..more than a shot of injection..

I have given the strongest pain reliever ordered for him, but still he kept pressing the intercom button as if it's like a Patient Controlled Analgesia. It's early in the morning, and we just had finished our rounds. The rest of our patients are asleep, enjoying the dark, cold room of which I am envious of having been sleep-deprived for the past nights. The call button from his room I supposed could have been damaged from his unrelenting, impatient call. I cannot divulge the "independent nursing intervention" we did to calm him down which I believe is quite effective considering its psychological benefit. I went to his room, changed his damped hospital gown from ample sweat and well, spoiled him by applying some baby powder just to make him feel that he is being taken care justly. In a few minutes, world peace came back to our ward. 

In my hospital experience as a surgical nurse for how many years now, sometimes I find it difficult to understand the true nature of pain, being the fifth vital sign. What I understand is that there are types of pain that are concealed bearable by sunrise and surface at sunset. I can see it through the eyes of a son wanting his emaciated father to walk again, on a wife's hand on her husband's distended abdomen, wishing the drains are not there, or a patient's blank stares, hoping that he's with his family at the moment. I cannot name names what those pains are but for sure, they exist, they are felt, they are true. 

Oftentimes, because of our own difficulties in life, we overlooked those eyes, those hands, those stares.   I've learned, and I owe it to my profession, that many pains can be cured momentarily by pain killers. It may numb and block the pain receptors in the brain but will never ease the pain in the heart. I've learned that a patient's call of pain does not necessarily a call for a shot of injection. The unrelenting demand, for you to be there in the room and ask you only to turn the television is an occult way to know that someone is there. In a passive way, they just want to be reassured that you understand their pain. That being alone in the room is far more difficult than being incised with anesthesia. As what my patient said, "your smile is an opium, I could get high".

Oh well, I realized that I still have so much to learn in life. And one of those is how to believe if  the patient is telling the truth or not,LOL 

Be an opium to someone else, and be reciprocally get a "high".

Happy August!=)