Meet “LL”
Throughout your practice in respiratory care, you meet many different people. It's inevitable, for better or worse, it's something we all realize from our very first patient if not sooner.
As I'm sure some more experienced therapists can attest to, eventually there will be a patient that affects the way you work; someone that weighs heavy on the compassion and generosity factors; maybe someone that you feel the need to go the extra mile for.
IT could be someone you know, a friend of a friend, or just a patient you see all the time (a frequent flier). I've been lucky enough to have a few patients in the short time I've been practicing that have not only influenced me, but have made me more outgoing and changed the way I work. These are the ones that stick with you, the ones that embody every patient you see.
LL was one of these people.
She was a great patient, but an even better person. I was the first to treat her when she came in the ER in the middle of the night. After the treatment, as I was walking out the door, she told me "I'm going to remember you..." She was admitted to our Telemetry floor, and she did remember me. In fact, she did more than remember me- she started to refer to me as her "boyfriend" from then on.
Imagine that- a 79-year-old COPD patient embracing a 22-year-old "Bambi" to the medical field- and I took it as a compliment. My word was now gold with her, and she would make sure to verify anything told to her from the doctor or nurses with me. I would spend more time in her room explaining things to her than the actual treatment. It's odd that someone would completely rely on the word of a young, new respiratory therapist. But I enjoyed it, and made sure I had an answer for all of her questions.
Going into her room every four hours for treatment time, or just going in to see how she was doing, I was greeted to an enthusiastic "There's my boyfriend!", much to the amusement of the nurses and her family. Doing LL's TID ambulations were also quite the sight. Never before have I walked someone that would "strut" up and down the hall to a chorus of "you go, girl!" before. It amazed me. I've never seen someone this old with emphysema have such life.
I think what I'm getting at is, we all have our own unique reasons why we got into the field and why we enjoy it. However, LL is universal. I think we all have (or will have) an LL...and it's the common denominator that we all share. That internal glory we feel from making a difference, and those patients that are intent on making a difference as well, in spite of what is ailing them.
That is why I do it, that's why we all do it: patient care.