When I first started working in a nursing home, I had the perspective of, "Well my patients are going to die eventually....It's not very hopeful!" This is obviously the WRONG perspective to take, and I fully admit that. It's hard not to have it, and it took many a conversation with my supervisor to change it. When you're working with adults, you're not trying to get them back to the way they were before, because that likely won't happen. You're doing what you can to help them live the best they can right now. It's all about quality of life. It's helping them maintain a given level and be happy there before the decline.
I have a patient who always said, "Let's just take it on a day-by-day basis!" It is a day-by-day basis with some of these people. I'll walk into clinic, and a client will have been moved onto hospice care. It's HARD. I am emotionally drained sometimes. I do wonder how I got through a day of 2 patients being put on hospice, getting spit up on, etc. But it's not about that.
It's about the fact that them eating 2 bites of yogurt makes their day that much better. It's about the fact that you just walking in the room and saying, "Hello" brightens their day. It's the fact that a little conversation, even if we have no idea what they are talking about, brings a smile to their face. We are helping them at the level they are at, and it is making their day.
That is what helps me get through those rough days.
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