After starting my nursing career in labor and delivery, I transitioned to caring for patients with kidney disease at dialysis centers. Then, after working for nearly 17 years in dialysis, I moved to Interwell Health, a value-based kidney care provider, where I could use my years of experience to educate kidney patients and try to help them improve their kidney function and overall health to help delay or even prevent dialysis.
Little did I know that shortly after starting my new career, a very personal, devastating experience would significantly influence the way that I connect and engage with many of my patients.
I’ll never forget when I got the job at Interwell. The first person I called was my Aunt Lib, who helped raise me. She was like a mom to me. She was the person who would always tell me the truth, no matter what it was. I went through a lot of challenges when I was younger, but she never put me down, and she was always there when I needed her.
Shortly after I shared my new job news with my aunt, she found out that her kidneys were failing, and she was going to have to start dialysis. Like too many of our patients, she was unaware of her kidney disease until it had advanced to the point that the symptoms were severe and that dialysis was a must.
She started on home hemodialysis with me as her partner, and we worked on improving her diet. We stabilized her to the point that she was willing and able to do a year of successful peritoneal dialysis (PD). But, again, like many of our patients, the long-term damage had been done, and years of ignoring warning signs and not managing her overall health had taken their toll.
In August 2023, I went to her house one Sunday afternoon and immediately knew something was wrong with her. She was pale and weak, and her blood sugar was extremely high. I took her to the emergency department, where we discovered she was having a heart attack.
Everything changed that day; there were several hospital stays and a bad bout of COVID-19, and she ended up having to go into a clinic to dialyze. Her general health declined rapidly.
Eventually, things progressed to the point that she decided to enter a hospice program, and she passed away not long after.
After she passed, I constantly thought about what I could have done differently and worried that I had let her down as not only her niece but as a nurse who had spent years helping people deal with kidney disease. It was one of the worst times I ever had to face.
But after many, many tears, and with the support of family, friends, and Interwell nursing colleagues, I realized that I could use Aunt Lib’s story and experience to help others understand the importance of every decision, for better or worse, they make from the very beginning of their kidney disease journey.
I find myself sharing my aunt’s story a lot. It connects with patients on a very human level. When I talk about her as a real person with friends and family, my patients can understand the impact of her choices and decisions on her and those around her. Patients hear the emotion in my voice and can feel the entire experience’s impact on me.
When we discuss the importance of diet, medication, or other things that can help patients feel better and longer, they don’t feel that I’m giving them “instructions” or “orders” as a nurse. I’m talking to them from the perspective of someone who has seen a loved one suffer unnecessarily, and I’m sharing my personal experience to help them and their families avoid similar consequences.
Aunt Lib would be proud to know I am using her example to help others. I use that knowledge to help as many people as I can each day. I cherish my time with Aunt Lib, and my wish for my patients is that they enjoy as much time as possible with their own family and friends.
The post Turning Personal Loss into Personal Connections: A Nurse’s Journey Through Kidney Care and Heartbreak first appeared on Daily Nurse.
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