Altho I know full well that many tough caregivers before me on OCF can lay claim to "The nurse from Hell" moniker - I did make the conscious decision to wear that hat! It is not as easy a decision as one might expect because there are multible levels. The first involves your relationship to the cancer patient- in my case, my husband. Our relationship was based on decisions made jointly. As he went through radiation, more surgeries, chemo, etc. and got sicker, the "jointly made decisions" became more my responsibility-because the nursing was my responsibility and the medications he was on affected his ability to think clearly.
Whether he was in the hospital, going through radiation, surgery, chemo, I was the person with him, watching and recording what was happening, picking him up off the floor, cleaning up the vomit, watching his temp soar, whatever. Because I was on OCF day and night, I had a handle on what was happening and what we needed to do to help John through this, even when he resisted. His Docs were not at our house. the second level--I also introduced myself to his Docs as the "Home Nurse from Hell" and guess what- my phone calls were usually answered or responded to in short order. [we were 3 hours from his Oncologist and 1 hour from his Chemo Doc and a decent emergency room] The third level of my "nurse from Hell" hat extended to our immediate family-ie- John's son- who refused to believe how sick his Dad was- I didn't do well there, John died with his son still thinking he would get well and that we hadn't done a good enough job of fighting the cancer. The flip side of that is I listened to my Hospice nurses and called in family help [ I am lucky enough to have a daughter and daughter in law who are nurses] to be with us at home during John's last days. The Hospice nurse told me that it was a matter of days or weeks and I gathered my troops, made the final arrangements with the Minister, Coroner, Funeral Director, and then gave my full attention to John. The "Nurse from Hell" can do what needs to be done, hopefully with a GREAT outcome- but if not- you were in the fight all the way. Amy