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A few weeks ago I had a patient who I absolutely adored. That seems to be a theme with me. But hey I get a lot of good patients and they take well to me. Sometimes I feel like it's my face that doesn't look like it should be thirty or it's my voice which doesn't should like I am more than 5. Whatever it is, or was, this patient I had was great to work with and hilarious. I had her for 3 days straight. I watched her struggle with pain, we tried every mean you could think of meds and nonpharmacological means to assist....but it seemed like nothing helped the pain she had in her knee replacement. One night I had her she was pretty sleepy so I went in at the beginning of my shift and did my thing, tucked her in and let her rest. I checked on her throughout the shift to make sure she was breathing and didn't need anything. AND then around 730 I get back from lunch and see her son standing outside her room. I approach him and inquire if I can help him with anything. He asks how mom has been doing. I let him know that due to pain and some other factors she hasn't been up much and has been sleeping most the shift. I could tell by the look on his face he was disappointed. So he came up with the great idea to get her up. Ugh. This is the shit that I get annoyed with. These patients are adults and I plan my care around them and what they want sure I encouraged them and educate them the importance of getting up but they make their own decisions. Since she wanted to sleep I had planned to do my med passes to my other patients as soon as I got back, but this had changed my evening. He wakes his mom up and convinces her she needs to get up to the bed side commode. These ones are my favorite family members. Hey son let me wake you up in the middle of the night  and suggest you use the restroom. It's like waking someone up to give them a sleeping pill. I let him wake her up and suggest the plan of care to her. Because she is so sweet she agrees. After 45 minutes of maneuvering in bed and attempting to stand on her new knee she is in so much pain she is in tears and keeps repeating " I should have never had this surgery ". I am thinking to myself, I know that she would have had to do this at sometime...But now newly awaken, it just felt like a bad time. We finally get her up, due to a coworker who practically picks her 250lb body up off the bed and swings her onto the commode. 30 minutes later she calls us to go back to bed. She couldn't pee and she is crying in pain. I had tried to get her off the commode earlier, but she wanted to stay there longer since it was such a fuss to get her up. No luck. My coworker comes up, does the same trick to move her back. She gets into bed and starts crying. I leave aggravated and go to get her whatever I can for pain medication. I go in and give the pain meds, tuck her in and and try my best to give her words of encouragement. She at this time, feels defeated.  The son takes a seat next to his mom's bed and starts to ball his eyes out. I felt my heart drop. There was something about seeing her cry, since she is pretty often in good spirits and funny...And it was even harder watching her son cry. I think anytime a man cries it is harder to take. It's not something you see very often. It was really sad. I think he felt bad for suggesting to get her up and I think he felt horrible watching his mom hurt so bad. They both thanked me for my time and I left the room. This stuck with me I think because I went through so many emotions myself and seeing him holding her hand crying was really hard. I felt the situation should have gone differently and it was my job to run the show, but I didn't want to get into a power struggle with the son. Sometimes dealing with family is the worst part of my job, especially when they don't understand why we do the things we do, when we do them, how we do them and when we think it's not the proper time for it...