Crying

Most of the people we worked with throughout my daughter's cardiac catheterization were wonderful. The nurse who helped us through recovery was compassionate and personable and put us all at ease (as much as we could be in that situation). But the wonderful Beth had to go to a meeting and another nurse took over briefly.

This nurse was competent and not necessarily unkind, but one thing she said irked me. My daughter was coming out of the anesthesia more and more--which means she felt more of the pain and discomfort. She was attached to an IV, a heart monitor, and a large pressurized bandage. She wasn't allowed to sit up or move her leg. She was tired and didn't feel good and on top it all she had to pee. And the stupid nurse took forever bringing in the bed pan. When she did come in, my daughter was crying and I was comforting her.

The nurse walked in and said, "Well now, why are you crying?"

She's crying because she's four and she's scared and she just had surgery and she feels sick and wants to go home and she's trying to not pee the bed. Okay, I didn't actually say anything. But there is a world of difference that both I as her mother and a four year old can feel between a concern for why she was crying and what could be done to make her feel better, and a "there's nothing wrong with you, why are you crying?"

Just because our situation was perfectly routine for her, didn't mean it was any less scary and sad and a perfectly reasonable time to cry for my daughter.