May 2013
Naomi
Lafume
,
RN
Med/Surg
St. Rose Dominican Hospital-San Martin Campus
Las Vegas
,
NV
United States

 

 

 

I came to the E.R. for a fever and chills and ended up being admitted to the hospital for an unexpected surgery and had to be hospitalized for about a week because of it. After the surgery, it was very difficult to get the pain under control, and I was also dealing with nausea and the inability to sleep.

On my fourth day at the hospital, I was moved to the third floor and, by then, I was frustrated from not being able to sleep, not being able to eat because of the nausea, and being in pain. I talked to my doctors and they told me that the pain should not be that bad, and the medication I was taking should be okay. I layed in bed in tears that evening, feeling helpless, in pain, and like my doctors did not care. I was up all night crying and in pain, and I continued telling the nurses I did not feel good.

The next morning, when Naomi started her shift and saw me crying she immediately began doing whatever she had to do to make me feel better. She first began calling my doctors to get different pain medications to get control of the pain. Next, she got rid of my nausea so I could eat. She made sure that the nausea medicine, the pain medicine and the antibiotics that were causing me to be nauseated were timed correctly so I could continue to take the medicine and still be able to eat. She made sure that I had popsicles to soothe me from the tube being in my throat from surgery. She worked on getting my pain down on the pain scale from an 8 to a 2. She encouraged me to continue to take my pain medicines every four hours, even when I started to feel a little better so my pain would not go any higher on the pain scale.

Naomi took care of me all day. She was attentive, caring, compassionate, knowledgeable, and she loves being a nurse. Because of her, I was able to get a much needed, comfortable, pain free, restful night's sleep after being unable to do so all week. I was so happy to wake up the next morning and see her back again for another shift so I could thank her and show my appreciation for doing what she did to make me feel better. I told her that she did not have to go out of her way and she told me that it bothers her to see her patients in pain and that when she saw me crying she had to do something. It takes a special person to be a nurse, and Naomi is that special person.