Fledgling Nurse, Part 5: Not Knowing

Since NaNoWriMo has wrapped up, I've been trying to restart some books that I had been reading and a couple of series that I had been watching on Netflix and Amazon Prime.  At any given time, I tend to have somewhere between three and eight books that I will swap around between, though one will likely be my major focus at the moment.  There are a number of reasons for this, including recognizing different moods--something fluffy and comforting compared to something that is denser and requires a certain attention compared to something else that is purely for learning purposes that I'm trying to half-memorize as I go through.  I have a couple of books that I want to get through but are hard for various reasons, requiring a titration of sorts (read a small bit, recover for a week, repeat).  Specifically what comes to mind for this group is An American Sickness:  How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back--it is highly informative in the same breath that it is absolutely soul-crushing and/or rage-inducing, particularly when I have been on the medication that was used as a talking point in the first chapter and experienced those points first-hand.  

Other people would probably put some of these books down.  Anything that I only read a chapter here and a chapter there, that takes months to work through, well, it probably means that I'm not necessarily enjoying it as much as I could be, that I am muscling through it.  There is no small measure of stubbornness involved.  And yet, I also just want to know how it ends.  For An American Sickness, I know it gets to a point where it will outline a solution.  I have also read books where I knew I was turned off either from how it was written or enough flaws in the structure that I was pulled out of the story...and yet, I still wanted to know the ending.  

That's happened several times over, actually, with TV series and books where I had the realization that I was not enjoying the experience necessarily but that was outweighed by my need to know how it ended.  For TV series, I have gone to Wikipedia to read episodes' synopses, to save myself literal hours of watching in order to know the ending, but usually a book I will muscle through (and then read the synopses for the rest of the books in the series if need be).  Even if I'm only mildly invested in the characters, I still want to know what happens.

...and so let's consider, then, how I might feel after spending twelve hours with a patient.  A patient I had to research regarding their past medical history, allergies, medications, and other quirks.  A patient that I have gotten to know, having specifically listened to their emotional needs in the day.  A patient that has suddenly taken a strange turn in their condition over the course of the day.  They are a person to me, AND my curiosity is piqued.  

And then I go home at the end of the day.  I may never find out what happened to them.  I could have had a patient over four different shifts that discharges or transfers on a day I'm not working and then never see them again.  It is possible to look up their chart in the computer, sure, but it is also a violation of HIPAA to do so, because I am not looking up information on them with regards to their current care.  In other words, satisfying my own personal interest is not a valid enough reason to delve into someone's private health data.  A peer might know if they went into home hospice or if they were transferred to another facility, but there's still not much of a conclusion.  Even someone that was well-ish when they discharged, I do not get to know what happens to them after the fact.  Do they keep their physical therapy appointments?  Do they have questions about their diet changes?  Are they being adequately supported by their family members for dressing changes and emotional needs?  Are they able to go back to work?  How are they considering their own mortality after this interlude?  

I have to find a way to come to terms with never knowing.  I have to let go of the patient when I clock out at the end of the day or when I transfer their care.  That not-knowing is just going to be a thing.  I do not get the satisfaction of resolution.  And I'm not specifically entitled to it, either.  It's a brief intersection of different lives and nothing more.  

There is no resolution.  There is no closure.  Some cases will bother me on that count more than others, but with all of them that is something I'm going to have to figure out how to live with and let go.