A Nurse’s Unrecognized Trauma… Mine

I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me when I was a home health nurse. It was definitely a traumatic experience. It happened over 40 years ago, and it is an example of what a lack of support from an agency and colleagues can look like.

I worked for a home health agency in San Mateo County, California. My territory was quite large and included rural areas along the coast south of San Francisco, even a state park.

I remember the date clearly—April 1, 1985.

I was going to see a patient with Stage IV cancer. I had been concerned about whether he and his wife had enough support. They lived in a remote area and had no adult children, other family members nearby, or close friends to help them.

His wife had gone out to run errands, and I arrived at their home shortly before she returned. The door had been left open for me. He wasn’t in his bed or anywhere else I could find him in the house.

I called my office to see if they had heard about a change of plans, but they hadn’t.

I was getting more and more worried. I kept hoping he had decided to go with his wife at the last minute.

Just then, she pulled into the driveway. I immediately saw that he wasn’t in the car with her.

Shoot.

She saw him first. He was lying on the ground next to his walker, unconscious. He was badly sunburned, so he had clearly been outside for quite some time.

I ran inside and called 911. It looked as though he had fallen and hit his head. It was incredibly stressful.

Then his wife said, “I didn’t know he had a gun.”

It was only then that I noticed a handgun in his right hand.

In that moment, it became clear that he had shot himself in the head.

I started to hyperventilate and ran back inside to call 911 again and update them.

The sheriff arrived soon afterward, followed by a helicopter that airlifted him to Stanford Trauma Center.

He died the next morning.

When I called my manager to tell her what had happened, her response was, “Well, at least you have tomorrow off.”

Two days later, I was back seeing patients. When I tried to take one patient’s blood pressure, my hands were shaking so badly she could see how upset I was. She became anxious because she realized I wasn’t okay.

I eventually took some time off. I don’t remember exactly how long—about a week, I think.

Many years later, while I was home raising my young children and not working as a nurse, I attended a bereavement volunteer training at a local hospice.

During one of the videos, something happened.

I suddenly became overwhelmed. I felt angry at everyone in the room, and I had to leave.

A hospice social worker followed me outside and gently asked what was going on.

I told her how I was feeling, and as we talked, this experience with my patient came flooding back.

She introduced me to the concept of disenfranchised grief—grief experienced by someone whose loss is not always recognized or supported because they are not a family member or close friend.

She explained that there had been no place to acknowledge my grief simply because I was “the nurse.”

Thankfully, even though it was years later, she was there to support me in a way I had never been supported at the time.

There was another remarkable part of this story.

For years, I could not remember my patient’s name.

The bereavement training materials were beautifully printed on high-quality glossy paper. At one point, I happened to turn the booklet over.

On the back cover was a note thanking the ______ family for their generous donation, which had paid for the materials.

I couldn’t believe it.

It was the same last name as my patient.

I have never forgotten his name since that day.

At the time this happened, one of the best things I did for myself was find an excellent therapist. She was a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist.

It felt so comforting to be seeing another nurse.

I felt like she truly understood me.

I don’t know exactly how a situation like this would be handled today.

I hope families are now asked during the admission process whether there are firearms in the home and, if so, encouraged to store them safely.

But as I think about it, his wife didn’t even know he owned a gun.

So tragedies like this can still happen.

My hope is that today, a nurse who experiences something this traumatic would receive immediate support—not be expected to simply return to work as though nothing had happened.

Nurses witness trauma, too.

Sometimes we carry grief that no one sees.

And that grief deserves care.