Patients

Due to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), I can't ever discuss the details of a patient's medical history, treatment, etc. with anyone besides the other healthcare providers working with that patient. That being said, I can share certain things with family, friends, etc. so long as I don't say the patients' names. I have talked and will talk more about the procedural aspects of nursing school and about what we're doing in regards to my life, but I wanted to take a minute and talk about, not the medical aspect of these patients' lives, but the human aspect. As even a nursing student, we're given an amazing opportunity to be let into people's lives and to really talk to them and get to know them; that's probably the main reason I chose nursing over being a physician, and I'm more than thrilled to see that it's already coming into play this early in my career. Even though it's only necessary to look in their chart for what's medically relevant to our patients, one thing I really like knowing personal details about the person so they feel like a human being instead of just a diagnosis and a list of meds. It's so easy to see the patients in the nursing home just for what they are now - old, broken down, sick, but these people's lives are just as complex as ours. They were our age once, and have done so much more with their lives than sit in a nursing home. One of my patients was in the Air Force, and probably fought in at least one war; it was odd because when you picture military, you think of men and women in the height of their physical strength and capability, but now that he's older, it's hard to imagine the man that he was. One of my favorite patients was born in Germany (in the same area where my family is from, actually) so I loved talking to her about it; then she told me she hadn't been home in 30-something years, and I tried to imagine what it was like the last time she went. Then I remembered her date of birth; she was my age when World War II started. I never did ask when she left Germany, but I imagine it was before or during the war, and I tried to imagine how I would feel, at my age or younger, leaving my country because of a war in our backyard. I would have liked to talk with her about it, but I didn't know how bad of a memory it was; if she hasn't been home very often, maybe it's because she wants to forget. I just would love to see through her eyes how different the world is now versus when she was my age. Another lady was in a similar situation, (she was never my patient so I didn't talk to her long), but from Italy. She, like the other lady, had just a hint of an accent in her English, which I absolutely loved. She told me about how she ended up in the nursing home after a car accident but also said she was grateful that her body was what failed her instead of her mind. She told me about her late husband who had remained in great physical shape all of his life, but his dementia got so bad that all he could remember was his name and Pearl Harbor. He didn't even remember his wife (he recognized her as a friend, but not as his wife), but he remembered what had happened to him at Pearl Harbor. That really stuck with me because I'm sure the same thing will be said about 9/11, which happened in my lifetime and which, since I was 11 at the time, I'm still processing. It just really put things into perspective and made me realize how complex people and life are. One thing that all of the patients told me was to "stay young and beautiful." Every time they said it, I would laugh a little, but in a way, it's great advice; I realize it's not actually possible to avoid aging (celebrities: that means stop trying), but seeing how much of a struggle it can be to simply get out of bed or walk or feed yourself had made me appreciate my health and youth so much more. Youth and life are so fleeting, so I plan to make the most out of it while I can; the worst thing in life, I think, wouldn't be to die young, but to be 80 years old, feeling like I wasted my life or didn't make the most of what I had when I had it. I hope not to ever be in a nursing home, but if I am, I want to be as inspiring to the nursing students taking care of me as my patients were.