Nurse’s upbeat attitude helps with difficult patients
After 17 years as an LVN, Laura Rupp took a hiatus from nursing to enjoy watching her two sons grow up.
“Some patients are just always going to complain or be grumpy, no matter what. And some nurses just don’t take it very well. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s just not their personality.
“So the patient or family member would say, ‘Don’t you give me that nurse. I don’t want her.’ Most times that would happen, they got me instead. I was the designated nurse who got the difficult patients. But I love people and I love to talk, so that would help me deal with them. I’m upbeat, cheerful and happy. I’ve always been that way. People would call me Smiley.
“One time I got a lady who was dying of breast cancer. She didn’t seem to like anybody, so they sent me in. I introduced myself, and the first thing I noticed was she had a Suzanne Somers watch from the Home Shopping Network. I said, ‘Oh, you’re somebody who likes those home shopping shows. A woman after my own heart.’ After that we talked, and she always requested me. If she wasn’t my patient and she was on another floor, I’d peek my head in and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ She ended up being a really nice lady, but she was dying.
“I had a hard time holding back tears with her. I’d walk out of the room real quick and lean against the wall, crying, then get it over with and go back in. As a nurse you’re not supposed to be that way, but it’s very hard sometimes.
“It seemed like they would always give me the patients who were very ill or going to die. I also got those patients who never seemed to have visitors, which was sad. So I would go in and talk to them and tell them I was there for them. Sometimes, I would be holding their hands while they were dying. That was very, very hard. I don’t miss that part of nursing at all. Even talking about it now, all these years later, it breaks me up.”
— Laura Rupp
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