The nurse enters my room. It’s the hourly check up on my vitals, wound dressings, pin care for the external fixator and, of course, taking a peek at the dreaded Foley. This is typically uncomfortable enough, but this time my parents and a few of my high school buds are here for a visit. I am working hard to remind these people I’m still “me” despite the horrible injuries, so these normal, but still invasive procedures are working against me. Not only do I want to refuse the usual care at this moment, but lifting my robe to show the nurse the catheter is beyond humiliating. Granted, I shared the locker room with these guys just months ago when we were all playing varsity football together, but no one wants to be exposed, much less when there are tubes and tape everywhere. The audience just makes this so much more dehumanizing.
My friends are all seated to the left of my hospital bed. The right side, however, is as wide open as the plains of Texas. Yet, the nurse comes around the foot of my bed to position herself on the left. Her back is to my family and blocks their view of me from the abdomen to the thighs.
“Can I borrow one of these?” she asks, giving a quick tug on one of the unused pillows scattered around my bed. When I answer in the affirmative, she takes the pillow and lays it on its side at the edge of the bed, adjacent to her body. The pillow now acts as a makeshift privacy curtain. Between her body and the pillow, everyone is spared the embarrassment of exposing my body – especially me. And my family and friends aren’t forced to leave the room. The nurse has just gained a HUGE amount of respect from her injured patient for helping me retain some degree of dignity.
Vanity is so often lost in a hospital. People who are adamant about showering and shaving every day don’t have that luxury while they’re a patient. Designer clothes are traded for ugly hospital gowns. Hair gel? Moisturizer? Perfume? Not in the hospital!
Yet, these differences between the hospital and the outside world are usually tolerable. Being forced to expose oneself is totally, TOTALLY out of the ordinary. It’s not so bad when the exposure is to a health care professional, but in front of family and friends? Could anything be more humiliating – especially for a teenager?
My nurse knew this. She used what she had; her own body, a pillow and, now that I think of it, the bedside table, too. These all formed a protective visual guard between my nudity and my visitors. That way, the nurse could still “get ‘er done” while helping me retain privacy AND not inconveniencing my friends.
When treating the “embarrassing” areas, you may need to practice some ingenuity. What do you have that can protect your patient’s dignity and privacy? Your body? Pillows? Blankets? – anything that can be a blockade between the visitor’s eyes and the patient’s body. Or maybe distract the visitors by pointing at something out the window or asking about something they just aired on the TV. Don’t forget to get your patients input on when the best time to ask visitors to leave. It’s perfect to play the “bad guy” to protect the patient’s wishes and dignity.
Whatever you can do to help guard the privacy of your patient will, in turn, help that patient feel more like a person and less like a patient. And in that way – everyone wins.
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