Member-only story
The “Family’s Nurse’s” Stress…
It’s not necessarily a good role to have
I think it all started with a friend’s mother-in-law. My friend was also a nurse but her MIL did not seem to like her that much — the usual MIL stuff. My friend was a wonderful woman who took care of her large family and held tightly to her Catholic upbringing. She also helped me as my small family developed, gave us food along with good advice. But she had a hard time dealing with her MIL.
I was able to deal with the older woman from a different perspective. But I didn’t realize that she looked at me as the “nurse of the family” until one day when i entered her hospital room with her family around her bed, and heard her say, “Everything will be okay now. Mitzi’s here.”
My heart fell to the floor as I saw the look on my friend’s face. It was then I realized that the role of RN was not just for when I was working on a nursing unit. It was now my life — it was as if it was tattooed on my forehead.
Then it was my MIL’s turn. She’d had been diagnosed with cancer, advanced, following surgery. She had four sons who were in the room when the surgeon came in. I already knew the prognosis, just from my own nursing experience. But I wanted her sons to hear it from the surgeon. The surgeon called me over to him and said he wanted me to tell the sons the poor prognosis.
