Death

This weekend I lost my first patient. He passed away near the end of my clinical shift. I spent the morning caring for him, and trying to do my best to keep him comfortable and stable, but he didn't make it. He died of a sepsis from a catheter infection.

I have only ever seen a person die once; my fiance's grandmother. I was hesitant to blog about this experience yet because I haven't had time to sort through my thoughts, but it is something that I want to remember, so blogging about it is a must.

Around noon, my patient's condition was becoming very unstable. He was in multiple organ failure, and the physician decided there was no medical treatment available to help him. Keeping him on the ventilator and pumping him full of medications was just prolonging the inevitable. The nurse in charge called his wife, and she came quickly. She made the decision to change him from a full code to a DNR (do not recusitate). His blood pressure fell quickly when his wife arrived. We were getting ready to administer a vasopressin (a medicaiton to increase the blood pressure) when the wife changed his code status, so we let him go. He passed away peacefully holding his wife's hand. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen.

I had to step out of the room and shed a few tires as he passed away. I couldn't bear to hear the wife whispering to him about the house they just bought in Florida, and the 45 years they spent together. It broke my heart into 10,000 pieces knowing that she walked into the hospital as a married woman of 45 years, and walked out a widow. I cannot imagine her grief. She plans to scatter his ashes on the beach in Florida. I hugged her as she left the hospital; she didn't want to let go of me, and I didn't make her. I just let her cry, and cry, because I know that's what she needed. None of the other nurses hugged her, and it made me very sad that they have become so hardened to death.

Seeing someone die is one of the strangest, creepiest, most peaceful and beautiful things in the world. One moment a person is breathing and living, their soul one with their body, and the next they are flat-lining and dead, their soul moving on to another place. His death was peaceful. His eyes never opened, which I thought was weird. He looked at peace, which was relieving for me.

The patient tech on shift showed us how to do after-death care, which wasn't as creepy as I imagined it to be. I removed an arterial line and stitches for the first time on my newly-deceased patient. That was kind of fun (removing the line and stitches, not the dead patient part).

All in all, I am thankful for the experience. Few student nurses get to experience this during nursing school. I was lucky enough to share it was with my best nursing school friend. We cried together, shrouded and bathed my patient together, and walked to the morgue together. We were so thankful to have each other's support during the experience.

I have never been so honored to take part in someone's care. I am working on not looking at death as the enemy in healthcare. As a nurse, I want to save my patients from death- isn't that the point? Actually, no. There comes a point in some patient's lives when death is imminent, and my job is to keep them comfortable and help their transition to the next life to be as painless as possible, so that when death comes, it is peaceful. During the dying process, a person is at their most vulnerable state, and it is such an honor to help someone through that stage in their life, as they literally put their life in their hands. I love my profession, and I am thankful for being able to care for my patient as he passed on yesterday. Without saying a word, he taught me so much.