...I Just Couldn't Say No...

So there was this time when my grandma came to visit me at work. She's such a sweet old lady and always wants to know everything about how I'm doing as a nurse, but she also has these really outdated ideas about patients being in pain all the time and needing to be cooed over like they're babies... And you know how it is with grandparents; sometimes they just want to talk. So this patient came into my clinic looking for help with their diabetes medication regimen, and grandma was chatting away behind me about how she wished her doctors would have spent more time with her when she had the flu a few months back. The patient looked at me like I should be the one taking over for Grandma instead of nodding along...and suddenly, out of nowhere, this older guy came in and he was clearly agitated. He wanted to see a doctor right away because his pain medication wasn't working as well anymore. Now, any nurse knows that handling these types of requests requires patience and tact... So I decided to just...redirect my grandma's focus elsewhere for a moment. Told her about how I had a great lunch or something equally mundane, anything really, just to divert the conversation and give the patient some space to talk with me in private. It was petty, but honestly, I didn't want Grandma to cause a scene... I'm still not sure if that was the right thing to do...sometimes it feels like lying even when you're trying to be helpful.