The nurses in the intensive care unit at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth take Our Texas Health Promise to heart.
So, when a patient with Down syndrome was clearly anxious, the nurses set out to make his stay as comfortable as possible.
“He wasn’t fully cognizant of why he had to be here, why he had to stay,” said Cheryl Sullivan, B.S.N., R.N., CCRN. “Especially once he started feeling better, he thought he was ready to leave, even though medically he wasn’t.”
Although he needed to stay in the ICU for extra monitoring, they were able to get him downgraded from ICU status and remove some of the equipment that was irritating him.
“He was very frustrated to be here and minimally verbal, so he just kept saying, ‘home,’ or things like ‘my pillow’ or ‘my shirt,’” Sullivan said. “He didn’t really want anything we tried to offer him, because he wanted his stuff. He was especially fixated on getting his Dallas Cowboys cap.”
The nurses dressed him in a sweatshirt they found among his belongings, but no one could find the hat. They also put him in a cardiac chair, which allowed him to sit up securely and leave his room.
“We couldn’t take him far, but I pushed him around the unit and gave him a little tour, and then we let him sit at the nurses station for a change of scenery,” Sullivan said. “But he was still fixated. Every time he saw someone walk by with a cap on, he’d start asking about it again.”
A nurse checked the hospital gift shop but couldn’t find anything suitable. Then Sullivan had an idea.
“I called Women’s Services and asked if the little newborn hats could stretch to fit an adult head,” she said. “I explained what I was trying to accomplish, and they sent me some supplies, including a couple of hats.”
She grabbed some sutures and got to work, cutting the hats down the middle and stitching them together, then drawing on a Cowboys star.
“I brought it to the patient and he was so excited,” she said. “He put his cap on and he was so proud of it. He sat at the nurses station for the next couple of hours, and we all made sure to comment on how good his cap looked, and he’d just smile and light up. You could tell it made his day.”
Nurse manager Lesley Peloquin, B.S.N., R.N., CCRN, was impressed by the dedication and initiative shown by her nurses.
“It brings us back to the why of what we do,” Peloquin said. “When patients, especially those with cognitive impairments, are upset and they don’t trust you and don’t like what you’re doing, everything becomes a no. It can become really tricky to provide the care that they need so they can get back to their home and their comfortable surroundings. So, finding that way in and building a level of trust are so key.”
Sullivan has a special affection for people with cognitive impairments, she said.
“In high school, I was a teacher’s aide for a life skills class, and I volunteered through high school and college in adult programs and Special Olympics,” Sullivan said. “People with impairments have so much to offer, and it just gets overlooked so easily, especially in environments like this where we’re so busy and so stressed, and trying to meet the needs of so many.
“There are so many times that we can’t do things for patients, or the things we have to do to help get patients better are unpleasant or uncomfortable. Being able to give him that little bit of comfort and help him feel more like himself in this environment was awesome.”
Interactions like this are gratifying to see, said Gretchen Hunt, M.S.N., R.N., ACNS-BC, NEA-BC, chief nursing officer at Texas Health Southwest.
“Stories like this remind us of why we got into nursing in the first place,” Hunt said. “They thought outside the box to meet their patient’s needs and make him more comfortable, which is so important to the healing process.”
Till death do us part
Finding creative solutions is nothing new for the ICU nurses at Texas Health Southwest. They recently went above and beyond to help a husband and wife who were patients at the same time.
The two were far apart in separate rooms, and the wife was at the end of her life. Although her husband of more than 60 years was under isolation precautions, the nurses quickly decided they shouldn’t be separated.
“The husband had been adamant that he was going to leave, because he wanted to be with her when she passed,” said nurse manager Lesley Peloquin, B.S.N., R.N., CCRN. “We pushed both beds into one room, so they could be together.”
It was challenging, because the rooms aren’t set up for two patients, but it was well worth it, said Cheryl Sullivan, B.S.N., R.N., CCRN.
“By putting them together, we were able to give him the treatment he needed,” Sullivan said. “He was very sick but was probably going to overcome it if he got treatment.”
After the wife died, nurses made a cast of the couple’s hands clasped together and gave it to the husband when he went home.
“They were so grateful,” Peloquin said. “It’s all about remembering the compassion and thinking about what you would want in that situation.”
Published January 10, 2023
