don’t turn their back on patients. They don’t opt out. Instead, they show up and give the job everything they have to give and they want results.

Death is an insult to them, your death.

Nursing Empathy Superpower At Full Strength

Nurses are the shock troops, the men and women on the field of battle.

And they need help.

They know their job and you need to know yours.

Get vaccinated and wear that mask. Talk to others and encourage them to get vaccinated and wear a mask.

It’s okay to take some personal responsibility and be an advocate for better health.

A public advocate. I’m a blogger with a world of topics, but when the world takes a sharp downward turn there’s more to do than float around.

I want my readers to be safe. Their families too. And friends. It’s not asking much to put aside fears and doubts to avoid landing in some hospital with a breathing rig slid down your neck.

Or not making it to the hospital because of it’s overrun with covid patients.

Hospitals are on ‘divert status.’

Surgeries and treatments are getting bumped out. Unvaccinated patients are bumping off other patients because of their ‘vaccine hesitancy.’

People Need Help

The worst example I’ve heard from the front line: A man has gastric surgery and goes home with a big line of stitches to recover. One thing led to another at home and they had a dehiscence wound.

‌Partial dehiscence means that the edges of an incision have pulled apart in one or more small areas. Complete dehiscence is when the entire cut reopens through all layers of skin and muscle.

The man had complete dehiscence and his innards fell out. He died before he was admitted anywhere for treatment.

Was he vaccinated? Following doctor’s orders? Going AMA, Against Medical Advice?

The relevant point is he died because he couldn’t get in to fix things up. Nurses don’t like it, doctors don’t like it. He’s an anecdotal statistic, but not if he was your brother, your dad, your uncle.

Then it would be personal.

Is it personal yet? It should be.