Thread by @rn_critcare

I just sat down to do my assessment after a busy start to the shift. It's been like that lately, hit the ground running. Staff are dropping like flies, resources thin. We've gone back to 'team nursing' where we travel in packs room to room to do patient care
Anyway, just sat down

The phone rings and it's my coworker in another bay asking me to come help with matted hair if I have time. I don't really but I also love the challenge & satisfaction of getting matted hair fresh and braided.
I grab some supplies and head over.

There's two nurses at the head of the bed working away. They almost seem angry with how they have a fistful of hair and are attacking it with the comb. But I know better, this project is an act of love. I get to work and start braiding.

After 1/2 hour there is still a sizable ball in this hair. We have tried concoctions of different creams & lubricant to no avail. We almost admit defeat and discuss cutting it out but we decide to reconvene and finish later.

Once back with my patient things get busy. I have to change the dialysis filter, do an x-ray following an acute desat and then a bronch. I forgot all about the hair project until I got home and saw the hair oil in my medicine cabinet while grabbing the breakfast ibuprofen...

At work the following shift things are busy. There's new traumas and scans and troubleshooting why my filter keeps clotting on my prisma machine. I almost forget about the hair project until 2 am. I grab the oil and head over only to discover the pt is no longer there.

"They let her go" one of the nurses says to me, "What a waste of time eh?"

I head back to my own assignment but can't stop thinking about the hair. Was it a waste of time? Will the family even see the fruits of our labor? Will they know how much we invested in her?

I realized I didn't need the family to know. It wasn't a waste. The patient spent some of her last moments alive having a team of us doting on her, whispering in her ear telling her she's beautiful, we're sorry if she's hurting, talking about her family poster on her wall.

It wasn't everything but it was something. It wasn't family at the bedside but it was fresh braids for the FaceTime goodbye.

I shook off the familiar agony of defeat and got out a basin and filled it with warm soapy water. My pt was coming off sedation later this morning

I knew his wife was going to be calling & checking in on video to see how things are going. It might be ugly, the fresh moments out of sedation usually are, but at least he'll be clean shaven. A sign that he is cared for.
And that's something.